Chauffe'au Survey/Opinions

[UlsterRugby1999]

Firstly, I'd like to once again thank everyone for their invaluable input into my recent thread on Chauffe'aus. The up to date position is that the new ballon is working fine, the MIL is off my back and we are using considerably less kilowatts since.  I take a reading every Saturday morning and we have used 181kw less than the previous week when we had the older unit.

So this leads me to my question and, hopefully, for your thoughts, experiences and so on.

I have often heard that it was cheaper to keep an immersion heater switched on all the time than to switch it on and off as you needed hot water. We have HC units from 21:45 continually through until 5:45. At first we used to keep the CE on constantly (based on the old immersion heater beliefs) but more recently we have been flicking the disjoncteur on at 22:00 and turning it off when we get up at 6:00. We would switch it back on for a few hours during the day (during HP times) to ensure that MIL doesnt go blue at bath time.

What is the most cost effective method of heating the CE. Do we run it all day, do we do as we are currently doing (which means its running for 8 hours during the night) or do I get a timer for the CE and have it come on for 3-4 hours during the HC hours and 2-3 hours during the HP hours?

[Northender]

Everytime you draw from the CE it will switch on as the thermostat responds.I would have thought the most economical solution would be to only have it switched on during HC.

However you do run the risk of "running out" of  hot water during the day.

Would it be feasible to install a larger CE or perhaps an additional one?

Alternatively get the MIL to take her bath at 0200hrs!

[Sunday Driver]

[quote user="UlsterRugby1999"]

......but more recently we have been flicking the disjoncteur on at 22:00 and turning it off when we get up at 6:00.

[/quote]

Sounds like you are now doing the same as everyone else....[;-)]

CE's are designed to be operated during the cheap rate heures creuse.  They have a built in thermostat so they don't necessarily have to run all night. To save the bother of having to keep flicking the disjoncteur, either buy a timer or ask your electricity provider to install a signal wire to automatically switch the CE power on/off according to your heures creuses set up.

From what you say, it's now working fine and you no longer have to switch it on during the day to warm it up for your MIL...

 

[Chancer]

Thanks for taking the time to follow up, many dont.

I am sure that the answer will be to only heat the ballon during HC but have you tried seeing if MIL's bath is warm enough in the evenings with just this?

You have many ways of controlling the HC switching from a proper HC contacteur which to respect normes needs to be fed from a 2 ampere disjoncteur and wired via the EDF HC switching contact on the meter to a dirt cheap rotary dial UK immersion timer.

What is perhaps of more importance if you do in fact still need the top up for MIL is a monostable timer that with one push of the button will give you a one or two hour boost before switching off again.

You could also increase the temp of the ballon which will give you more hot water outut from the mixing effect but be carefull not to scold MIL.

I must say that I am astonished by your reduction in connsumption 181kwh in one week, that is 50 units more than my entire electricity consumption and I heat my property by electric and am also running a chantier with loads of lighting, compressors, mixers welders etc.

Are you sure you dont mean 18kw? I only use 103 kwh per week of HC units (averaged over the year) running 5kw of storage heating, 1.2 kw ballon and the occasional 1.8kw washing machine load,

Even at 18kw I wonder where all that heat must have gone to. 

I wonder if you could check your figures and possibly do some more measures on a like for like basis, I have heard from enough sources about excess consumption for their not to be some foundation behind it and my ballon does not seem to give as much water as it did 3.5 years ago, in my area most need changing before 5 years are up. So I would like to be sure of the magnitude of overconsumption.

[UlsterRugby1999]

[quote user="Sunday Driver"][quote user="UlsterRugby1999"]

......but more recently we have been flicking the disjoncteur on at 22:00 and turning it off when we get up at 6:00.

[/quote]

Sounds like you are now doing the same as everyone else....[;-)]

CE's are designed to be operated during the cheap rate heures creuse.  They have a built in thermostat so they don't necessarily have to run all night. To save the bother of having to keep flicking the disjoncteur, either buy a timer or ask your electricity provider to install a signal wire to automatically switch the CE power on/off according to your heures creuses set up.

From what you say, it's now working fine and you no longer have to switch it on during the day to warm it up for your MIL...[/quote]

Hi Sunday Driver - we are turning the CE on during the day for 2-3 hours to ensure that MIL has water for a bath. If we dont its a dead certainty that there wont be enough for her. Not that it bothers me 1 iota you understand [Www][Www]

Chancer - I'm going to try and email you with some of my weekly data.

[BIG MAC]

We have the most archaic and dangerous wiring this side of Dr Frankenstein's laboratory but even we have a timer next to the disconjuncteur. Swith says something like off on and auto or some such our water only heats on cheap rate unless we over-ride the switch.

