Chauffe-Eau Heures Plein & Creuse

[Théière]

I noticed something yesterday, as I was leaving I switched off the hot water the previous day so just using up the available hot water.  The lunch time heures creuse time arrived and the hot water was switched ON even though it was in the off position on the consumer unit/fuse board.  I had assumed to work the hot water would need to be in either of the two other positions.  that means when no one is there and I ask the house minders to switch off the hot water it has made not a bit of difference so I now pull the fuse. 

Didn't know if other knew this? It could also be dangerous if someone was working on their hot tank at the time this occurs.

[Spyder]

Yes, ours is the same as that. I switch off by the box if I am working on any circuit covered by the HC

[Kong]

Surely it depends how it's wired? Any chance of a circuit diagram?

[Spyder]

http://www.schema-electrique.net/schema-contacteur-jour-nuit-heures-creuses-chauffe-eau.html

[Chancer]

[quote user="Théière"] The lunch time heures creuse time arrived and the hot water was switched ON even though it was in the off position on the consumer unit/fuse board. 
[/quote]

Can you expand on this a bit please, are you talking about the disjoncteur for the chauffe eau or the contacteur jour nuit, the latter has 3 positions, on, off and auto. You probably also have another disjoncteur which should be 2 ampere for the asservissement (relay contact) current, this is another way of switching off the chauffe eau.

[Kong]

It is not unknown for the relay contacts to stick 'on'. I have had this with clock switches as well on the distribution board.

Spyder - thanks for the link

[Théière]

[quote user="Chancer"]

[quote user="Théière"] The lunch time heures creuse time arrived and the hot water was switched ON even though it was in the off position on the consumer unit/fuse board. 

[/quote]

Can you expand on this a bit please, are you talking about the disjoncteur for the chauffe eau or the contacteur jour nuit, the latter has 3 positions, on, off and auto. You probably also have another disjoncteur which should be 2 ampere for the asservissement (relay contact) current, this is another way of switching off the chauffe eau.

[/quote]

It will be the contacteur jour nuit I mean. off at the top auto in the middle On at the bottom I belive (different to the schneider one shown).  Yes in my case a fuse for the relay but didn't realise how it functioned until yesterday lunchtime so thought I would mention it.  the idea of dual tariff is to save money, not much of that happening if auto overrides off. 

[CeeJay]

I don't have one of these thingy's in the consumer unit, I just rely on having a dedicated electronic timer between the consumer unit and the chauffe eau. I presume this has the same effect, or am I missing a trick here?

[Spyder]

Doesn't make any difference. When you are on HC all the electricity you use is charged at that price. The unit they are on about just makes life a little easier.

[Chancer]

True but be sure that the time period is the correct one, its shown as the plage d'horaires on your electric bill, there are 3 different switching on and off times for each region, mine is 22.30, 23.30 and 00.30, the off times being 8 hours later, there is also another one with less night hours and a daytime top up.

Check that your timer is set to what is written on your bill but you must also test that your meter has been programmed to the correct plage d'horaires, mine comes on an hour earlier than it should but I am keeping schtuum because they have also set the AGCP to 9kva whereas it should be 6kva.

At worst case you could be heating for 2 hours on heures pleine.

As an aside despite EDF automatically putting you on or recommending HP/HC if you heat your hot water by electric in most cases it is no longer an economy, first you have the increased abonnement and then also you are paying more for your heures pleine units than you would be on the standard tariff, unless you use much more electricty at night say for storage heaters like mine the now small saving on your hot water will be swallowed up by the increased cost of your daytime units and the increased abonnement, if you have electric heating on 24/7 it could be costing you a lot lot more.

Over the years they have put up the relative price of the HC units so that they are much less of a saving and then they have upped the price of the HP units, all the extra taxes are not reduced.

[NormanH]

EDF automatically putting you on or recommending HP/HC if you heat your

hot water by electric in most cases it is no longer an economy, first

you have the increased abonnement and then also you are paying more for

your heures pleine units than you would be on the standard tarif

This is why I left  EDF for Directe Energie who did as I asked and are cheaper.

[Spyder]

[quote user="Chancer"]

....... there is also another one with less night hours and a daytime top up.[/quote]

Ours is 01.00 to 07.00 then 12.00 to 14.00

[Chancer]

The advantage of using a contacteur and not a timer is that you need not worry about changing it twice a year for summer and winter time and even if your meter has been incorrectly set or they muck around with the times then you will only ever be using the energy when it has switched to cheap rate.

