Heating Control Switch?

Frezzin

Hi guys, I could really use some of your expert help!

Basically, a quick summary: my family and I are getting massive ESB bills. We are renting a 4 bed house with electric storage heaters, but we were very well aware of how much they cost so have been extremely careful using them. We never run them during the day and I always adjusted the input to keep from overheating the place. We have an electric hob, but we're very sparing with it. We also try to use the dryer/washer, etc after 11pm to bring costs down. Yet, even though we have separate day and night meters, we're getting huge bills with the day and night costs being about the same. I can't figure it out and I've been going mental trying to figure out where we're using so many daytime units.

The other day I looked at our fuse box at half 8 in the morning and it was humming away. So I started flipping off switches to see what was using electricity since we had nothing on that I was aware of, and when I flipped a switch called Heating Control Switch, it knocked off.

So I left it switched off and at 2pm came back and turned it back on, but no electricity humming. So this got me to wondering. I turned it back off and left it over night. The next morning, none of the heaters seemed to have kicked on.

Now I'm wondering, what's this fuse for? Because there's no Summer/Winter switch in the house that I've ever seen. The letting agent never mentioned it and each of the heaters has a separate switch on the wall that only kicks on at 11pm when the night saver comes on and kicks off at 8am.

Does anyone have any idea? And any idea if this is connected to our massive ESB bills? I can't figure out how or what this could be doing since the heaters switch lights are turning off after 8am.

Any help here would be much appreciated!

mazthespark

the humming you hear is probably the contactor of the storage heaters. when the night rate kicks in the contactor closes and supplies power to the storage heaters. and when the night rate changes again in the morning the contactor drops out.

as for high esb bills could it be your immersion? most rented accomodation have a timer on those so they heat at night also could be gone faulty and heating 24/7.

M cebee

check your clock anyhow at the meter-make sure the current time is correct

all-electric bills will generally be higher

Frezzin

Thanks for that!

But wouldn't the contactor be humming at 2pm too? Oh, and I forgot to mention there's a little dot of a light that flashest green/blue/purple when the humming is going. When I flipped the Heating Control Switch fuse back on at 2pm later that day though, that light didn't come back on and there was no humming...

Yeah, I checked the immersion straight away off some advice from a family friend. It actually was set incorrectly, so I adjusted it. It comes on for 4 hours during the night saver period.

I can't actually find a clock anywhere! The only close is on the assembly for the immersion, but that's exclusively for it. This drives me mental because I can't understand how there's a Heating Control Switch but no switch to speak of.

mazthespark

no contactor would be off at 2pm so no humming. ya the little light your on about sounds like maybe its the devi reg. the clock is generally out in your meter box.

Frezzin

Hmm, so if that clock is out in the box is it the landlord or ESB's responsibility to make sure it's set correctly?

M cebee

sorry you said you're off peak heating is coming on at eleven and off at 8 so timing is prob ok

i'm a bit confused lately

mazthespark

seems like everything is working ok. as m cebee said all electric is generally seemed expensive but when u think about it its your only bill for heating and electricity. if you still think theres something not rite can get an energy meter will tell you how much your using and when etc.
something like this one
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=225407

recommend them to a lot of people and have one myself at a glance you know how much power you are using at that time if set up can calculate how much your bill will be etc.

Frezzin

haha no worries m cebee.

No, see that's the thing. From what I've seen it kicks on at 11pm fine, but I'm out of the house before 8am during the weekdays and tend to forget about it on the weekends cus of the kids and stuff (they're young), but this other morning I was up at 8:30 and notice that the little dot of light was on and flickering on the fuse box. When I flipped this Heating Control Switch off the light went off. I left it off and later at 2pm I came back and switched it back on but the dot didn't come back. So I flipped it off and forgot about it until the next day when I noticed the storage heaters weren't on.

So what I'm wondering is why was the heating control switch pulling power at 8:30 in the morning when the night saver is supposed to end at 8am and if the clock on the meter is set incorrectly, is it the ESB or landlord's responsibility to fix it. Cus I'm telling ya guys, the amount of our ESB bills has been unreal. The past two bills have been over 600 euro a peice! I'm considering taking it back out of one of their hides if this ends up being their screw up. We knew the storage heaters would be expensive and were super careful with them. We also have an electric hob and we were extremely careful with using it too and made sure we were using the dryer/washer/etc after 11am. When we got our first bill we flipped and called the ESB. Our usage was something like, 1500 or 2000 daytime units to maybe 3000 nighttime units. Everyone at the ESB is dumbfounded as to how we're using so much electricity. I'm sure the storage heater screwup was part of the problem, but I'm wondering if this little issue is another part of it...

mazthespark

night rate times depend on the time of year due to daylight saving times etc think its 12 - 9 in summer and 11-8 in winter. should be on esb website if u have a look but think thats correct.

Frezzin

mazthespark wrote: »

night rate times depend on the time of year due to daylight saving times etc think its 12 - 9 in summer and 11-8 in winter. should be on esb website if u have a look but think thats correct.

Cool, just checked and yeah you're right, 12-9 for summer but when does summer kick in? And if so, does an engineer come out and adjust that clock or what? I'm fecking paranoid now lol I'll see if those heaters are flicking on at 11 or 12 anyways...

mazthespark

no they usually set them for 12- 8 so its inside both times. when the clocks change so does the nightrate time

Red Alert

Even if the heaters are running at the wrong times you will be still only charged the night rate - it's not possible for the heating to come through the 'day' meter.

M cebee

ya you'll normally gain if esbn timing is off

the off -peak storage heating syncs via the 'control pair' so the unit cost won't change

but you could lose on the water heating,washer/dryer etc. that you time yourself

mazthespark

ya if timing was out you would be losing out on stuff you turn on yourself. but you did say day and night readings were similar so mite not be the case. could the immersion be running 24/7??? or has that been checked? could turn it off one night and see if u have adequate hot water in morning if u do then problem lies there.