Wow thats some oil to be using,by my fag packet calc even at 50% boiler efficiency 150litres in a month equates to 25kwh per day going into the hot water?. What size and type of HWC/ Thermal store is it ,length of pipes to it from the boiler and is there a secondry return pump constantly running if its a sprawling property .
Am I being spun a line re: efficiency of Camray 5 oil boiler?
- Thread starter KievLover
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A Camray 95/130 probably has a 1.10 gph nozzle at 105 psi equating to approx 4 litres per hour of boiler firing. 150 litres divided by 4 = 36 hours firing, so only about 1 1/4 hrs per day over the month. If the boiler fires for about a quarter of the programmed time, then a couple of hours in the morning and similar for the evening, will use this amount of oil. The fact you pay for your oil all in one lump, in advance focuses your mind on costs. 150 litres up until recently would probably only have been £60 ish, so not uncomparable to other heating. How much water have you heated? How well insulated is your cylinder?
Just re-read the original post. You need to bear in mind that if the boiler is in an unisulated outbuilding, it becomes a radiator of no purpose, and there is a hell of a lot of water and steel. These boilers came with full insulation, but omly an inch or so thick. Over the years, this has probably come unstuk/ripped/ compressed. There is no reason why you shouldn't add extra insulation, sealing the seams with aluminium or gaffer tape. You can easily loosen the top of the casing to open up the gap and insert the insulation which need only be loft type, although a good heating merchant should have foil backed product. This will reduce boiler cycling as it loses heat through radiation.
Thanks for this, and Merry Christmas.
This makes a lot of sense. I've been speaking to the OH trying to wrack our brains, because he looked up our spreadsheet and he actually thinks we used 200L the first month we were here, without heating on at all. But we can't be certain we weren't frazzled from a 3 week long move and simply didn't look at the thermostat, it might have been running on 16 the whole of mid Aug to mid Sept, but I think that's unlikely. So, we've bought what we hope is a non-porous dipstick and are waiting for a mild day to do a measurement with the heating off for 12 hours and just the HW setup running - we feel like we're going bonkers! The other thing we came across yesterday is the below (which you have mentioned). Now, this house loses heat exceptionally fast, and I've always said to the OH that I'm bloomin' certain that the damn thing is running in the background ALL the time given the costs. So if it's constantly turning itself off and on, that must be using a lot of oil. The trouble is, there's very little we can do about that. The thermostat is a portable one, as soon as that room's hot it turns off, and the rest of the house goes off too. He's looked for manuals to see if we can manually override it with the Honeywell panel in the boiler room, and he doesn't think we can. We have to carry this stupid thing from room to room because the temperatures vary wildly from one room to the next, and if you have it on, say, 20, it gets hot, and you turn it down to 17, you'll soon be freezing within an hour. Uninsulated walls, 2mm thick window panes - the weather just seeps through the whole house.
Thanks for the idea of insulating, it sounds promising.
11. Defeat Rapid Cycling
Rapid cycling — when a heating system fires on and off — wastes money. It occurs because of a heat-anticipation feature on thermostats that maintains a near-constant room temperature. Most electronic setback thermostats are programmed to act when they sense a 1 degree to 1.5-degree drop. If the thermostat is programmed to less than 1 degree, the heater may go into rapid cycle, firing every three minutes or less to maintain temperature.
To stop rapid cycling, make sure the "cycle-rate adjustment" in the thermostat setup mode reads from 1 degree to 1.5 degrees. If you change it, move it higher. On most mechanical thermostats, the amperage scale is set from 0.1 to 1.2 amps. To defeat rapid cycling, set the arrow one notch higher. Let it cycle for 24 hours before adjusting it again. Rapid cycling is common in the relatively warm early and late winter when you're using a unit capable of heating on the coldest days. Detect rapid cycling in midwinter, when the heater should fire 5 minutes on, 5 minutes off.
I haven't got the foggiest I'm afraid mate, I'm clueless about this sort of thing. It's not a sprawling house, but it's big, uninsulated etc.
If it was set at 16C during that period, I doubt it would need to fire that much. Our stat automatically sets back to 16C year round during the night period and it never drop low enough to need to fire, even at this time of year, but we are well insulated. Reading what you have written, it seems your landlord has fudged the energy assessment and a proper independent assessment needs to be done. I sympathise, you are between a rock and a hard place - expensive bills because of poor insulation, yet not worth you tackling it because it is a rented property.
Post some photos of the boiler, hot water storage cylinder and etc.. You may get better advice of what would have best economic improvements.