Economy 7 question

RPearson

Greetings all

I have a question that I have been trying to find an answer for but have been unsuccesfull so I thought I would see if anybody here can help me.

I rented a house 6 months ago and have just recieved my first electric bill. I have been paying via debit order monthly but the payments dont come close to covering this bill. I have economy 7 at home for the storage heaters. Each heater has an individual switch on the wall and there is a seperate "box" where the fuses are which has a single switch on it. If this switch is off then the heaters dont come on at all. So I assume this has something to do with the E7 meter?

My main concern is that around 8:15 or so in the evening I hear the heaters to start making noises so I assume they are starting to heat up. I am worried that they are coming on at that time instead of 12:00 when the E7 should start. Would they be using the normal rate electricity between then and 12 or would they somehow be on the E7 rate even though its not in that time. I am not sure how to check this. I have called my utilities company but they dont seem to care. Somehow I need to work out what is happening so I can get my electricity bill down.

Any comments or help would be much appreciate.

Thanks in advance
Richard

notbritishgas

RPearson wrote: »

Greetings all

I have a question that I have been trying to find an answer for but have been unsuccesfull so I thought I would see if anybody here can help me.

I rented a house 6 months ago and have just recieved my first electric bill. I have been paying via debit order monthly but the payments dont come close to covering this bill. I have economy 7 at home for the storage heaters. Each heater has an individual switch on the wall and there is a seperate "box" where the fuses are which has a single switch on it. If this switch is off then the heaters dont come on at all. So I assume this has something to do with the E7 meter?

My main concern is that around 8:15 or so in the evening I hear the heaters to start making noises so I assume they are starting to heat up. I am worried that they are coming on at that time instead of 12:00 when the E7 should start. Would they be using the normal rate electricity between then and 12 or would they somehow be on the E7 rate even though its not in that time. I am not sure how to check this. I have called my utilities company but they dont seem to care. Somehow I need to work out what is happening so I can get my electricity bill down.

Any comments or help would be much appreciate.

Thanks in advance
Richard

When you hear the heaters start making noises have alook at the meter to see if the day rate or night rate is moving. If all the heaters are coming on then quite a lot of electricity will be being used so you should be able to see quite easily.

Garz

Depending on the region you live in, you are correct that they should come on around the midnight period for a seven hour duration.

If it is controlled by a radio teleswitch then it goes off radio 4 broadcasting the switch signal. If it is an old mechanical timer then you will see an instrument similar sized to your meter physically switching the rates when its internal timer says so, which in your case could be out of time sync with real time.

More modern digital meters now have an internal clock with either a 5th port for E7 switching or a hybrid of mechanical to do the switching for the meter.

mebumu

Hi there

I have had economy 7 heating for over 20 years and I have lost count of the number of times my radio teleswitch has changed its operation "window"; its currently coming on between 4:15 pm and about 12 pm, which is perfect for me (the reason I can be so sure is that I have a "contactor" which makes a fairly loud clunk when the cheap rate come on and a slightly less loud clunk when it goes off; this can be confirmed by inspection of my meter, which will indicate that the cheap rate is in operation. I have learned over the years to plan my energy consumption around this time window). My understanding is that the time window is changed from region to region and time to time to balance the load on the National Grid, or whatever its called under the glorious privitisation scheme (could Cardew or a similar expert please confirm if this is the case?).
In answer to RPearson, its not that you energy supplier doesn't care, you have to realise you are dealing with a bunch of incompetent buffoons who have been allowed to take over a basic essential public facility in the pretence of offering the public "freedom of choice"; the person you spoke to probably has absolutely no idea about power generation or transmission and cares even less and I am convinced that all energy suppliers are more or less the same.
If I was to detail the communications I have had with my various Energy Suppliers over the past few years and the complete and utter uselessness of their organisations, you would probably want to slash your wrists in despair. You only need to read several of the posts on this web site to realise what a complete farce the whole operation is!
Sorry for the rant!!

RPearson

Thanks for the infos.

Good idea of checking the actual meters when they on. Lol now why didnt I think of that. Ok just had a look now and I see that it is mainly using the E7 meter at the moment. That one is moving much faster so I assume the heaters are running off that.

I dont know what time they turn off though. This is rather worrying because what if they are running from eg 9PM till 7AM. That would be 10 hours instead of the 7 which would case rather a large jump in the cost of running them.

Any idea on whose responsibility it is if they E7 meter is turning them on early and off late? Is that the house owners responsibility or the utility company? If the utility company is liable for this would I be able to get something off the bill due to all the extra energy that has been wasted by the heaters over the last couple of months?

The meter appears to be an old type with two dials showing the meter readings. On the right of that is a small window that contains what might be a timer. Guessing there though. It is sealed with what appears to be a lead cabletie. Sorry dont know the correct terminology.:)

The other weird thing though is that the normal meter is still ticking over slowly due to lights tv etc I suppose. I would have thought that if I was on E7 time all my electricity would be cheaper. This is sooo frustrating trying to work out what is going on here.

Any ideas folks.

Thanks in advance again
Richard

Cardew

mebumu wrote: »

My understanding is that the time window is changed from region to region and time to time to balance the load on the National Grid, or whatever its called under the glorious privitisation scheme (could Cardew or a similar expert please confirm if this is the case?).

The timings are slightly staggered in the different regions I believe as millions? of storage heaters and immersion heaters switching on at exactly the same time would cause problems.

Also, as said above, there are lots of E7 users with mechanical timers that are hours 'fast' or 'slow'.

There are also many variations of 'Economy 7' - particularly in Scotland - where they do come on in the afternoon. These are variations of the E10 tariff but, according to some posters here, are definately billed as E7.

To further complicate matters, most properties have all their electricity in the 7 hours of E7 register on the Night meter and hence are charged at night rates.

However some only have storage heating and immersion heaters wired on the E7 circuit, the rest of the electricity is on the Day meter 24/7. - which sounds like the OP's position.

So I suspect the OP is on E10 timings, charged at E7 rates, but only for storage heaters and immersion heater.

Should be easy enough to ascertain - put on a heavy load like a kettle in the early hours of the morning and watch the 'day' meter move.

mebumu

Hi Cardew

Thanks for confirmation; I feel quite honoured!