[chris turner]

With the energy price cap soon rising will the cost of running an immersion be too worth it?
Before having an immersion I was paying £91 a month for gas and electricity.
2 months of using the immersion daily and that promptly rose to £137 PM, as I expected and still very reasonable.
Stopped using the immersion completely and my bill dropped down £118 PM, not as cheap as before but I expect that's because I was in debit and had to repay the costs.
Anyway my tariff ends in September so I have been looking at switching, based on my current usage ( no immersion use ) I cant find anything cheaper then £150 PM. That's quite a rise, considering I'm now using my pre immersion levels.
So I decided to check the prices using my electricity kWh when I was using the immersion daily and it would cost nearly £200 PM!
So from my original price of £91 that's £109 pm increase if I was still using the immersion daily come October. 
Immersion still worth it?

[֍Winp®oClean֍]

Not in my opinion for daily use, you're just not benefiting in anything but very cold weather. Use it for what it's meant for- a method of keeping you working in the worst of winter weather, and more comfortably with the benefit of keeping your van completely frost free. It's not cost effective to try and use it as a hot water system, it's just not going to match up to a 'on demand' system.👍

[Bungle]

£200 a month to heat the water in your tank? Are you mad?

[Ched]

If you are looking at estimated readings or even predicted from your energy company then treat those figures with a pinch of salt, they use some type of 'average user' figures.

Look at the daily charge (standing charge) and the per unit cost of the fuel.
Unfortunately some of the online calculators cheat!!!! You tell them when your tariff ends and then they use 'standard tariffs' to tell you how much your existing supplier would cost!! But you wouldn't stay on a standard tariff unless you are mad.

It's a little complex but look back at your bills and work out your electricity consumption over 12 months. Do the same with gas but they charge based on kw/hrs but bill by m3, so you have to convert, usually they supply the conversion factors on the bills somewhere.
To get an accurate estimate of costs you need to input your actual usage.
Energy prices have risen quite a bit but shop around and you should get much better prices, don't just use 1 comparison site. Some have exclusive deals.

[chris turner]

£200 a month to heat the water in your tank? Are you mad?

No, that's why I'm not doing it lol.

[Pete Thompson]

You’re not getting a true value the way you are doing it. Standing charges are going up, and you’d have to pay those no matter how much energy you use.

Do this:
Say you’re immersion is a 2kw
Say you switch it on at 8pm and off at 8am (12 hrs)
Say your energy supplier charges 12p per kWh (which mine does)
Say you work an average of 21 days in a month

2 x 12 x £0.12 x 21 = £60.48 per month
Or £2.88 per day.

If any of those values are different in your case, substitute them.

[AuRavelling79]

You’re not getting a true value the way you are doing it. Standing charges are going up, and you’d have to pay those no matter how much energy you use.

Do this:
Say you’re immersion is a 2kw
Say you switch it on at 8pm and off at 8am (12 hrs)
Say your energy supplier charges 12p per kWh (which mine does)
Say you work an average of 21 days in a month

2 x 12 x £0.12 x 21 = £60.48 per month
Or £2.88 per day.

If any of those values are different in your case, substitute them.

Good post which takes the nonsense out of this thread. However with prices on the increase I would work on £0.17 per kwh.

Personally I only use my immersion to provide supple hoses and some warmth and so usually switch on about 10pm and off at 7 am so 9hrs on the coldest days.

Therefore 9hrs x 2kw = 18kwh. 18kwh x £0.17 = £3.06 per day.

However on less cold days I will just switch on for 6 hours - so £2.04 per day.

And of course as it's a business expense you can knock at least 20% off of that.

So £2.50 a day? Cheap as chips.

[Smudger]

its funny how people read figures to suit themselves -  £200 P/M for heating your tank !!

your new estimate is £150 - with the immersion its £200- the difference is £50 - over 20 working days is £2.5

think yourself lucky the diesel boys are now paying upwards of 30p a litre more  (its now 139p here) than a few months ago so if they average 3 litres per day  is over £4

take your pick - or stick with cold and a get an electric van - better still a push bike 

Darran

[Jonny 87]

I pay about £5 a day in diesel for my grippatank hot water set up.

I don’t even notice it as it’s just piped straight into the fuel tank.

I’m getting “hot” water on demand though. If I was just getting warm water from an immersion for similar prices it might be more noticeable. Probably not though and I’d still use it. Supple hoses and an easier day would win for me. Even warm water does that.

I thought you’d decided to not use your immersion anyway chris? 🧐

Work an extra 5 minutes to make that £3 and you’ve broke even. Or put up the prices of a few customers and it’s paid for itself.

 If you don’t feel any benefit what so ever, just turn it off and forget about it. Using it on the winter days to get you working.

[dazmond]

i put £25-£30 diesel per week in my van which heats my water every day plus my minimal driving to and from jobs....without the heater it would be around £30 a month...cheap as chips...

everythings going up....if your concerned put your prices up or carry on cleaning with cold water....

the problem is once you ve had hot water pumping through your hoses its very hard to go back to cold water cleaning as the hose is so stiff and awkward to drag around and loop up on all but the warmest of days......thats what ive found anyway...

