Moving house to Economy7

Cardew

Storage heating used properly should not be a lot more expensive than gas for people who are out all day; although as pointed out above it needs some planning to operate correctly.

If you are in all day(with 2 young girls) the heaters tend to run out of heat and you need 'top up' heating at expensive day rates.(don't forget you pay extra for all daytime electricity)

Most houses with storage heating have a HW tank in an airing cupboard.

The use of a dryer is not as horrendous as people make out. Used on a timer on E7 it will normally be less than 10p a load, Even on daytime rated 20p a load is about average.

As you are renting I assume that the saving in not requiring gas servicing will not apply - the landlord paid?

Magentasue

Dannii_B wrote: »

I don't understand why people think Economy 7 is more expensive? I'm on about £40 a month with a 2 bedroomed terrace with 2 people living here. I use approximately 50% of my usage at night and currently don't have the heaters on and I think that's loads cheaper than having gas installed.

If you use economy 7 to your advantage you can make some savings, but you've got to make sure the heaters etc. are all programmed properly for the right time and have the correct input/output settings on the heaters when you do turn them on.

I think Economy7 can be OK for some people but probably not for families and larger houses? I also think that storage heaters are expensive but my experience of them is several years ago so am happy to be corrected if it's no longer the case.

I only know that our bills went down when we had gas CH installed. I never worked out how long it would have taken to pay back the installation costs but we did it for comfort and convenience. In the OP's case, the cost of installation isn't relevant because they're renting and can choose to rent a house with gas CH.

Also, the OP's current monthly payments are £115 so their normal electricity use, without heating is already going to be higher than your £40 a month.

amtrakuk

Magentasue wrote: »

Yes, if there is a choice between storage heaters and freestanding electric heaters, it may be cheaper to go for the latter on a single tarriff. But I'm not sure this would be true for a family - I believe you are a one or two person household, amtakuk? Depends on size of house, how well insulated, how you like to live etc. You'd certainly need to do some careful costing and storage heaters would be more help with drying washing in the winter.

Unless it's an exceptional house in a stunning location, I'd look for one with gas central heating if you don't want to pay more than you already do.

Hi there,

I live alone and work out of the house during the day. I live in a 1902 end terrace back-to-back terrace house (half of a through terrace). I dont think I have got cavity walls - though needs investigating. The rooms are typically 16 x 20 ft with 9 ft ceilings.

I did have gas but due to my combi failing I wasn't going to pay 2k and factoring gas, depreciation and serving costs was not going to get it replaced. So far its working out about £50 a month cheaper than what I was paying before going all electric.

amtrakuk

Magentasue wrote: »

I think Economy7 can be OK for some people but probably not for families and larger houses? I also think that storage heaters are expensive but my experience of them is several years ago so am happy to be corrected if it's no longer the case.

I only know that our bills went down when we had gas CH installed. I never worked out how long it would have taken to pay back the installation costs but we did it for comfort and convenience. In the OP's case, the cost of installation isn't relevant because they're renting and can choose to rent a house with gas CH.

Also, the OP's current monthly payments are £115 so their normal electricity use, without heating is already going to be higher than your £40 a month.

Although I don't have any experience of Storage heaters. I would have gone for them earlier except for the price of them and the heat retention issue - something I understand has been cracked with modern storage heaters.

Magentasue

Hi, amtraukuk, I can see that elec heating can work in your case.

amtrakuk

Yeah but can be patchy with the quality of heat (cold feet syndrome). Was cooling down quite a bit last night so I put the one on in the front room for a 15 minute burst.

I phoned up Dimplex and spoke to a rep for storage heaters. Interestingly enough they claim to hold about 8 hours of heating but she couldnt answer my question about cold feet, the best I got was "It mixes with the cooler air".

Think for the moment Im gonna hold off the e7 until I have done the maths and see how much I will be paying for my peek rate and how much for e7

Graham1

I think some of the posters giving their E7 electric expenditure might be using past figures - rather than prospective future cost at present electricity prices.

I reckon I will be spending about £1,450 for the coming year for electricity all-in, with 2 large and 3 small storage heaters.

Of course mains gas is significantly cheaper, but not available in rural areas. And with the present price of heating oil it is not worth switching to that if the house already has electric heating.

stressfulife

Hi all,
Its alittle off topic but wondered if anyone could help....
When we moved into our house 4 yrs ago it had warm air heating and an immesrion heater run on economy 7 (heated at night).
We had a gas boiler and central heating installed so no longer use the immersion heater for the hot water.
However as we still have an economy7 meter (seperate day / night meters) we are still paying the economy7 rates which have higher rates for the "day" part than standard (single meter) rates of electricity.We do try to use tumble dryers/washing machines/dishwashers etc on cheaper night rate periods but the night rate is still less than 10% of our consumption.
Does anyone know how to switch from economy7 back to standard tariffs?
Thanks

amtrakuk

Im guessing it depends how much you use thoughout the day and how much you will use. Im guessing you will be using your washer/dryer etc during the day which means you might be using about 9-12p / unit instead of 4/5p a unit off peek

Magentasue

stressfulife wrote: »

but the night rate is still less than 10% of our consumption.
Does anyone know how to switch from economy7 back to standard tariffs?
Thanks

When in that situation, we rang supplier and asked to change. It was free of charge for us.