New to all-electric living!

northern_at_heart

Hi,
I've always had gas central heating but recently moved into a new rented flat with my partner which only has electric heating, and this is a bit of a mystery to me! I'm a bit worried it's going to cost us LOADS and would like some reassurance and/or advice!

We're on an Economy 7 tariff with N Power. The unit costs are something like 4p night rate and 22p day rate. We could change this supplier/tariff if necessary though. The flat has two storage heaters which we haven't used yet but will when it gets cold... They are set to heat up overnight and give out heat during the day. I don't think we'll need any extra 'boost' as the flat is a top floor and quite warm.

Our hot water is timed to come on for 7 hours or so overnight every night.
The thing is, we can't really run things like the dishwasher and washing machine at night as we go to bed early and get up early for work, but those appliances interfere with the shower so can't even put them on at say 6am. So we're running the dishwasher about once a day and the washing machine about 3 times a week at the high rate. We also both have showers at least once a day...

Is this a normal pattern of usage? Would we be better of changing the hot water timing, or switching to a standard (non-E7) tariff? We've signed up for quarterly bills as I've read too many horror stories of DD problems and can't face the uncertainty of estimated bills. I just don't want to end up with a massive bill just before Christmas!

How much do others pay for similar heating/electric arrangements? Thanks for any advice you can give me.

edrushuk

Don't want to scare you, but I am in an all electric household (new build 1 bed flat on the ground floor, but warm flat) with n-power and my recent bill was £423 a quarter :eek:

I am currently asking for MSE help to see if they can give me any tips, so expect the worst! Then it can only get better.

Good luck

Susanna

northern_at_heart

Thanks Susanna. That's really scary!! Do you have your water heating on, and if so for how long? We have ours on all night, but maybe we could change the timing on it as we really don't need that much hot water...

dannymccann

We had an all electric flat (bottom floor uninsulated 1900s property) on E7, we had the water come on for 2 hours at night and it would last all day for handwashing / pot washing etc.

If you have a dishwasher and washing machine (both cold fill?) and I assume you have an electric shower it only really needs to go on for an hour just to get you some hot water for hand washing?

Top floor flat is the best bet, I know a lad who lives in the middle of Manchester in a top floor flat, he only uses his heating through the coldest month or 2 of the year, the rest of the time he gets easily away on what everyone else wastes from below!

Fire_Fox

We have our immersion on for half an hour overnight and have enough hot water for two short showers and washing up so you can't need seven hours!! Can't you put the washing machine and dishwasher on timer plugs?

property.advert

I've lived in a couple of electric only places and I'm actually in one now.

The first thing is - be afraid, be very afraid. Sorry, but that is the way it is. I'll go through some things to ease the pain somewhat. However, you have to get some sort of Excel spreadsheet going or just note it down on lined paper in a notebook of what your 2 meter readings are. Get a few a week for a couple of weeks. Note down what you have on during that time.

Winter - if you have 2 storage heaters, then they are likely to be 2kw and 1kw in size. That is 3kw for 7 hours a day, minus something if they are full and not drawing full charge for the full 7 hours. Your maximum (or near fixed) daily charge for heating is 3*7*(unit price) 5p = £1.05 per day. Nothing you can do to reduce what it is as it is a on or off scenario.

You may also find that your smaller heater gives out better and more heat than the bigger one. I've had this twice and I've moved the heaters around in one place (not advised if you don't know what you are doing).

The bigger heater will probably have a hot air fan on it. Check this power consumption and then realise that if it is 2kw, then using it in day or nightime will cost you 2*22p or 44p per hour !!!! or if on for 5 hours a day, it will cost you an extra £2.20 per day.

Add in the overnight heating and your bills are going up by £3.25 per day or about £100 a month extra !

In some new build places (like the one I'm in), many if not all the sockets come with dual wiring for Economy 7 and the regular supply so you could hard wire your dishwasher and washing machine into the Economy 7 only. I wouldn't do that but you can install a timer switch etc.

Your hot water tank may hold you back but in a rented place, you are constrained. In reality, hot water tanks are dinosaurs and should be chucked out. Instant multipoint heated water is what you want and available from Panasonic up to 10kw (I have one in one house). Often tanks in flats are far too small and buying a massive Heatrae Sadia 300L type tank is beyond most people at £1.5k to £2k installed.

I find my hot water ok for myself and my child but if I do a lot of washing up or laundry, then I can feel it running out before her nightime bath, so on goes the expensive emersion heater at 90p an hour in my case (3kw at 30p/kwh).

When you have your current electric usage, that is your base line. That will hardly rise or fall all year. You now know how to calculate your storage heater costs. You seriously have to assess your non Economy 7 heating costs (heat and water) because it is this usage which dictates what sort of plan you should be on. Essentially, no point being on a slightly cheaper Economy 7 tariff if your daytime charges are much higher. You'd be much better on a lower non Economy 7 charge or even binning Economy 7 altogether.

