Hot water cylinder & immersion problems - 2 switches

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Lauragraham92

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Hi there!

Wondering if anyone can help - we’ve just moved into a new flat and having some problems with the hot water. It’s fully electric (which is new to us!) and we’re not on Economy 7.

There are 2 timer switches for the hot water - we believe that the bottom one (red) is for the regular heat up of the main tank and the top one for heating the “bubble” tank (which we were told heats up the boiler just before you want hot water).

The problem is we are regularly running out of hot water despite having the bottom timer on for 1.5-2hrs and having minimum usage.

Can anyone offer any advice? Thanks so much!
 

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The bottom element heats all water above it ,and would often be on a lower tariff ,but only available from around midnight to early morning. Are you certain you are not on any special tariff ?
The upper element only heats water above it ,so a limited amount .
Testing with instruments would be needed to establish if both are in working order.
 
Thanks both. The boiler was fitted in February this year by the previous resident.

Definitely not on a special tariff.

Yes a hard water area, we live in London. Could this be linked?
 
Lauragraham92 said:
Thanks both. The boiler was fitted in February this year by the previous resident.

Definitely not on a special tariff.

Yes a hard water area, we live in London. Could this be linked?
Click to expand...
If only fitted February then I doubt it’s scale. You say the bottom timer on, have you been using the top one too?
 
We have the bottom timer on more regularly (~2 hours a day) for the morning and evening, and switch the top one on when it’s outside of those hours - e.g later at night when the bottom one hasn’t been turned on recently.

I’m wondering if we need to have it on for longer, but we don’t use much hot water as we’re only two of us and have short showers…
 
Try using it differently, as it’s quite a large cylinder, so the top one might need to be on similar time, but for a shorter duration. Check something like the washing machine connection too, you’d be surprised at how many connect a cold fill machine to a hot supply!
 
The problem, especially in the winter is you use the hot water and it’s replaced by water which enters the tank at a much lower temperature. My advice to you is to run the heater more than once per day AND remember with immersion heaters, once the water is up to temperature, the heater turns its self off courtesy of the thermostat.

Could you have economy 7 ? If so the bottom immersion should be set to run when electricity is at the cheap rate over night
 
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