How to get rid of economy seven meter?

starfish10

I have just been working out my annual electricity and gas consumption with a view to changing supplier. I have an annual usage of 9100 kw with 16% of this used on economy 7. I have just done a search and found I could have been saving pounds over the years as I had gas central heating installed 10 years ago and did not do anything about the economy seven meter and have been paying over the odds for day units.

My question is how do i get rid of it? I want to change from npower to a cheaper supplier. Do I get npower to change meter first, then change, anyone have any ideas?

Fire_Fox

You have three choices, firstly to start making better use of the cheap night rate - washing machine, dishwasher, tumble dryer and immersion on a timer plug - secondly to ask your current or new supplier to put you on a single rate tariff and simply add the day/ night readings together, and thirdly to pay £50 or so to have the meter replaced. Simply ask NPower what they are able to do for you. Even without storage heaters it's perfectly possible to make good use of the E7 system, I do!

Swipe

npower will replace your meter for free if you ask to switch to their standard tariff, then once it's in change supplier. This is what I did last summer

matty17r

I am on economy 7 and use my gas for heating the water. Would it be cheaper to use the immersion on cheap rate to have a shower in the morning?

notbritishgas

starfish10 wrote: »

I have just been working out my annual electricity and gas consumption with a view to changing supplier. I have an annual usage of 9100 kw with 16% of this used on economy 7. I have just done a search and found I could have been saving pounds over the years as I had gas central heating installed 10 years ago and did not do anything about the economy seven meter and have been paying over the odds for day units.

My question is how do i get rid of it? I want to change from npower to a cheaper supplier. Do I get npower to change meter first, then change, anyone have any ideas?

I can confirm that npower will not add the 2 readings together but will insist on a meter change which they will do free of charge (or at least they did last January).
On another point, you say you have gas heating, with this in mind your electric consumption of 9100kwh is quite huge, about 3 times the norm, have you got any high usage items.

starfish10

Thanks for all your replies, I will be giving Npower a ring and see if I can get the meter changed. I do intend on changing as it looks like I can save a lot according to the comparison websites. I hope by changing the meter for me or changing tarrif this means I am tied to them in any way.

I am now beginning to realise my consumption is high but it has been the same on average over the last few years. I have an electric oven, run a large fridge outside. I have a large house but there is only four in the family

My gas is 50,834 kwh per year or 1573 cubic feet, I have two gas flame fires and central heating.

macman

Tumble drier, electric shower?
You don't by any chance have a back up immersion heater that has been left permanently on do you (this issue came up on another thread yesterday)?
As notbritishgas pointed out, your annual consumption is extremely high for a gas CH house, even for a larger property.
First thing to do though is to dump the E7 meter.

starfish10

I do still have a back up emersion heater still there I will check this out, I had not realised just how much electric I am using above the average. I will make an effort into finding out where it is going.

notbritishgas

Sorry to be the bearer of more bad news but your yearly gas at 50000kwh is also extremely high, the norm is just over 20000kwh.
I think you could make some savings on both of them.

macman

Just how large is your large house-how many bedrooms?
Loft insulation, cavity wall insulation, double glazing?
That's in the region of £180-£190 a month for both (without allowing for the penalty you have been paying for running on an E7 tariff).
All that energy must be going somewhere.

starfish10

Its a large edwardian semi in an exposed area, 3 floors, although we dont go to the top floor, it is empty. It has a central staircase so a lot of the heat goes straight up.There is velux windows at the top. We have radiators up there 1 in each room they are on frost setting or low. I have an ideal boiler it was fitted about 11 years ago, I have a timer on it, the water is set to heat for about 2 hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon I have my water set quite high as when we bath I like it hot as its a cold house, we have a water cylinder. The heating is set on constant but then I have a digital seven day program thermostat which I have heat go off about 9pm and back on at 6am (because it takes so long for the water to get round all the system and heat up the rads and rooms.) I have it set to go down very low when we are out during the day. There are three bedrooms on the first floor and five small bedroms on the second. Downstairs 2 reception and small kichen/diner area. in the reception rooms we have high efficiency stovax real flame fires, only one of these is on at once and only on low for about 3 hours a night. one or two of the windows are secondary glazed the rest are original sash or single glazed. it is hard to bring the rooms to a comfortable temperature when it gets colder and its windy, as most of the radiators are single (a big mistake i made when having it installed) there is nineteen rads altogether three of which are double. brrrrrr:cool: