2 Bed Flat with high electricity consumption! Any tips?

tftftf

Hi,
I have been reading through all the past threads on the topic of reducing energy consumption when using all electric heating, but am still having problems...

My daily electric usage is about 10 units on the Day Rate, and 20 units on the Night rate, which seems to work out as nearly 11000kwh per year.

The only heating that I have been using is 1 Vent Axia storage heater in the living room, which has the input set to 1 and output set to * until the evening when I turn it up to 1 if it is cold. It is also has a convector dial, which i turn up all the way for a few hours each evening but to be honest I am a bit confused about how to use this.

As a side question, if I turn off my storage heater overnight and then turn it on the following evening, will it heat up using Day rate electricity? I notice there are 2 fuse plugs so I assume 1 of these is for the day circuit...

The immersion heater is an Oso Direct 20RD unvented water heater, with a Grasslin QE7 timer. There are no manuals for these so I am not entirely sure how to operate them, and have been unable to find the manuals online.
The timer is set to come on between 330 and 730 each morning. Well, I think it is! Between 330 and 730 the "offpeak" light is illuminated, but there is no light to indicate peak time usage.
Hot water seems to stay very hot throughout the day, even when having a shower at about 11 in the evening, and I have only needed to use the boost one when trying to have a shower after filling the bath an hour before.
There doesn't seem to be a temperature control on the boiler, so I was thinking that if I turned the timer to only come on for an hour in the morning that might help, although I imagine I will need to experiment with this a bit.

I am a bit worried because at the moment I am only paying £45 per month for my electricity, but since the usage is so high I have a feeling I will be stumped with a massive bill at the end of the year...

Any tips would be very much appreciated!

Fire_Fox

Have you read your meters and submitted readings to your supplier? Have you put your usuage in KWH into a price comparison site? Have you taken yourself off the standard tariff with your deemed supplier? I agree £45 won't cover 30 units per day, but you won't use that many KWH per day year round so it won't be 11000KWH!

If you turn your storage heater off overnight then it will either heat on dayrate or won't heat at all, depending on whether your storage heaters are wired to a separate E7 circuit or not. Why have you got your water heating for four hours overnight? Mine immersion set for half an hour! If the water stays hot all the time it's either very well insulated, actually on all the time or the thermostat could be turned down.

Heating and hot water are by far the biggest user of power proven by your current high night usage compared with the day, so this is where to focus your energy saving efforts. However you should be able to get your daytime usage below 10KWH, where is this going? Washing machine, tumble dryer, dishwasher, oven, lots of halogen lighting?

Wickedkitten

For your storage heater, you should ideally have it set at the highest input and the lowest output, and then when you get home, put up the output. For the immersion, you could probably set it so it only comes on for an hour and be fine.

tftftf

@FireFox:
Yes, i have been taking regular meter readings over the last few weeks, and have submitted one to my energy supplier. Currently in the process of switching to the EDF Online Saver v5, which I was on in my previous address, so I submitted one yesterday.
As a side question, should I submit the same number as my inital meter reading with my new supplier as my final reading with my previous supplier?

The storage heater has two fuse plugs on the wall, but I think it might have a built in convector heater which may use the other plug, so I am not sure if my E7 runs on a seperate circuit. Is there any way of determining whether this is the case?
Would that also mean the any other appliances that I might use overnight (washing machine, computer, chargers etc) won't see the benefit of cheaper electricity?

I tried changing the timer to heat the water for 1 hour in the morning, and by the mid-afternoon the water wasn't running hot enough for a shower, so I have had to put it up to 3 hours, and will try reducing it by half an hour each night to see what the effect is.

I am taking meter readings every day to see what I can do to reduce my consumption: turning off the immersion heater for 3 of the 4 hours had a signficant impact, but it is still at around 20 units.

I might try turning off the storage heater completely for 24hours to see how much it is actually costing to run, given that it is on the lowest setting: input=1, output=*, convector=*.

I'm not sure where the daytime usage is going really: I am out in the day time, and in the evening I generally only use 2-3 18w bulbs, tv, computer and occasionally the washing machine. Generally I try to be fairly energy conscious, so it is very frustrating when my usage is so high...

@Wickedkitten
So far I have only ever had the storage heater at the lowest input, since the usage at night seems to be high as it is. I usually don't heat my house very much, so up till now I have pretty much relied on the "leaked" heat, and a few bursts in the evening.

JPSC

You are assuming that because you are using 30 units per day at present you will use approximately 30 x 365 per year, you won't so don't worry. My rule of thumb is that the winter quarter will be about 40% of the annual consumption, so 30 units per day x 90 days per quarter = 2700 units for the quarter x 2.5 = approx 6750 units for a whole year.

My experience is based on usage in an all electric house in Scotland, if you live further south the heating season will be shorter, so your annual usage is likely to be lower.