Economising on water

[Grandad]

It's not all 'pros' though H. There are some 'cons' most of which are a limited demand rate so that if more than one appliance or person is drawing hot water at the same time the flow will be greatly reduced. Same goes for filling a bath which can be a slow process compared to a hot water storage tank. We don't use the bath but DO use a power shower and they will not meet the demands of power showers.

We had the option to change from a 'Heating Boiler' to a 'Combi Boiler' when I had a new boiler installed 4 years ago. We opted to have a Condensing Heating Boiler because we like a warm airing cupboard (which you lose with a Combi) and we like the power shower. I have a well insulated storage tank in the airing cupboard which with all the central heating plumbing gives a warm cupboard. Storage tank heating cuts in at 10pm each day. We then have more than enough hot water for showers, washing machine and dishwasher, general washing and washing up, the next day.

I suppose we all do things to suit our individual requirements but, for us, the airing cupboard is very important and I have fitted hanging rails in the ceiling which Mrs G finds most useful for hanging clothes etc to air.

As I said, it all depends on individual needs.....

[Horus]

I take your point Grandad, but the boiler has to be rated to the demand so if you want more hot water available you install one with a greater BTU and output range. The bath is a good example, you can either fill it at a slower rate with exremely hot water and then quickly top up the level with a fast fill of cold mains water, or you can take the same amount of time to fill the bath with a faster flow of water at a lesser temperature so the heat equasion balances out (or should do). I do not have a power shower although my neighbour does and he has installed the same boiler that I am thinking of using as my replacement and he has no problems, my own shower is a direct feed off the mains via the combi boiler and is the overhead large rose type about 8" in diameter and it will blast your socks off if turned onto full, granted the water would not be quite so hot at that setting , but it is still hot enough and Mrs H would always complain it was too hot if I left it on that setting after I showered.

[LovelyLadyLux]

Got the link open H - thanks muchly!

What I have looks like what is in the 4th row down, second over from the left. Mine is about 2' diameter and about 5' high and holds 60 gallons of water that is kept hot 24/7. Heated by electricity.

I don't quite get the power shower either.

In Trinidad they have what they call 'in line' heaters. You turn them on before you go in and shower and turn them off afterwards (although the newer ones turn themselves off automatically). They're mostly only IN the shower and everything else in the house is cold water. Not sure those are the same as what you have but you don't see them anywhere.

Mostly I like the idea of NOT having to keep a large amount of water constantly hot. IF you turn on laundry, dishwasher and shower at the same time somebody is going to get COLD.

[Horus]

LLL, the one I will be fitting is the 16th one along in the list just after the schematic drawing, the brand is a Worcester/Bosch and comes out as one of the top boilers for reliability (lets hope so). My minor repair of yesterday did not resolve my current problem so it looks like biting the bullet and going for a replacement very shortly.

A power shower is simply an additional pump that increases the pressure of the water to the shower head, hence “power shower”, but if your mains pressure is sufficient you do not need one as the combi’s water is piped directly from mains pressure which if I remember correctly has to be 4 bar minimum (58.8 P.S.I.). Whereas most hot water storage tanks have to work by the incoming water from a header tank displacing the stored hot water and as these tanks are usually no more than 30 foot or so above the storage tank then the water pressure is usually quite low, somewhere around 1 bar (14.7 P.S.I.) hence the need to pump it to increase the pressure, also some people just like a more powerful blast of water when showering.

[Grandad]

Absolutely correct H, in fact our loft tank is only a few feet above the shower head and that is why I installed the Mira. We have very good mains pressure so a combi would work well for us but we opted for a heating boiler for reasons already mentioned.

We (the general public) get so many numbers thrown at us from the Government and appliance manufacturers about potential savings for carrying out certain improvements. If we did all that is suggested, the savings SHOULD be such that our energy bills would be only a fraction of what they are.

I have done most of the recommended improvements and although I can show savings, they are nothing like those claimed. My previously posted energy charts show that the most significant saving was for electricity when in 2006 I changed most bulbs in the house to the low energy type. Usage dropped by more than 20%.


Savings on gas have been rather more difficult to achieve. Over recent years I have had cavity wall insulation installed, increased thickness of loft insulation, fitted thermostatic valves to all radiators, and 4 years ago installed a new A rated condensing boiler. My annual gas usage has dropped from approx 18,000 to 13,000 Kwh, a saving of around 30%


Water is more difficult to show savings. Apart from the water butt for patio pots watering (a small amount really) I did adjust the float levels in the WC cisterns to a level that was adequate but not unnecessarily wasteful. That may have saved 10 - 15 cubic meters a year, maybe 10% but it is all savings.

From my 1969 paper spreadsheet (the first I have for this house) my total annual energy and local rate cost was £160. (This also included what eventually became council tax but cannot be separated out). My current budgetted spend on energy and water is £1600 pa. Increased by approximately a factor of 10x. I know what my salary was then and can estimate what it would be today for similar responsibilities and that is by a factor of 23x.