Dishes etc we do after everyone has had their evening showers/ baths and theres another tank of hot water ready for the morning........simples

[UlsterRugby1999]

[quote user="BIG MAC"]

We have the most archaic and dangerous wiring this side of Dr Frankenstein's laboratory but even we have a timer next to the disconjuncteur. Swith says something like off on and auto or some such our water only heats on cheap rate unless we over-ride the switch.

Dishes etc we do after everyone has had their evening showers/ baths and theres another tank of hot water ready for the morning........simples[/quote]

Me thinks this is the right option especially as my aging head forgets so much stuff.At least I wont forget to switch it on and off.

[UlsterRugby1999]

Hi Chancer - I've tried to email and PM you but I believe that neither got through. Mmmmmmmm

[Chancer]

I got your E-mail thanks but could not understand the numbers, I think they had somehow turned into gibberish. 

[UlsterRugby1999]

 [quote user="Chancer"]I got your E-mail thanks but could not understand the numbers, I think they had somehow turned into gibberish. [/quote]

Some would say that is pretty normal of me. Basically, they were trying to show the previous 3 weeks electricity consumption. I simply take a reading every Saturday from the metre and compare it with the previous weeks reading.

Week 2 read 44579 Kws - Week 3 read 45038 Kws and week 4 read 45316 Kws. The difference between week 2 and 3 was 459 units consumed while week 3 and 4 was 278 units consumed. Quite a difference which was the 181 units I mentioned earlier today.

[Chancer]

If you have an HP/HC abonnment, and without one you will not be saving anything by heating the ballon at night, then you should have two figures for KWH consumption, mine is an old meter and I have to add the two together if I want my total consumption, perhaps you have to interrogate your electronic meter to find the HP and HC, in any case it would be usefull to have the figures as it may shed some light on the subject.

[UlsterRugby1999]

[quote user="Chancer"]If you have an HP/HC abonnment, and without one you will not be saving anything by heating the ballon at night, then you should have two figures for KWH consumption, mine is an old meter and I have to add the two together if I want my total consumption, perhaps you have to interrogate your electronic meter to find the HP and HC, in any case it would be usefull to have the figures as it may shed some light on the subject.[/quote]

Our metre is the type with a blue button (Selection I think it says) and I press it once to get the actual amount of units consumed. When we were added onto the HC system nothing was added to the metre or the cons unit. The guy who came out simply explained how it worked, the actual times that HC kicked in and off again and that was it. As far as I can see there is no reading for HP and HC on the metre but it is shown on our facture as seperate HP and HC units. So when I am taking my readings, its based on total consumption and not seperated into HP and HC. If that makes sense.

[Chancer]

I understand it but it doesnt seem to make much sense unless the meter reader knows how to get the HP/HC split.

look at your long term consumption from a few of your electricity bills, the actual not the estimate ones, and of course you will need to ignore the intermediate estimated ons in between, what is the ratio between HP & HC consumption according to EDF? And critically does it differ if only by a tiny amount between periods?

[Martin963]

I can only speak from our experience but our chauffe eau,   which I suppose is about 5 ft tall,  heats enough water for at least three good baths of an evening without any need to top up the heat at peak rate prices.

In fact it's still more than hot enough the next day if you prevent it switching on during the night.

So I'd go with the suggestion to turn UP the thermostat to 85 or 90 deg,  if you can locate it.   Obviously the water is then VERY hot and should be treated with due respect but unless your tank is small or badly insulated it should cope with a bath the following evening. 

As a matter of interest,   our system uses about 6 amps on each of the three phases,   so is rated at about 4 kW.   When we first arrive in the spring and start up from cold it runs for virtually the whole of the eight hour Heures Creuses period,  thus consuming 32 kW max at a cost of about £2.

Thereafter (and there are only two of us most of the time) it's on for no more than two hours a night before the thermostat switches it off,  at a cost of under 50 p per night.

Which is why I can't understand what the attraction of solar heating for hot water alone can be,  given the enormous capital investment required and the likely limited operational life before it starts to become uneconomic to repair.    Unless you believe that we're going back to the Dark Ages of course  (which we may well be),  in which case hot water would be very pleasant!!

With regard to your meter has it got a second button  (defile something?).    To look at our HC we need to press the second button after the display comes up.   The display in our case shows first the meter reading for whichever tariff is in vigour at the time of interrogation.    So if you wait until HC and then ask the meter to display you could see whether you have a different number to the one shown in the daytime.

[broy]

I totllay agree about the solar. The expense, the hassle, the big ugly things on your roof, why bother? I reckon our chauffo costs us 250 a year max (3 of us) which we pay every two months.

[UlsterRugby1999]

Martin963 - thanks for your input. The thermostat is 1 click from max. On the earlier ballon which I have just changed we had it on max, scaulded people (kids in the house as well as MIL) and were paying a fortune in electricity to have 250 litres of hot water. Perhaps our use of the water wasnt the most economical but we were spending a massively greater sum than you indicate.

