Huge ESB bill due to plumbing fault

Call me Al

Are any taps leaking? We have a leaky dribbly shower head. If we don't turn the hot/cold control off to cold it drains my hot water tank away as quickly as the immersion heats it.

In my case I could well imagine that id have a huge bill if my immersion was permanently on and, as a result, was constantly heating all the cold water that was continuously replenishing the hot water tank from the cold attic tank.

Would it amount to €1500? I don't know... maybe.

Fuzzy Clam

It does matter if the previous bill or bills were estimated.
If they were not, the problem lies with the last 2 months and I can't see how that bill was racked up.
If they were estimated, then the bill may be accurate.

CiniO

It's all a matter of question if landlord is responsible to damage/loss caused by his faults in his property to tenant?

I don't know answer to that question, but generally if so should be the same for any kind of damage.

So if answer is YES, then f.e.
1. if attic tank starts leaking, and destroys tenants equipment (f.e. laptop. PC, Tele, valuable documents, etc) then landlord should cover the cost.
2. if leak causes increased ESB bill, then landlord should cover the cost.
3. if stairs break down and cause tenant to fall down and get injured, then landlord should cover the cost.

Rips

I can see how this bill could occur, having lived in an appartment with a very big well insulated tank and a pressure pump?(?) Excuse my ignorance of what it actually is. Anyway, whenever the taps come on, this thing kicks in an increases the pressure. Whatever this pump is, it itself will rack up the ESB. If you leave a tap dripping, it kicks in every 10mins, refilling the tank. The tank was efficient enough to have the immersion on a lot, 3/4 of the day on a timer, but if the taps were ever leaking, and the pump was running, my god would the bill rack up. Discovered this when there was a tap left dripping in unused bathroom. That and a combination of an estimated bill which was 'normal' usage meant the next bill was €1700. You would not see what was dripping out of the tap, but it was enough to keep the pump running and running. That and the cost of heating the new water being pumped into the tank, which when full would otherwise retain the heat for hours. If there was ever an actual leak... well..

As far as tanks where the immersion can be left on all day...Lived somewhere else that had a very small not well insulated insulated tank, left the immersion on by accident when I when home for a month over christmas... Bill was in credit due to overpayment on previous estimated bill! Though that tank only produced about 7mins of hot water.

Mrs OBumble

intheclouds wrote: »

Never heard of anyone leaving it on all the time.

Thought it was a known joke about an Irish childhood that you were constantly told not to leave the immersion on.

In some countries, the plumbing regulations don't actually allow a timer, due to the risk of Legionnaires disease if water is allowed to sit lukewarm for hours.

How more of ye don't die from it, I'll never know.

rsynnott

intheclouds wrote: »

Never heard of anyone leaving it on all the time.

Thought it was a known joke about an Irish childhood that you were constantly told not to leave the immersion on.

Most Irish childhoods happened before the advent of well insulated tanks...

WhIle I've never heard of leaving it on all the time, systems which turn on for about five hours on night rates (but are off most of that time due to the thermostat and well insulated tank) seem to be common in stuff built in the last decade or so. One of those could definitely get expensive if never shut off by the thermostat.

Edit: not 1500 in 2 months tho, just noticed the timeframe. Maybe switch everything off and see if the meter stops turning?

intheclouds

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

In some countries, the plumbing regulations don't actually allow a timer, due to the risk of Legionnaires disease if water is allowed to sit lukewarm for hours.

How more of ye don't die from it, I'll never know.

You mean in some countries they're not allowed switch it off?

Effects

intheclouds wrote: »

Still doesn't explain how OPs ex didn't notice the leaked water?

Could be an old house with a suspended timber floor. Hot pipe runs under the floor and develops a leak. Leak just drains away into the ground.

Technology must have moved on since my childhood.

Of course it has, that's generally how technology works.

intheclouds

Effects wrote: »

Could be an old house with a suspended timber floor. Hot pipe runs under the floor and develops a leak. Leak just drains away into the ground.

Surely with that level of leak youd still get rising damp?

Musketeer4

intheclouds wrote: »

Never heard of anyone leaving it on all the time.

Thought it was a known joke about an Irish childhood that you were constantly told not to leave the immersion on.