[NBwcs]

Breaking down the cost of anything in life to a daily basis is one of the oldest salemans tricks in the book, everything sounds so much more affordable if broken down into small chunks, it's not a good way to make an assessment, if you apply it universally to several products you end up paying over the odds for everything. This isn't a judgement on hot water it's a general overview of value for money for everything we buy. Like I say, one of the oldest salemans trick there is,

[Mark Dee]

Just another perspective;

Look at value rather than price. If it costs  £5 a day and makes your day better in some way it has to have a certain amount of value.
If it makes the job easier because the hoses are more supple if it keeps your hands warmer so you can work a little longer, if it means you can clean an extra 4 houses per week its got to be  a no brainer.

What value do you put on having a better working day, if you dont think improving your working conditions are worth £5/£10 a day  or the people who work for you then IMO you may have your priorities wrong. The more enjoyable/ bearable it is, the longer you will keep doing it.  Its hard work, why make it harder when you have a choice?

Mark

[chris turner]

As I said on another thread an immersion is waste of time anyway. Paying to have "supple" hoses that have no effect on my working day, no thanks. Add to this the rising costs of electricity it makes it even more pointless.
@Pete Thompson you wont be paying 0.12p per kWh for much longer. Every quote I had yesterday was 0.20p or higher. None of the quotes offered cheaper night time rates either. My previous rate was 0.13p so it's a bit of hike. Stealth tax maybe to pay for covid? ( Even though I swear boris said something along the lines of VAT being removed from energy Bill's when we left the EU, leading to cheaper energy for us all ) .

[Den68]

Depends how well insulated your tank is, how big is your tank, and how insulated our van is also.

My tank heats up pretty fast 2kw immersion as it’s only 325l tank also befor3 I had the immersion heater installed I would use an 1200w oil filled rad to stop the back freezing so hot water and back of the van now sorted.

[֍Winp®oClean֍]

I think we need a bit a clarity here regarding the conditions which an immersion heater will benefit the user, regardless of a few quid.
Summer- no
Winter- yes
Harsh winter- definitely

It's that simple!

[AuRavelling79]

Breaking down the cost of anything in life to a daily basis is one of the oldest salemans tricks in the book, everything sounds so much more affordable if broken down into small chunks, it's not a good way to make an assessment, if you apply it universally to several products you end up paying over the odds for everything. This isn't a judgement on hot water it's a general overview of value for money for everything we buy. Like I say, one of the oldest salemans trick there is,

Except when you aren't selling anything.

If it costs £2.50 a day and makes £12. 50 a day in extra work covered then go the other way... £10.00 a day (and less tired).

Doesn't sound much. Now let's times that by 100 days and hey presto - £1,000.00!

We can all play with numbers...

[Jonny 87]

Breaking down the cost of anything in life to a daily basis is one of the oldest salemans tricks in the book, everything sounds so much more affordable if broken down into small chunks, it's not a good way to make an assessment, if you apply it universally to several products you end up paying over the odds for everything. This isn't a judgement on hot water it's a general overview of value for money for everything we buy. Like I say, one of the oldest salemans trick there is,

Except when you aren't selling anything.

If it costs £2.50 a day and makes £12. 50 a day in extra work covered then go the other way... £10.00 a day (and less tired).

Doesn't sound much. Now let's times that by 100 days and hey presto - £1,000.00!

We can all play with numbers...

Exactly. ⬆️

Not sure what your point is NWH? 

Expenses for window cleaning have to be put into a daily basis surely. That’s the easiest to quantify.

X amount of turnover per day
X amount of running costs per day to earn that amount.

[CleanClear]

Not sure what your point is NWH? 

NWH never said a word. I know he usually does, but this time he didn't 

[Splash & dash]

As I said on another thread an immersion is waste of time anyway. Paying to have "supple" hoses that have no effect on my working day, no thanks. Add to this the rising costs of electricity it makes it even more pointless.
@Pete Thompson you wont be paying 0.12p per kWh for much longer. Every quote I had yesterday was 0.20p or higher. None of the quotes offered cheaper night time rates either. My previous rate was 0.13p so it's a bit of hike. Stealth tax maybe to pay for covid? ( Even though I swear boris said something along the lines of VAT being removed from energy Bill's when we left the EU, leading to cheaper energy for us all ) .

Price of electric is rising so the firms can make more money with all theses electric cars that are starting to appear it won’t be long before the government puts some sort of tax on it

[dazmond]

As I said on another thread an immersion is waste of time anyway. Paying to have "supple" hoses that have no effect on my working day, no thanks. Add to this the rising costs of electricity it makes it even more pointless.
@Pete Thompson you wont be paying 0.12p per kWh for much longer. Every quote I had yesterday was 0.20p or higher. None of the quotes offered cheaper night time rates either. My previous rate was 0.13p so it's a bit of hike. Stealth tax maybe to pay for covid? ( Even though I swear boris said something along the lines of VAT being removed from energy Bill's when we left the EU, leading to cheaper energy for us all ) .

stick with cold then if its making you unhappy to spend a few quid on warm water for your days work.....only problem is you ll have nothing to moan about then!