Economy 7 excessive bills - Help!!

Cardew

Hi,

I have economy 7 heaters ... i use vey little electric in the day (only fridge is on) and have no hot water as shower at the gym ... however .... it is costing me near enough £70 a week to heat my small 2 bed flat ...??? Can anyone please help me ... or suggest what is going on!!!!! I rang my electricity supplier ... did the whole meter reading rubbish ... and she seemed to think that they had the rates mixed up ...ie. charging me the day units as night and the night units as day .. they have since retracted this option now and seem to think that my heaters are heating at day instead of night ...? They are coming out next week to check this but looking at what some of you are saying this may not solve my problems .... In order to challenge this i have been getting up during the nights and early mornings to take meter readings yesterday - day units = 18, night = 6 ... this is my first experience of day and night units ... does this usage sound about right?? There are no timers on the heaters so im assuming they are linked to the rates. I know for sure that the rates change at 12.20am - 7.30am (night rate) but is there anyway i can tell when the heaters are heating???? Please help - i feel at my wits end

Thanks

Welcome to the forum.

Do you have pre pay meters?

Firstly if you only used 18 day units and 6 night units that should only be approx £3 - so £21 a week not £70.

If you are on pre-pay meters it could be that the meter is set to recover debt. However it would never be £50 a week.

Only a total 24kWh(units) a week in winter is very low anyway.

Secondly your consumption is the 'wrong way round' and with storage heaters and your pattern of usage, you would hope to use 75% or so of the total at night. e.g. 6 day and 18 night.

Most storage heaters(and the immersion heater for water if you have a hot water tank and not an 'instant' boiler) are wired so they only switch on when you have switched to night rates.

To check if they are heating(charging) just look at your meter - they draw a lot of power so the meter will be spinning very fast(or which ever way the meter indicates usage) Switch them off to check and the meter will stop spinning.
If you get up in the middle of the night you can check with meter is recording.

Fire_Fox

Cardew wrote: »

Only a total 24kWh(units) a week in winter is very low anyway.

Secondly your consumption is the 'wrong way round' and with storage heaters and your pattern of usage, you would hope to use 75% or so of the total at night. e.g. 6 day and 18 night.
.

When I lived alone and used no heating and limited hot water I used 7.5kwh per day. Now there are two of us using electric heating and hot water in moderation we are up to 11.5kwh per day. So I think 24 kwh daily is fairly high for a flat.

Magentasue

Fire_Fox wrote: »

So I think 24 kwh daily is fairly high for a flat.

Yes, but if you refer back to the post by helenjones, she referred to using storage heaters and so, as said, 24kwh a day including heating is low.

Greenr

Hi
I'm on Economy 7 with night storage heaters. I've just worked out for the past year we've used 3319 day units and 5929 night units. the night units are mainly for the night storage heaters... day units cost us 15p per unit and night units cost us 7.25p per unit (one bedroom flat with electric shower)

i just phoned my energy provider to find out what a unit costs for normal non-economy 7 tarrifs - the guy said around 12.5p. Does this sound right??

I was thinking that it might be cheaper for us not to bother using the night storage heaters, get our meter changed to a normal one and just plug in oil filled radiators when required but when the guy said it's about 12.5p per unit on a normal tarrif i started thinking that it might not be cheaper? Can anyone advise?? Maybe we're better of staying with what we've got?? I've just worked out that we pay £77 per month on average. This seems quite a lot for a one bed flat!?

thanks

Magentasue

Greenr wrote: »

Hi
I'm on Economy 7 with night storage heaters. I've just worked out for the past year we've used 3319 day units and 5929 night units. the night units are mainly for the night storage heaters... day units cost us 15p per unit and night units cost us 7.25p per unit (one bedroom flat with electric shower)

i just phoned my energy provider to find out what a unit costs for normal non-economy 7 tarrifs - the guy said around 12.5p. Does this sound right??

