I have a Tribune HE Indirect 150L unvented cyclinder, fired by a conventional boiler in the kitchen.

My gas bills are starting to get expensive and I’m looking at ways of reducing them. The house is a five year old new build that just feels cold all the time. I’ve had more insulation put in the loft and the walls should be insulated but still as soon as the heating goes off the house goes cold.

One thing I’m starting to look at it the times on the programmer. I have the HW on cycle every morning from 6-7am and generally two of us have a shower then again it’s on for half hour at tea time to boost the HW.

Looking at recovery times on Tribune’s technical documents the max recovery time is 33 mins (presumably for a 300l tank) so Is there any point on me having it on for an hour???? Two of us having a shower won’t empty a 150L tank.

Secondly, the CH is set to come on at 7:30-9am, which is then using gas.

If I selected the HW & the CH to come on at same time does the boiler use the CH loop to heat the cyclinder up?

Am I heating our water and house the most expensive way?? I’m an ex Honeywell sales engineer and more of an S plan and Y plan man and never trained on high pressure systems. Back in the day HW would have priority over CH on old systems so would that still apply on a unvented system?

I am not a gas engineer, but we have had a new boiler and system flush done by a mate recently and also he fitted a heating optimiser, possibly a honeywell optimiser !! Clever simple bit of kit. Takes a little while to recognise how long it takes to warm the house to the setpoints put into it ( we did it mid winter and froze while it learned) Means that it will only come on when it needs to and also keeps a temperate temperature during non occupancy times, as you have programmed in. I also fitted a new cylinder for our hot water and I couldnt move the old cylinder for scale. Dont know where you live and the quality of water, but it doesnt take long to scale the heat exchanger up and loose efficiency. We have hard water, so fitted a softener as well. As to why the house is cold, what water temperature are you running the system at? Are the radiators hot or tepid? Is the heating pump bunged up ? Is there any inhibitor in the sytem to prevent sludge and lack of efficiency?
This year, even tho’ gas prices are always going up, are £200 in credit heading into the heating season now, which we never were before. Yes , we have a new boiler but I do think the optimiser has help a great deal. Usually hot water takes a preference over the heating, but if the water goes off in the house, we can get the heating to run, I believe.

the gas boiler will shut down as soon as the hot water reaches temp irrespective of how long it is left on this setting.

Normally hot water takes priority on most systems.

It’ll be an S plan that you have right there, more than likely.

It’ll be a fully pumped system, that can do CH, CH&DHW or DHW, both the heating and the cylinder should be thermostatically controlled.

As a starter for ten, turn all your thermostatic radiator valves to one, and only start turning them up if you feel you need to, after a few days, you’ll have done turned up and some left alone. There’s some savings right there.

dti – Member
Normally hot water takes priority on most systems.

The last DHW priority system I can think of is a W plan, and they’ve not been fitted for decades. . (Unless we’re including combis here). Y plan and S plans are capable of doing both together, unless they’re wired up wrongly!

family of 4 detached 4 bed hse. we have hot water on for 20 mins am and 20 pm at the mo. never run out of hot water, have it on at same time as ch to save a little..

if you have a new house as i wrote on an earlier thread go looking for draughts, doors windows , check the actual temps in each room you ll soon find them and as i ve said many times draught exclusion is not sexy but its cheaper and permanent unlike costly controls