Economy 7 excessive bills - Help!!

Fire_Fox

Magentasue wrote: »

Yes, for storage heaters.

I understand that. According to other threads on this board, 1kw of electric produces 1kw of heat whatever type of heater you use. If you have every storage heater in the flat set to high input overnight then the usage figures compute, but that doesn't make 24kwh per day "very low" usage for a flat as Cardew suggested. It is perfectly possible to run a flat, including a moderate amount of electrically-generated heat, on half of the KWH.

Magentasue

Fire_Fox wrote: »

I understand that. According to other threads on this board, 1kw of electric produces 1kw of heat whatever type of heater you use. If you have every storage heater in the flat set to high input overnight then the usage figures compute, but that doesn't make 24kwh per day "very low" usage for a flat as Cardew suggested. It is perfectly possible to run a flat, including a moderate amount of electrically-generated heat, on half of the KWH.

Have you tried storage heaters? They are not like a 1kw heater - that's why they are used with cheap rate electricity.

KimYeovil

Surely the crippler for storage is that they can not be used only when required. You have to correctly and accurately guess twenty hours in advance what tomorrow evening's weather will be like. And even if you guess correctly setting a rotary dial is not as accurate as a real time thermostat.

That's what makes storage heating inefficient - unnecessarily paying for heat that is not used or paying daytime rates when you have not stored enough.

Magentasue

KimYeovil wrote: »

Surely the crippler for storage is that they can not be used only when required. You have to correctly and accurately guess twenty hours in advance what tomorrow evening's weather will be like. And even if you guess correctly setting a rotary dial is not as accurate as a real time thermostat.

That's what makes storage heating inefficient - unnecessarily paying for heat that is not used or paying daytime rates when you have not stored enough.

That was my experience of them. But they do have their fans and for some people they are better than plug in heaters if they get the right tariff and make it work. Nightmare for me.

Cardew

Fire_Fox wrote: »

I understand that. According to other threads on this board, 1kw of electric produces 1kw of heat whatever type of heater you use. If you have every storage heater in the flat set to high input overnight then the usage figures compute, but that doesn't make 24kwh per day "very low" usage for a flat as Cardew suggested. It is perfectly possible to run a flat, including a moderate amount of electrically-generated heat, on half of the KWH.

The average annual UK consumption is 3,300kWh electricity 20,500kWh gas. A total of 23,800kWh

So 9kWh a day electricity on average without and space heating or Hot water.

Electricity being more efficient than gas for heating and hot water and cooking, a figure of around 15,000kWh is in accordance with most figures that state 12,000kWh for space heating and 3,000kWh for Hot water.

So another 41kWh per day - making 50kWh a day on average

Most of the heating will obviously be in the winter.

So 24kWh a day in mid-winter is very low.

That you can do it for less is to your credit - but you ain't Mr Average.

The average bill is £1300pa - far more for electric only homes. So for the last quarter were you paid £101 (and thought it high) is about a quarter, or less, than would be expected at this time of the year.

Annie_L_3

me and my bf moved into our 2nd floor flat in june 2006, we have economy 7 with scottish power and had night storage heaters but we never used them. we had them removed on october 2009 and electric central heating installed which we havent used since xmas. our meter says low for the top reading which is in the 4000's and normal for the bottom reading which started at 7000's but is now in 8000's. now the low/top reading is meant to be the day rate and the normal/bottom reading the night rate which occurs for us between 12.30am and 7.30am in morning. scottish power are saying we use the majority of our electric on the night rate (when we are in bed) and the least during the day which i find bizarre as during the night rate we have;
2xfreezers
1xfridge
2x standard size fish tanks with just heaters and filters on

during the day rate we have;
2xfreezers
2x standard size fish tanks with heaters, filters and lights on
1x fridge
a tv when we get home from work
cooking appliances when i make tea
and a pc!

for 3 months we used 1315 units at 'night' apparently and 290 during day rate.
this cant be right? is our meter wired up wrong?

Cardew

Annie_L wrote: »

our meter says low for the top reading

for 3 months we used 1315 units at 'night' apparently and 290 during day rate.
this cant be right? is our meter wired up wrong?

Oh dear it appears you are not paying anything like enough for your electricity!

mattcanary

Normal on the meter is the day rate and low on the meter is the night rate. Your supplier may have mixed the readings on their computer records though. It happens fairly often.