That's from back in the day when most tanks were just bare copper with no insulation, tank would be gone cold in an hour or 2 so immersion left on would burn up the kWhrs.

At the end of the day the electric supplier has no case to answer. The units of electricity were used within the house, correct? Its not the electric suppliers fault that there was a leak in the tank ffs.

If the leak was as great as you say how come she didn't notice?

She is liable. End of. Her only way of softening the blow would be to try haggle some of the cost off on the landlord since he's responsible for maintenance of the property. However he will likely say "you never told me there was a leak so what was I supposed to have done"?

Effects

intheclouds wrote: »

Surely with that level of leak youd still get rising damp?

Probably not. A leak doesn't have to be that big to empty a tank of hot water.

runawaybishop

Musketeer4 wrote: »

She is liable. End of. Her only way of softening the blow would be to try haggle some of the cost off on the landlord since he's responsible for maintenance of the property. However he will likely say "you never told me there was a leak so what was I supposed to have done"?

And if the landlord specifically told her she was fine to leave the immersion on 24/7 and the bill was on for 2 months usage with no other way for her to know there was an issue? Still end of, yeah?

Ms Doubtfire1

oi-thats a big bill.Here's what I would do:

1)Check with the ESB or whatever provider you are with.See if Bill is estimated or actual.Check the readings on the bill vs whats on your meter.
2) report fault to LL for repair BUT request a report from an independent plumber to see how long that leak was there.
3) get on to the tenancy board for advise IF it turns out the property was neglected.
4) Arrange for a payment plan with the electricity provider to avoid being cut off while this gets sorted out.

good luck.

maximum12

Try discussing it with the supplier. If that doesn't work try writing to the supplier explaining the situation to try to knock down the bill a good bit. While they should have their cost covered it's not really right that they should be profiting from an equipment fault / misfortune of their customer.

Not an exact comparison but I had a situation before with vodafone where a device downloaded over a gig of background data while roaming while the owner thought they were connected to the hotel wifi. The roaming bill was well over a grand and they agreed to write off almost all of it as it was a genuine mistake.

The_Conductor

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

In some countries, the plumbing regulations don't actually allow a timer, due to the risk of Legionnaires disease if water is allowed to sit lukewarm for hours.

How more of ye don't die from it, I'll never know.

Simples- this is a sealed hot water tank.
Legionella bacterium cannot survive 140F/60C for more than 30 minutes.
A single cycle of the tank- kills of any bacterium you're likely to encounter in a domestic setting- including Legionella.

If you don't heat your water to 60c/140F - 2 hours @ 50c/120F will also kill most bacterium.

If it were a cold water tank- or indeed, not a sealed unit- akin to those they commonly use in NZ/AU/USA- it would be of far more concern..........

dazed+confused

intheclouds wrote:

Technology must have moved on since my childhood.

It really hasn't, it's a total misconception that you save a fortune by turning the immersion on to wash the dishes and then leg it upstairs to turn it off again, then back on to have a shower and hour later. Heating water the first 10 degrees uses 50% of the total energy. Much more cost effective to use an insulated tank and leave it on for your waking hours.

Effects

dazed+confused wrote: »

Much more cost effective to use an insulated tank and leave it on for your waking hours.

That's the technology part. It's the science part that you discussed that hasn't changed.

Musketeer4

dazed+confused wrote: »

It really hasn't, it's a total misconception that you save a fortune by turning the immersion on to wash the dishes and then leg it upstairs to turn it off again, then back on to have a shower and hour later. Heating water the first 10 degrees uses 50% of the total energy. Much more cost effective to use an insulated tank and leave it on for your waking hours.

Bolded bit. That would only be a valid statement if you only intended to heat the water by 20 degrees.
The specific heat capacity of water does not change with temperature.

dazed+confused

Musketeer4 wrote: »

Bolded bit. That would only be a valid statement if you only intended to heat the water by 20 degrees.
The specific heat capacity of water does not change with temperature.

But you are heating more than water when you heat an immersion cylinder.

Michael D Not Higgins

dazed+confused wrote: »

But you are heating more than water when you heat an immersion cylinder.

You're still heating the cylinder as the water gets hotter too. I would contend that the cost of heating rises as the temperature rises due to higher losses at higher temperatures.