I'll give you my estimates

Base usage - 3600 units per year Economy 7 and 3600 units per year daytime rate
Heating - 6 months at extra 3kw*7 (hours)*180 (days) = approx 3600 extra
Daytime heating - 6 months at 1.5kw*6 (hours)*180 (days) = approx 1800 extra

So I end up with daytime of 3600+1800=5400 and nightime of 3600+3600=7200

If I was on 25p and 5p (for easy numbers) then I'd be paying 5400*25p + 7200*5p = £1350+427.5=£1,777.50 per year or about £150 a month.

If I was on a flat rate of 15p I would pay (5400+7200)*15p=£1,890 but if I could get it for 10p, then I'd only be paying £1,260.

You really need to put it into Excel if you can and then make a calculator up for your usage and costed out at each of the providers' rates.

On my numbers, uswitch comes out with British Gas as best at £962.41
28.42p per kWh (day)10.45p per kWh (day) above 500 kWh p.a4.84p per kWh (night)
and then Ovo at £963.24

£63.00 Annual standing charge10.37p per kWh (day)4.73p per kWh (night)
Alternative heat sources are oil filled radiators but they are also costly to run.

Closing doors and most importantly, having good thick curtains covering windows is what you have to do.

I had to take this place but given a choice, I would never have a place without gas central heating again.

Fire_Fox

I don't think you need to be afraid, but it's really helpful to have a calculation of the possible costs as provided by propertyadvert. I am very sensible with my heating and hot water and we presently pay £34 a month between two - that's with an E7 tariff but radiant panel heaters which work on the expensive day rate instead of overnight. Don't heat more than your living area - purchase an electric underblanket for your bed to save a fortune and be toasty all winter. Baths and power showers will use a lot of hot water, so fit a water-saving shower head and/ or switch the water off while you are shampooing.

gemstars

dannymccann wrote: »

If you have a dishwasher and washing machine (both cold fill?) and I assume you have an electric shower it only really needs to go on for an hour just to get you some hot water for hand washing?

I've just moved into all electric. Does that mean that an electric shower uses cold water? So you don't need to put the overnight water heating on to have a hot shower in the morning?

property.advert

Fire_Fox wrote: »

I don't think you need to be afraid, but it's really helpful to have a calculation of the possible costs as provided by propertyadvert. I am very sensible with my heating and hot water and we presently pay £34 a month between two - that's with an E7 tariff but radiant panel heaters which work on the expensive day rate instead of overnight. Don't heat more than your living area - purchase an electric underblanket for your bed to save a fortune and be toasty all winter. Baths and power showers will use a lot of hot water, so fit a water-saving shower head and/ or switch the water off while you are shampooing.

I'm at home all day and I'm currently using about 600kw a month or about £60 a month (after factoring in the hurdle units on day tariff), split fairly evenly between day and night rates. Obviously I'm using the cooker, washing machine, hot water and electricity throughout the day and I know that is increased as I have a small child with me. Were I out all day then obviously, my consumption would reduce.

However, your £34 will not include anything for heating as we don't need it yet. How you use your extra winter units needs you to look at the tariffs to see whether you continue to benefit from low nightime rates or whether your daytime consumption is so much higher in the winter that you really need a cheap daytime rate more than a cheap nightime rate.

I know that I never worried about gas costs but even in 1999 when I moved into first bought new build all electric property (where I had not previously considered all electric to be an issue), my total costs doubled and actually getting warm without relying on that dry hot air blower on a winter evening was a problem. Luckily, I had money at that time and I owned the property.

property.advert

gemstars wrote: »

I've just moved into all electric. Does that mean that an electric shower uses cold water? So you don't need to put the overnight water heating on to have a hot shower in the morning?

Showers are basically two types. The first comes off the tap or can also be fully plumbed into the wall and just have a combined on/off and temperature lever but there is no heating box (shower unit) either at the point where hot water is delivered or somewhere back along the piping. This system runs off the hot water from the hot water tank. Thus, if you heat the water during the night and then run out during the day, you are faced with either not having any hot water for an evening shower or having to pay daytime rates to marginally heat a whole tank of water when you only need a little.

Electric showers are boxes which were historically placed over the bath and they heat hot water on demand. They are fed with cold water and are not dependent upon any hot water source. These can largely be replaced these days with multipoint hot water heaters which do the same job but which are capable of heating water for a couple of bathrooms, sinks and kitchen appliances, all on demand.

northern_at_heart

Thanks everyone for your thoughts. I was glad to discover when I double-checked that it's only the first 180ish daytime units per quarter which are billed at 24p each; after that it's 15p so slightly less scary.

I've set up a spreadsheet and worked out our usage so far by checking the meters - feel a bit more in control now!

We also switched the overnight water heating off every other night last week and still had more than enough hot water! (It doesn't seem to have any kind of timer on it for more accurate on/off timings.)

Let's hold our breath and see what the first bill brings!

Rachel