New House - Storage Heaters, Economy 7/10 and bill questions

Be_Happy

Please don't panic at all the scaremongering that's being posted here.

In a previous thread I gave details of my storage heater usage, on which I keep a careful check with readings at least weekly, if not more often, so that I can keep control of bills

I have 6 storage heaters in a 3 bedroom house. They are new automatic ones and the thermostats work very efficiently. At the peak of winter I was using an average of 65 units overnight - heaters, water heating, dishwasher, sometimes washing machine, etc and 10 units during the day. It has now dropped to 45 overnight.

Last year electricity cost just over £1000 and usage is running much the same this year (warmer summer and colder winter).

In the evenings we top up the sitting room with a coal effect electric fire, again with a good thermostat as power monitor shows it using around 2 units in 3 hours.

Monkey_Joe

Firstly, thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read my questions and offer advice. It’s all been very helpful.

This is my plan in chronological order....

(1) Move in
(2) Find the cheapest deal for a standard electrical tariff
(3) Ask the provider of the cheapest standard electrical tariff (e.g. EDF) if they could change my meter so that I can use this tariff and also stop using the storage heaters on the old E7 tariff (e.g. Southern E) used by previous occupant.
(4) Use the storage heaters on existing E7 tariff until the switch over to the new standard electrical tariff with new provider occurs
(5) Buy new electrical heaters and use them
(6) Then when I have enough money switches over to GCH!!


It appears pretty straightforward but im sure it’s not. So if I have missed anything out or anything you think I should consider or will encounter please let me know.

Cheers

Premier_2

Monkey_Joe wrote: »

What do you mean by "25% of total consumption"? do you need that I need to use at least 25% of whatever electricity that I can possibly use during the night for me to pay a reasonable rate.

I have no clue what your talking about mate. I'm sorry...

You need to use 25% (or whatever the calculated figure come to for your situation) of the total usage during the cheap rate period.

Perhaps an example wiill help. I'll use Ebico prices only because (a) they are available and (b) they have a simple pricing system (but a similar calculation can be done with any supplier/tariff but the maths may be slightly more complicated)

Using Ebico and Eastern region (only because that is the first one in the list):

Single rate tariff is 12.75p per kWh

Dual rate tariff is 15.58p peak / 5.54p off peak.

If you use 1000kWh, then the break even point for this particular tariff is 28.2% (i.e. 718kWh peak / 282kWh off peak)

At the break even point, the total cost is £127.50. i.e. that is the cost whether on E7 or non-E7 tariff

Now you can see that if you were to use more than 28.2% at the cheaper rate, you'll start to save money since each unit is only 5.54p each. Conversely if you use less than 28.2%, then it'll cost you money as each unit is 15.58p. (both compared to the single rate of 12.75p)

To clarify, I'm not saying use more electricity (because whether you have E7 or not, more electricity will obviously cost you more) but use 28.2% or more of the total (in this example I assumed 1000kWh) during the cheap rate to not pay any more than you would on the single rate tariff.

Edit: Heres the sums:

Single rate tariff
1000kWh x 12.75p = £127.50

Or

E7 tariff
718kWh x 15.58p = £111.86
282kWh x 5.54p = £ 15.62
Total = £127.48


282kWh overnight represents 28.2% of total 1000kWh consumption

Ada3050

Monkey Joe, you got there in the end.

Seems like the best course of action.

JennyR68

Monkey_Joe wrote: »

What do you mean by "25% of total consumption"? do you need that I need to use at least 25% of whatever electricity that I can possibly use during the night for me to pay a reasonable rate.

I have no clue what your talking about mate. I'm sorry...

Something like that, at some point if you use enough during the night it works out the same price as if you were paying all on a single rate. if you use more than that during the night it works out cheaper to be on the 2 tariffs.

It depends on the tariff where that point is, for instance I have non storage heating on 24/7 so draws power night and day. I also have the hot water to heat.

I need to use 60% of electricity at night to make my usage on my tariff work out cheaper on E7. Just no way I could do it.

JennyR68

Monkey_Joe wrote: »

Firstly, thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read my questions and offer advice. It’s all been very helpful.

This is my plan in chronological order....