[AnOther]

I've just worked out that on a nominal monthly consumption of 400kWh you'd have to use something like 40% of your electricity on cheap rate just to break even so if you've got 8 hour slots on cheap rate you'd have to use it pretty well to the full to be better off.

I'm on flat rate and just have a timer on the chaufe-eau which gives it power for 3 hours each night from 03:00 and having monitored it over a considerable period I know that cost's me about €10 a month.

I have friends who had EDF in to advise and placed them on Tempo but despite that they are still paying about the same as me and they have to manage their usage to boot, red days are particularly tedious.

[NormanH]

These are the tariffs of Directe Energie if you take the Online option (a bit like online banking- no paper)

http://particuliers.direct-energie.com/fileadmin/Metiers/Particuliers/FIS-GT/grille_tarifaire_online_particuliers.pdf

[Chancer]

8% is Worth considering, but can it go up to above the tarif reglementé and isnt there something about you not being able to go back to EDF on a tarif reglementé?

How do you switch and what is the web site like for paying bills, looking at your old factures, submitting your readings etc? That is one area where EDF are very weak.

Can you pay by télépaiement, that is to say authorise each payment and can you pay by other means, credit card etc?

Thanks Norman, i might move all my contracts. 

[powerdesal]

''I'm on flat rate and just have a timer on the chaufe-eau which gives it power for 3 hours each night from 03:00 and having monitored it over a considerable period I know that cost's me about €10 a month.''

Ernie, is this cost less, the same as or more than the cost of leaving the heater on 24 / 7 and allowing the thermostat to control the on / off function.?

[AnOther]

Actually for base it's 9.2% because the current EDF rate is 0.1372

For HP/HC it's 10.2% and 6.5% respectively.

I note too that the Tempo which many seem to think is cheapest starts at 9kW for which the abonnement is €121 and compared with the €85.56 for 6kW on base (which is adequate for most) that translates to some 260kWh.

I have friends on Tempo - as advised by EDF - however they still pay about the same as me but have to worry about the orange and red days for their trouble.

TBH I can't really understand how that is because here I have all sorts of recording equipment and computers running 24/7 consuming around .4/5kWh on average on top of which I run compressors, welders, and and big angle grinders in my garage on a very frequent basis.

They have nothing like that and although they have electric radiators they are rarely turned on as most of their heating is done by wood so on the face of it I would expect to be using twice as much as them if not more.

Paying for your actual consumption with EDF is very straightforward.

[url]http://residential.edf.com/self-services/my-meter/submit-meter-reading-208801.html[/url]

[AnOther]

[quote user="powerdesal"]''I'm on flat rate and just have a timer on the chaufe-eau which gives it power for 3 hours each night from 03:00 and having monitored it over a considerable period I know that cost's me about €10 a month.''

Ernie, is this cost less, the same as or more than the cost of leaving the heater on 24 / 7 and allowing the thermostat to control the on / off function.?[/quote]

I was going to experiment with that but never got around to it. I suspect what I'm doing is cheaper, certainly when there are just the two of here anyway, because I know it takes less than an hour to top the cylinder up even after a couple of showers and the rest of the days consumption which is minimal as the appliances fill from cold and in essence apart from the odd hand washing we just don't use hot water during the day.

My monitor is out on loan at the moment but when it comes back I'll give it a go.

[Théière]

I am sure your way works out less Ernst and will wait for your experiment.  The only downside is the water refilling the tank won't have been raised in temperature to kill off bacteria after the initial hot water has been used until the next heating cycle, a small risk I know but with more focus on Legionnaires disease and increased rates of occurrence something to maybe bare in mind.

There are some new tanks coming along with revelotionary  heating elements that use 50% of the electricity of the old immersion heater style tanks.  Also reported to not cause limescale to build up.

http://www.supergreenuk.com/whyinfrared.html

And old inefficient radiators are now too expensive to run compared to infra red panels

http://www.thegreenage.co.uk/tech/infrared-heating-panels/

http://en.vitramo.com/heating-system-en.html

[NormanH]

[quote user="Chancer"]

8% is Worth considering, but can it go up to above the tarif reglementé and isnt there something about you not being able to go back to EDF on a tarif reglementé?