I was thinking that it might be cheaper for us not to bother using the night storage heaters, get our meter changed to a normal one and just plug in oil filled radiators when required but when the guy said it's about 12.5p per unit on a normal tarrif i started thinking that it might not be cheaper? Can anyone advise?? Maybe we're better of staying with what we've got?? I've just worked out that we pay £77 per month on average. This seems quite a lot for a one bed flat!?

thanks

I think a lot depends on how much heating you would use without the storage heaters. If you're out a lot and would just use a couple of plug in heaters in the evenings, you might be OK.

12.5p sounds good - it's what I pay. I think, you'd end up saving £80 or £90 a year on your daytime units but you could easily spend that on plug in heaters over a year. Then you'd save about £400 of night time units. You need to work out how much you would use heaters and cost them (2kw for four hours = £1). Maybe you would be better off looking at ways of increasing your use of night time electricity?

Greenr

Magentasue wrote: »

I think a lot depends on how much heating you would use without the storage heaters. If you're out a lot and would just use a couple of plug in heaters in the evenings, you might be OK.

12.5p sounds good - it's what I pay. I think, you'd end up saving £80 or £90 a year on your daytime units but you could easily spend that on plug in heaters over a year. Then you'd save about £400 of night time units. You need to work out how much you would use heaters and cost them (2kw for four hours = £1). Maybe you would be better off looking at ways of increasing your use of night time electricity?

at the moment I shower for work first thing in the morn during cheap rate. i also set the washing to come on during cheap rate and have recently started washing things on a lower heat and slower spin. i use a dehumidifier once a week so I think i might start putting that on a timer to come on during cheap rate... we only turn the immersion on a few times a year as we have an elec shower so just boil a kettle to do the dishes. i'm not really sure what else i can do to keep the bills down. my other half has said that he'll have quicker showers so that might help... does anyone have any ideas?

Fire_Fox

Magentasue wrote: »

Yes, but if you refer back to the post by helenjones, she referred to using storage heaters and so, as said, 24kwh a day including heating is low.

I don't think it is - as I said 7.5kwh did not include heating, 11.5kwh includes electric heating in moderation. HelenJones is using twice that!!

Magentasue

Fire_Fox wrote: »

I don't think it is - as I said 7.5kwh did not include heating, 11.5kwh includes electric heating in moderation. HelenJones is using twice that!!

Yes, for storage heaters.

Magentasue

Greenr wrote: »

at the moment I shower for work first thing in the morn during cheap rate. i also set the washing to come on during cheap rate and have recently started washing things on a lower heat and slower spin. i use a dehumidifier once a week so I think i might start putting that on a timer to come on during cheap rate... we only turn the immersion on a few times a year as we have an elec shower so just boil a kettle to do the dishes. i'm not really sure what else i can do to keep the bills down. my other half has said that he'll have quicker showers so that might help... does anyone have any ideas?

I'm using a dehumidifier at the moment and it uses 4kwh a day which is a lot but we need it until we knock down or board out the downstairs room that is, at present, a bathroom. Showers can be expensive if more than a few minutes depending on the kw rating.

You sound as if you're doing as much as you can - do you have low energy bulbs? Lots of halogen spotlights can be a meter spinner.

Fire_Fox

Greenr wrote: »

Hi
I'm on Economy 7 with night storage heaters. I've just worked out for the past year we've used 3319 day units and 5929 night units. the night units are mainly for the night storage heaters... day units cost us 15p per unit and night units cost us 7.25p per unit (one bedroom flat with electric shower)

I was thinking that it might be cheaper for us not to bother using the night storage heaters, get our meter changed to a normal one and just plug in oil filled radiators when required but when the guy said it's about 12.5p per unit on a normal tarrif i started thinking that it might not be cheaper? Can anyone advise?? Maybe we're better of staying with what we've got?? I've just worked out that we pay £77 per month on average. This seems quite a lot for a one bed flat!?

thanks

It's no more efficient to use oil filled radiators than storage heaters - loads of threads on this if you read around the board. Check you have your immersion heater timed to come on overnight, put washing machine/ dishwasher on a plug in timer, stop using a tumble dryer, close the curtains in the evenings, dress for the season when indoors, only use the storage heaters in the main living area or at least set them to low input elsewhere.

I paid £101 for my last quarterly electricity bill (two people, two bed flat) and thought that was high. We have Economy 7 that we aren't able to use properly as no storage heaters.