I havent got accurate figures to show how much our hot water consumption was costing us but I'd say it wasnt/isnt far off 700 - 800€ per annum. Possibly more. If this proves to be the case, then solar generated hot water is a very attractive proposition to me.

Chancer - I'm trying to dig out old Soregie bills to try and locate the data that you have mentioned.

Be right back - hopefully.

[Martin963]

You haven't got a leak from the clappette have you....?

The only time ours ran cold during the day was when the safety pressure cock started dribbling;  being in the cellar it wasn't immediately noticed,   and a steady dribble of water during the day caused the hot water to run cold by evening.   Worth a check.   (Ours was brought on by the failure of our pressure reducer on the cold water supply).

Whilst in no way questioning your figures,   €700 is REALLY a heck of a lot for hot water,    I might sit down and do the maths (starting with watts and going to joules and thence to cc's and temperature and volume of water).    Perhaps you're heating your local town's water as well?     In fact if you look at my 4 kW x 8 hour = €2.50 approx maximum night consumption,  that annualises out at the same figure as yours,  but that's draining every last calorie out of the tank before it goes back on,   and ours is a BIG tank  (actually it's as tall as me now I try and imagine it from here in Devon).   It scientifically couldn't use more power than that 4 kW figure,  although obviously your situation is different as you have to top it up in the day.

Interesting.....

The B forum won't let me type cock,   ie c*ck!

Did you try my trick with the meter?    There *must* be some way for the consumer to read BOTH HC and HP consumtion,  it's in EDF's interests for this to be the case as in one instance our meter jammed (electronically) and stopped recording HC consumption.     I wouldn't have been able to alert EDF unless I was able to check both figures.   Can you get us a photo of your meter?

Very roughly we use 15 kWh per day HP and 30 kWh per night HC,  the latter comprising dish washer,  washing machine,  hot water,  and pool pump in the summer.

[UlsterRugby1999]

Mmmmmmmmm - Martin963 - this is hard to explain. You know the way I said there was no way of testing for the difference between HC & HP units consumed? Well somebody must have put another blue button there over night. There is indeed one there and you can indeed see 2 different sets of units being HP and HC. Dear oh deary me. [:$][Www][:$]

Right then, I can now see which units I am using (thanks for that Martin). I can redo my weekly Excel spreadsheet to show both sets of units consumed week by week.

Assuming a unit of electricty is, circa 0.10 euro cents (incl TVA) then my last few weeks consumption of power have been Wk 50 = 610 units, Wk51 = 423, Wk52 = 450, Wk1 = 375, Wk2 = 459 and Wk3 = 278 (this is the first week with our new Chauffe'au installed. As I said in a previous post, we dont heat by electricity, but do have a recouperateur, we have normal (ish) washing machine and tumble dryer use. We do have a pool and we active winter it so the pump does come on and off more during the winter but overall our largest electrical use is for the CE.

Chancer usually I fall over old Soregies bills here but right now I cannot find one. I'll keep looking and come back to you asap.

[Martin963]

Your post made me roar with laughter,  but you're obviously a cent-pourcent gentleman to "own up" so comprehensively!   It's happening to me every day now I've turned fifty.

Now you're up and running with the meter,   you can check how much your water heater actually uses.   Now the sequences may be different as ours is a three-phase meter,  but if you keep pressing SELECTION again and again it should scroll through various options.  One of them should produce a numerical value with a little W figure beside it.     Now if you switch off everything except the water heater you should be able to determine its current consumption in watts.    If you press SELECTION again you should get another figure with a little A beside it.    This is the current (in amps) being consumed at any one time. Thence you can check that the wattage and current figures for your water heater tie up properly,  (we can help on that if you're not sure of how to do that).

The important thing is that if you turn off everything except the water heater it will show if anything else you don't know about has got left "on" and is skewing your figures.

On our meter the DEFILEMENT button on the "current" setting scrolls through the phases (PH1,  PH2,  PH3) but if yours is single phase this won't apply.   On ours the sequence for SELECTION is something like

Current reading on current tariff  --->  tariff code  ---->  contacts open/shut (for HC switching,  looks lie 1F---2O or similar)  ---->  watts consumed (measured in real time)  ----->  amps (measured in real time) ----->  watts consumed since last zero setting  (or similar,  I'm in Devon and it's in France so I can't check)   ------>  test display -----> (back to) Current reading on current tariff  ----> tariff code  and so on.

DEFILEMENT is analagous to "sub menu" ie reveals further information within whatever category the SELECTION button has chosen.

Have a play.

[UlsterRugby1999]

Good man yourself Martin. A wee chuckle is a good tonic. I'll have to wait until the weekend to try turning everything off as I'd be hung from the so and so's if I tried it right now given how cold it is and so on.

Chancer - still no sign of any of them factures. Its like waiting for a flippin bus, non and then a load come at once. I bet I find them all tonight.