How do you switch and what is the web site like for paying bills, looking at your old factures, submitting your readings etc? That is one area where EDF are very weak.

Can you pay by télépaiement, that is to say authorise each payment and can you pay by other means, credit card etc?

Thanks Norman, i might move all my contracts. 

[/quote]

It could go above the tarif reglementé but in that case you can switch back to EDF.  They can no longer refuse to take you back, and Directe Energie ask for a one year contract so there is time to change.

Est-il risqué de quitter le tarif réglementé ?

Avant 2010, si

vous optiez pour une offre au tarif de marché, passé le délai légal de

rétractation, vous ne pouviez plus repasser au tarif réglementé. Jugeant

que cette disposition freinait la mobilité des consommateurs, les

parlementaires français ont inclus dans la loi Nome le principe de

réversibilité sans condition : les consommateurs (les particuliers,

notamment) ayant souscrit un contrat pour une puissance électrique

inférieure à 36 kVA ont, à tout moment, la possibilité de revenir aux

tarifs réglementés. Ces derniers sont, pourtant, appelés à disparaître,

même si la loi Nome a reporté cette suppression de fin 2010 à début

2016.

http://www.leparticulier.fr/jcms/p1_1440898/le-point-sur-les-tarifs-de-l-electricite-faut-il-quitter-edf

Read the rest of that article too [:-))]

Have a sniff round this site:

http://particuliers.direct-energie.com/

At the moment I go against my principles in that I am paying for the first few months by prélèvement, but they are all equal based on last years EDF bill.

After this period you send in your reading every two months.

The site is very good and you have a conseilleur you can contact by email.

When I joined I accidentally also subscribed to a monthly insurance which is no good to me as my installation is not conforme so they would never pay out.

I sent an email asking to cancel and it was acted on in 24 hours.

[Pickles]

[quote user="Théière"]There are some new tanks coming along with revelotionary  heating elements that use 50% of the electricity of the old immersion heater style tanks.  Also reported to not cause limescale to build up.

http://www.supergreenuk.com/whyinfrared.html[/quote]

Errr ... If this revolutionary new technology is heating water in a tank, how can it be more efficient than an immersion heater? Where are the losses in an immersion heater?

Or is it really just a high-power instantaneous water heater - ie an electric version of a single/multipoint water heater (like an electric shower)?

[Théière]

[quote user="Pickles"][quote user="Théière"]There are some new tanks coming along with revelotionary  heating elements that use 50% of the electricity of the old immersion heater style tanks.  Also reported to not cause limescale to build up.

http://www.supergreenuk.com/whyinfrared.html[/quote]

Errr ... If this revolutionary new technology is heating water in a tank, how can it be more efficient than an immersion heater? Where are the losses in an immersion heater?

Or is it really just a high-power instantaneous water heater - ie an electric version of a single/multipoint water heater (like an electric shower)?

[/quote]

Point duly accepted and was also my first thought on the matter.

The element is around the outside of the tank heating inwards not as conventional heating out wards causing energy to be forced out is part of it.  Also the element is totally different transferring heat more efficiently and at a tighter infra red frequency so energy is utilised more effectively. 

http://infraredtechnologies.co.uk/carbon-boiler

Some are direct instantaneous water heaters others are actual cylinders like we use now at mains pressure.

[powerdesal]

I think I may have to set up an experiment myself.

I don't have a monitor so will use the meter readings, I am a tad concerned that, at the moment, we seem to be using an average of 15kwH per day, ie approx 450 kwH per month.

There are only two of us with 3 x chest freezers plus 2 x normal fridge / freezers. Not much computing kit, 2 x laptops which stay on 24 / 7 and the tv on standby when not in use. one electric heater in the bathroom and one in the kitchen, both only on as required.

There is workshop use involving drills / circular saw bench / angle grinder etc. Not such heavy use at the moment as it's a bit chilly in the workshop.

The test will obviously take a few days of selective switching and measuring but we will see how it works out.

[Théière]

Go for it!  Years ago as a student in a drafty old victorian house we argued the same point with a uk open vented system with conventional hot tank.  In a 24 hour period it used double the meter reading keeping it on as apposed to timing.  Did something very similar in France and there was a slight difference but to be scientific you need to take showers at the same time of day and for the same duration, not easy but also not quite as Ernst has done with a timer just HC/HP and on and off manual. be interested in the results.