Storage heater/ electric question

wornoutmumoftwo

I'm on storage heating and a prepayment meter (which i love), also on the social tarif.

I am currently on a single rate, despite having storage heaters, but as it's been summer the man at British Gas said it was ok to stay on it as it turned out to be cheaper than the two tier rate.

I'm just wondering if it's worth staying on it over winter, i pay 9p kwh (all electric), and my pet hate about these heaters is that they charge overnight, release the heat through the morning (even if i have the output setting on zero), so by the evening when it's cold there's hardly any heat left.

I'm thinking if i stay on mmy 9p kwh and just turn them on for a couple of hours when needed it would be more economical?

On dual rate i think i was paying about 14p kwh in the day time and about 5p in the evening.

THanks

Cardew

If you stay on single rate, then you shouldn't use your storage heaters at all.

Just get cheap electrical heaters and use as required.

Nobody can answer the question about switching to Economy 7 for the winter as there are too many unknown factors.

You firstly need to know the day and night tariff rates that you will get on your social tariff.(would it be less than your 14p/5p you had previously?)

Then you need to estimate how much electricity you will use on each rate(don't forget you will heat your hot water overnight on E7)

With that estimate you can calculate if your savings with the storage heating and hot water on the overnight rate are more than paying for everything at 9p/kWh.

dunloadin

If you have storage heaters and are on a single rate tariff the cost of using the storage heating when you do decide to switch them on will be astronomical.

The 5th terminal on the meter provides the load to your storage heaters...if you have a single rate tariff this load will be permanentley on. This means that the elements in your storage heaters will be on 24/7, so instead of paying the cheap rate for 7 hours or so you will be paying 9p per unit used for as long as the heaters are on!! If you don't believe me try it out and see how quickly the money on your meter goes down.

I would suggest you get BG to send you a multi rate tariff ASAP. If it don't work after they send a new tariff to the key it may need a meter change.

wornoutmumoftwo

Thank you both, i'm going to watch the electric for a couple of days. I'm surprised they even work on just the single tarif. I've only had them on for about an hour each night and then turned them off. I just hate it when i have them on all night and then you get a mild day as i have to have all my windows open then, even if i have the settings on low they blast heat out.

Thanks a lot