Gauge to measure hot water in our insulated cyclinder??

[Unregistered]

Hi there.

Quick bit of advice. Is it possible to retrofit something that will measure the amount of hot water in your hot water cylinder?? We had it fitted about two years ago and is covered entirely in a turquoise green insulating foam. It's impossible to tell how much hot water there is, so judging whether we need to turn it on for showers is impossible - money down the drain potentially if we turn the immersion heater on when there is already enough hot water in it.

We're installing a new bathroom suite soon. We're torn between putting in an electric shower (floors will need to come up to connect to mains circuit board and will be expensive to run - 3 or four times the price of an immersion heater someone told me?) or just a standard shower off the existing hot water cylinder. If there was something that would tell us how much hot water we had, we'd probably scrap the idea of an electric shower.

Any thought? Does such a thing exist?

Thanks.

 

[AlexGas]

Hi there.

Quick bit of advice. Is it possible to retrofit something that will measure the amount of hot water in your hot water cylinder??

It's the size of your hot water cylinder, it's full of hot water.

 

[Unregistered]

Don't have my central heating on for 5 months of the year. Feeling the radiator isn't going to help me much during those months!

 

[chris watkins]

So you have a boiler then but choose to use the immersion heater in the summer rather than the boiler ? If so is it gas or oil ?

 

[Unregistered]

Oil boiler about years old. I'm definitely confused about running costs. Everyone says an electric shower is expensive to run, but others say it's efficient because it only heats the water we need.

In autumn and winter months we will have the heating on, so we'll be able to hopefully use that hot water already in the cylinder and maybe just top it up briefly for a normal shower coming off the cylinder if needed. In spring/summer however we'd be just turning immersion heater on for the shower.

Trying to work out which would be cheaper over the course of a year? Tricky as approx half the year we won't be using the oil heating!

 

[jtsplumbing]

Is heater in top of cylinder, or in the side at the bottom ? and how do you heat the water for other things ? like Bath, washing & kitchen sink, can you run the boiler just to heat the hot water tank ? Depending on size of hot water tank, and how much you use, it could be more cost effective to run the boiler once or twice a day

 

[Unregistered]

I think the heater is at the bottom of the tank, but can't be sure.
The oil heating boiler heats the radiators and hot water tank ......that's why we never use the boiler in spring / summer. Almost sure it can't be isolated to just heat the tank. We use the immersion heater for kitchen sink occasionally....most things just go in the dishwasher.

 

[jtsplumbing]

Think you need to call someone out to look at and explain how to control your system, you should be able to run heating or Hot water independent of each other, Do you have a Programmer/Timer showing settings for heating/water, some photos of controls would help, have you got any other controls ? e.g. room thermostat, timer , thermostat on cylinder ?? How do you normally turn on system ? Could be that you have a faulty control somewhere on system, That why it would be beneficial to call someone in to check out your system !!!!!!!!!

 

[Dotty]

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