Sustainable Schools

Install 7-day Timers to Domestic Hot Water Heaters

In many schools staff rooms, home economics and some classrooms have domestic hot water boilers and/or vending machines - many of these are never switched off.  Leaving this sort of equipment switched on for long periods when they are not in use wastes a lot of energy and money - in the region of £100 a year for each heater/machine.

Installation of timers

It is recommended that:

  1. Simple plug-in 7-day timers be placed on the coffee machines to switch off when not required, i.e. out of hours.  This would reduce the electricity load overnight in the schools.

  2. Ensure all hard-wired electric hot water heaters have a 7-day timer installed and set according to occupation.

Alternatively, assess whether the machines are needed at all - at one school there were examples of water heaters installed and working where there was little or no need for a hot water supply at all.

Maintenance

Checks on the timers should be undertaken regularly to ensure that the correct time is shown.  Ensure that the "on time" will allow sufficient time for the product to reach the correct operating temperature.  If these points are not undertaken then the timers may be removed or overridden by the staff as switch on/off times may not correspond to occupancy.

Finally, you may wish to ensure that timers on vending machines do not invalidate any contracts with vending suppliers.

Summary of actions

  1. Discuss with in house or County Council mechanical engineers to install a time control to all domestic hot water services.

  2. Set time control to correspond to occupancy.  The system may require setting to at least 40 minutes prior to occupation to ensure the system reaches the required temperature.

  3. Contact the vending machines suppliers to ensure that the equipment can be switched off over night.  Discuss the possibility of reducing the holding temperature of hot drinks and increasing the holding temperature for cold drinks.

  4. Purchase and install 7-day timers and set to correspond with occupancy of the areas.

  5. Ensure that when renting new machines that machine idle power is given and that for drinks machines the client can use their own mugs.

For further information, contact Property Services Energy Manager, Alan Dowdell - telephone 01962 847768