Night Saver Electricity

[ICF]

Just filling out forms for ESB connection and don't know whether or not to apply for a night saver meter?? Using under floor heating with a heat pump, but as far as I know the pump will run as required to maintain the set temp day or night. Is it worth the extra monthly standard charge?? Night rate is 7c but day rate is 14c, more that standard connection rate of 12c. Any comments welcome.

 

[Sailor]

I would have thought that it would be advisable even essential, to run the heat pump on the night rate, which is 50% the cost of daytimeunits. My heatpump is rated at 3kW and runs at night, building up the heat in the floors ( my current bill is €160 for 2 months for heating). Whether you need to run it for top up during the day for a short period will depend on many things, such as the build/insulation standards etc.
Apart from heat pump hight saver can be used for many other things such as dish washer, clothes washer and drier, or domestic hot water heating.

 

[bubba]

Sailor, do you know how to set the pump for the underfloor heating to only use nightsaver electricity. I too have a NIBA pump but it seems to run on a thermostat but we have no idea how the pump works and if it is working on the night saver. When I check it during the day it seems to be always heating the house. I heat the water at night. The pump kicks in from time to time. Somebody told me that there maybe an internal timer but I was unable to locate it... We have not received the bill yet

 

[Sailor]

Hello Bubba. There definitely has to be a time clock(1 as a minimum). Is your house single or double storey.
In my set up which is 2 storey there is a heating manifold (where all the underfloor pipes originate from) upstairs, and another downstairs. There is a time clock to control each floor seperately if and when required(total 2 clocks). It is these clocks that will tell the heat pump when to perform, and in my set up , usually set to operate from 23.00 hours to 08.00 hours. In fact i cut the upstairs back a few hours as the bedrooms do not need as much heat. The stats in each room also help this process as they cut the flow from the manifold around the rooms when the temperature is reached. Important to not have these up too high.Personally i think bedrooms should be a lot lower that living rooms.
This is all important as the less water flow around the whole property means the heat pump does not have to work as much and reduces cost.
I find it is best to do your own readings on the ESB meter, until you know what is cooking.
Read your night and day meter each day at 08.00 hours(morning) and 23.00 hours at night.
Work out the units you are using for each and then
Multiply nights units by €.07 and day units by €.14 and add 13.5% vat. Remember there is also the fixed charge per day on all bills but your pump will not effect that as it is not based on useage just per calendar day. See how you get on. By doing this you will get a better feel and understanding for your installation.