The_Conductor

Michael D Not Higgins wrote: »

You're still heating the cylinder as the water gets hotter too. I would contend that the cost of heating rises as the temperature rises due to higher losses at higher temperatures.

I'm not so sure- water is a funny fluid- it holds its temperature at a wholly improbable rate. If the copper tank were properly insulated and you heated a tank of water- its a sunk cost heating the water (and the tank) maintaining it warm (or topping up the water temperature as its used)- can actually be quite economical (providing its done properly in a controlled manner).

The fact that the tank itself is a significantly better heat conductor- doesn't really enter the equation- from a volumetric perspective- once your thermal insulation factor reaches .78-.80......

This is the sort of thing we'd have had great fun testing in the lab when we were kids.......

Michael D Not Higgins

The_Conductor wrote: »

I'm not so sure- water is a funny fluid- it holds its temperature at a wholly improbable rate. If the copper tank were properly insulated and you heated a tank of water- its a sunk cost heating the water (and the tank) maintaining it warm (or topping up the water temperature as its used)- can actually be quite economical (providing its done properly in a controlled manner).

The fact that the tank itself is a significantly better heat conductor- doesn't really enter the equation- from a volumetric perspective- once your thermal insulation factor reaches .78-.80......

This is the sort of thing we'd have had great fun testing in the lab when we were kids.......

Okay, worked example. The entire system will have a heat capacity which will not change very much (i.e. a couple of percent) over the range of temperatures so we can assume them to be negligible.

Assuming a perfectly insulated system with no losses, heating from 20 to 30 degrees C would only use a third of the energy as heating from 30 to 60C, not over 50%. Now if we introduce losses, they are proportional to ΔT and the losses at 60C are 4 times greater than those at 30C (compared to a room temperature of 20C).

I've found one website that suggests you can cut your heat losses by up to 50% and save 10% on your costs by using the correct insulation. So we assume a properly insulated tank is still losing ~10% of the cost to losses on average.

This 10% is made up of the times when the water is at 60 and when the water is at 30, so heating from 20 to 30 could lose say 5% to losses while 50 to 60 loses 20% and it works out on average.

Keeping the water at 60 and maintaining that 20% loss just increases your losses overall and raises your bill.

The_Conductor

Nice figures!
To be honest- a 20% rate loss at 60 degrees- is probably even being generous- whereas you may end up with no loss at all at lower temperatures- as the gradient differential between background and actual temperatures- are so much closer to one another (presuming you're looking at a logarithmic scale).

Moral of the story- insulate as good as possible...........
Or...... only heat water when you actually need it..........

Michael D Not Higgins

It gets more complicated when you look at real life examples. If you heat the full tank and use half for the washing up then intend to have a shower in a while, it might be worth leaving it on. If you do the same and want to have a shower 8 hours later then it's probably not worth leaving it on.

The_Conductor wrote: »

Or...... only heat water when you actually need it..........

This is why I love having a gas combi boiler

MicktheMan

And to muddie the waters further, these losses from the (insulated) cylinder are gains to the internal heated space of the house, so less heating required during the heating season:D .... maybe we should get back on topic!

The_Conductor

OP- in short- your electricity bill is plausible.
Is the landlord liable?
On the basis of the limited information you've provided thus far- I really can't see how or why you'd imagine that they are- perhaps there is other information you've neglected to impart?

athtrasna

There is a plumbing and heating forum

Sleeper12

jsd1004 wrote:

My immersion is on 24/7. well insulated tank. Costs about 60 euro a month. Cheaper than electric showers if you have a number of people.

Whatever about leaving the immersion on all of the time (lots of people do this) don't be fooled into thinking it's cheaper than an electric shower. It's much more expensive. It's what I do for a living. Immersion can never be cheaper than an electric shower.

maximum12

Sleeper12 wrote: »

Whatever about leaving the immersion on all of the time (lots of people do this) don't be fooled into thinking it's cheaper than an electric shower. It's much more expensive. It's what I do for a living. Immersion can never be cheaper than an electric shower.

Yeah but life's too short to be taking electric showers. I want plenty of pressure and plenty of hot water. One of life's little pleasures.

Sleeper12

maximum12 wrote:

Yeah but life's too short to be taking electric showers. I want plenty of pressure and plenty of hot water. One of life's little pleasures.

Me too.