My house is worth 55x what it cost 45 years ago

SO, on balance, water and energy today are cheaper than 45 years ago, and property in this area is more than twice as expensive pro rata to income

Just a bit of useless information that can be extracted if, like me, you are a numbers 'geek' and keep records and write things down......

[LovelyLadyLux]

I don't have gas (well "possibly sometimes" but I really don't believe ladies ever do.......have gas that is ) so don't have a clue about it however re: water.

All houses here bar none have hot water tanks here. From what I can see and know the tanks just sit in a spot with pipes coming out. The liners are glass surrounded by insulation and then tin and with sometimes water heater blankets thrown over that yet again.

Mine is located in the lowest part of the house (which is also typical to put them into the basement area) but there is LOTS of pressure. I'd say the tank is logistically located as close to the house plumbing as possible but it is still a bit away distance-wise.

I know I fitted all the shower outlets with pressure reducing aka water 'saving' shower heads that don't let the shower water blast out (opposite to your power boosting shower heads). They spray out a finer stream of water but do hold back lots. Theory is that we're saving water but I do know from having long hair that it probably take me longer to rinse the soap out of my hair than if the spray was heavier however for a straight shower (without long hair washing) you probably do use less water.

By the way - I don't track hydro as BC Hydro does that for me. It provides graphs for monthly, weekly, daily use and on the daily use you can open that line and it will break down for you your electric use by hour. I can tell when my heaviest electric consumption is down to the hour.

[Grandad]

Re electricity usage rate. I have a wireless smart meter sitting on my desk that receives data from a remote sensor on my electricity supply cable so at any instant I can see how many watts of electricity is being used at that moment. I hardly ever look at it but just another little device available in our technological age.

[LovelyLadyLux]

Interestingly enough we have smart meters here too. My house in only 5 to 5.5 yrs old so it had one installed when it was built. Apparently this allows the city to just do drive bys and collect the info on how much hydro I've used.

Many people living in older houses here are very resistant to changing over to Smart meters. They don't believe Hydro will read them correctly (I think that is the main argument) but BC Hydro Company is now at the point of threatening them legally that they MUST switch over.

All interesting. I can't really tell how much water I'm using but I can definitely tell how much electricity is happening here at any given time.

[Horus]

Good info extracted from your graph keeping records Grandad, what is interesting is your energy bills are similar. I have always had cavity wall insulation since the property was built and full double glazing for some 20 plus years and about 3 years ago I upped the loft insulation to 400mm thickness, so we were quite well insulated energy use wise. The main difference is that your property value has risen quite steeply as ours have risen by a factor of around 20 x purchase price, but is suspect that is affected by your more Southerly location.

LLL, it would seem that because your area is not what we would term 'dual fuel' i.e. we can mix our usage of gas or electricity for our energy use and the majority of household appliances can be purchased to run on either fuel, so we have more options that way. Your water seems to be heated by a purpose designed all electric boiler, whereas ours if fitted instead of the direct flow combi type boilers tend to be Copper storage cylinders (insulated) to store the heated water and fitted with either an electric heating element (immersion heater) or a copper coil that is part of a closed loop from the main boiler that then transfers heat by means of conduction or quite often they are fitted with both options.

What I am surprised at is your lack of gas as a fuel, is that because you have no natural gas resources or maybe your hydro electricity is very cheap? We have been fortunate over the years inasmuch as we had (and still have) huge coal reserves, we also had a large gas find in the North Sea (now running low) that gave us a degree of independence on choice of fuel use. We are now having to buy on a global market and energy prices have risen sharply, although we now have the potential for ‘fracking’ to extract shale gas, something I am whole heartedly in favour off as it will ensure our future supplies. We also have the advantage of a nation wide energy grid of gas piped to every home, with the exception of some very remote areas. In those areas they can if they wish use fuel oil or gas cylinders as an alternative source of energy to electricity for heating. I am surprised that with your close proximity to the USA and it’s huge shale gas supplies that they are not piping it up to Canada, or that Canada is not also sitting on huge shale gas reserves.

[Grandad]

Horus I am sure you are correct about the north/south property price comparison. In the London area (and NOT central London) small terraced houses can fetch up to £1million, crazy..

To continue our comparison discussion with LLL, with my system I have the normal very well insulated hot water storage cylinder in the airing cupboard, probably 200+ litres. I also have an immersion heater in the cylinder as a back up if the boiler should fail. But I use the gas boiler throughout the year, even in the summer, to provide hot water because it is cheaper than the electric immersion.

I forgot to mention double glazing H. This house was built in '68 with single glazing and it was the first thing I had changed about 10 years later.

Between us we seem to be running on parallel lines regarding our energy saving efforts.