Official MSE Economy 7 Guide discussion

aurion22 · 15 December 2013 at 3:08PM

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

Originally Posted by aurion22

Now that I have solar panels I'm hardly using any electricity at night and the woodburner keeps the chill off.

I am at a loss to understand how solar panels, be they PV or thermal, significantly reduce the need for night time heating of water at this time of the year?

Is the log burner generating hot water as well as space heating?

Ah, now I see the confusion. My panels are PV and I don't have CH. I also don't have a hot water tank so I heat the water as required using a Stiebel Eltron instant water heater. Having the solar panels has enabled me to use a couple of convector heaters during the day and the wood burner keeps the chill off overnight. I'm now trying heating one of the storage heaters overnight to save using other forms of heating. I will find the best combination eventually. I'm thinking of getting a new heater which combines storage/convection heater.

I hope that clarifies things.

Richie-from-the-Boro · 15 December 2013 at 9:44PM

All storage is convection .....

- a storage radiator with the damper closed is about 80% radiation & 20% convection
- a storage radiator with the damper open is about 80% convection & 20% radiation

Did you mean "combined storage with fan heating". The Dimlex / Creda units had a domestic supplementary fan assisted FLX range, now discontinued by the release of the Quantum system, the fan heater on tghe FLX however ran direct from the 13a system.

aurion22 · 15 December 2013 at 10:52PM

Wow! I'd need to be saving MUCH more money to make it worth my while spending over £400 on a heater. My DD has just been reduced (thanks to the solar panels) to £30pcm.
Regardless of cost, the Quantum is ugly (IMHO).

John_Pierpoint · 16 December 2013 at 12:11PM

aurion22 wrote: »

Ah, now I see the confusion. My panels are PV and I don't have CH. I also don't have a hot water tank so I heat the water as required using a Stiebel Eltron instant water heater. Having the solar panels has enabled me to use a couple of convector heaters during the day and the wood burner keeps the chill off overnight. I'm now trying heating one of the storage heaters overnight to save using other forms of heating. I will find the best combination eventually. I'm thinking of getting a new heater which combines storage/convection heater.

I hope that clarifies things.

I will be publishing my December generation figures from my 3.6 kWp panels on MSE after New Year's day.
I have a couple of convector heaters (oil filled radiators) sucking the juice at 700/1400/2100 Watts and in this weather I cannot even turn on one 700W heater without sucking in full price electricity.
My panels are currently producing 250W and my consumption is 260W of computer, light bulb, radio and other parasitic uses like neon indicator lights, clocks etc.

Might be able to make a half price cup of coffee in a 1,000 Watt kettle if it gets a bit brighter.;)

pipstar · 18 December 2013 at 8:16PM

aurion22 wrote: »

Well spotted, Cardew! :-)

Sorry I wasn't very clear: as I now have solar panels I'm using convector heaters during the day.They also keep the place frost-free at night but that doesn't use anything like the amount of electricity I used to consume when I was running the storage heaters.

Amazingly, with the woodburning stove as well, I'm only using about the same amount of electricity during the day as I was this time last year and almost nothing at night.

I was looking for alternatives and was just confused at seeing on MSE that Scottish Power would change the meter FREE but they'd just told me that it would cost £50 to move from Economy 7. It didn't seem worth the effort and expense to change as SP's standard rate is only marginally cheaper than I'm paying now during the day but, obviously, much more expensive during the night. I'd hope to find some objective info on heaters which combined storage with convector heating.

Thanks for proving that you actually read my post. Any suggestions?

Loretta

If Off Peak storage heaters are present a supplier should not change your meter to a 1 rate. Using very little electric overnight- does your meter go backwards at any time?

aurion22 · 19 December 2013 at 2:08PM

No, pipstar, the meter isn't going backwards.
I was thinking of changing to the standard single tariff (in which case I'd have to have a new meter) but will probably stick with E7. I'm trying one storage heater for this week and I'll see if it reduces my daytime usage. If not, I'll have to think again.
:-)

Carltonbp · 24 February 2014 at 6:42PM

Hi, I have an economy 7 meter but working out the tariffs I'm about £70 a year better off on a normal tariff. Does anyone know anything about switching to First Utility with an economy 7 meter, they don't have an economy 7 tariff and the website does tell you how to read an E7 meter but it's not at all clear whether they replace and charge or accept both readings. And a bit worrying is I emailed them and they said it could take 10 working days to reply which is ridiculous.
Thanks

aurion22 · 24 February 2014 at 8:46PM

I don't know about First Utility but Scottish Power wanted to charge me £50 to change from an E7 meter to the standard tariff.
:-(
Loretta

OLDFLYBYNIGHT · 7 March 2014 at 4:06PM

Hello, we have economy 7 and we are in the process of switching via this site's Energy Club to Scottish power fixed E7 tariff until 2015 ...
3 adults; 1 always at home, 1 working from home, 1 on shift work.
Our bills are quite high as we seem to overlook economy and just 'use it'.
Our last annual report showed approx 52% night-time use, which was
night kWh 12394
day kWh 11749

We have an old SWEB economy 7 system where the night rate starts at midnight to 1am, then starts again at 2pm until 8am. We have 4 storage heaters which are on a separate ring main, controlled by "GEC radio teleswitch", and a water heater with timer, which heats at 6am to 7am, and 5pm to 6pm.

We generally use the dishwasher every day, the washing machine every other day, though sometimes 2 washes in a day, and the tumble dryer once every 2 days.
Our tumble dryer hasn't got an integral timer, and won't work off a timer at the socket. The washing machine and dishwasher are both built in, and don't have integral timers either. The sockets for these two are under the worktop and not easily accessible. We have tested setting the programme on the washing machine, pressing the start button, then turning it off (another button), and a little later turned it on again, but we have to re-press the start button, so suspect a timer by the socket won't work. We haven't tried to dismantle/pull the dishwasher out.
We do want the ability to do a wash or a tumble during the day sometimes ...
Sorry for the preamble, but thought it was necessary ...

Question: Does anyone know of some sort of timer kit that will give something like a trickle charge to keep the programme(s) up and running, but not enough power to get the major processes going?

We have calculated, with each appliance using 2 hour programmes, the cost per annum is only £250 ish, if all are used every night (based on 2.5kWh each at 6p). But approx £1000 if same amount is used in the day. We currently start them just after midnight, sometimes set the alarm for 2 a.m., and if I'm not looking, they often get started during the day!

A solution from anyone would be appreciated.

k66 · 7 March 2014 at 7:55PM

Hi I operate my tumble dryer, washing machine and dishwasher on Economy 7 as follows:
Plug timer in to socket and set it to come on during Economy 7 hours then plug washing machine into timer, over ride timer to power the machine then press the start button on washing machine and when washing machine starts switch the timer over ride button off. Your timer should then restart the machine at the time set.
I have used this method for 36 years.

Official MSE Economy 7 Guide discussion

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