(1) Move in
(2) Find the cheapest deal for a standard electrical tariff
(3) Ask the provider of the cheapest standard electrical tariff (e.g. EDF) if they could change my meter so that I can use this tariff and also stop using the storage heaters on the old E7 tariff (e.g. Southern E) used by previous occupant.
(4) Use the storage heaters on existing E7 tariff until the switch over to the new standard electrical tariff with new provider occurs
(5) Buy new electrical heaters and use them
(6) Then when I have enough money switches over to GCH!!


It appears pretty straightforward but im sure it’s not. So if I have missed anything out or anything you think I should consider or will encounter please let me know.

Cheers

Sounds like a plan :beer:

Premier_2

Monkey_Joe wrote: »

Firstly, thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read my questions and offer advice. It’s all been very helpful.

This is my plan in chronological order....

(1) Move in
(2) Find the cheapest deal for a standard electrical tariff
(3) Ask the provider of the cheapest standard electrical tariff (e.g. EDF) if they could change my meter so that I can use this tariff and also stop using the storage heaters on the old E7 tariff (e.g. Southern E) used by previous occupant.
(4) Use the storage heaters on existing E7 tariff until the switch over to the new standard electrical tariff with new provider occurs
(5) Buy new electrical heaters and use them
(6) Then when I have enough money switches over to GCH!!


It appears pretty straightforward but im sure it’s not. So if I have missed anything out or anything you think I should consider or will encounter please let me know.

Cheers

Sounds like you've succumbed to the scaremongering

Lets put it this way. As long as you are happy to pay 12.75p per kWh for heating instead of 5.54p (subsitutue the values for the tariff you actually get) then go ahead.

But it sounds like you may be in the wrong forum. This is moneysavingexpert.com, not moneywastingexpert.com :cool:


This ignores the final step of switching to GCH, but that will (a) have a large installation cost and (b) may have a large maintenace cost. Its also not 100% effecient compared to electricity. e.g. my boiler is only 60% efficient (ok newer ones are more efficient) but for each kW of gas burnt, it only give 600W of heat. That means that to get a kWh of heat from the boiler I have to input 1.67kWh of gas. Gas from ebico costs 3.675p per kWh, so 1 kWh output costs 1.67 x 3.675p = 6.137p (compared to 5.54p of cheap rate electricity).
However, GCH is more controllable in that you can turn it off if out of the house for long periods of the day.

JennyR68

Premier if to get E7 to pay you need to generate far more units to heat your house than is really necessary, which the majority of storage heater owners seem to 'lose' before they settle down on an evening and need them, how is that a sensible recommended route?

We don't know where he lives so can't make judgement on if it's best or not but I'm guessing from his mention of 'far cheaper ' day rates he might be somewhere like me where it really does work out better.

If you can heat your house using less units on a cheaper tariff and save a couple of £100 a year doing so how is that not money saving? It will certainly help him save for his GCH quicker.

JennyR68

Premier wrote: »

Sounds like you've succumbed to the scaremongering

Lets put it this way. As long as you are happy to pay 12.75p per kWh for heating instead of 5.54p (subsitutue the values for the tariff you actually get) then go ahead.

But it sounds like you may be in the wrong forum. This is moneysavingexpert.com, not moneywastingexpert.com :cool:


This ignores the final step of switching to GCH, but that will (a) have a large installation cost and (b) may have a large maintenace cost. Its also not 100% effecient compared to electricity. e.g. my boiler is only 60% efficient (ok newer ones are more efficient) but for each kW of gas burnt, it only give 600W of heat. That means that to get a kWh of heat from the boiler I have to input 1.67kWh of gas. Gas from ebico costs 3.675p per kWh, so 1 kWh output costs 1.67 x 3.675p = 6.137p (compared to 5.54p of cheap rate electricity).
However, GCH is more controllable in that you can turn it off if out of the house for long periods of the day.

You've forgotten to factor in the hiked day rate there that offsets the low night rate.

And you can switch off plug in electric heating when you go out too.

Premier_2

JennyR68 wrote: »

You've forgotten to factor in the hiked day rate there that offsets the low night rate.

And you can switch off plug in electric heating when you go out too.

That's all described above - see the explanation of 25% night usage is typical break even point and that 7/24 is about 30%.

Anything electrical appliance that heats things up uses a load of leccy.

e.g. a typical 20W energy saving lightbulb uses as much electricity in 24 hours continuous use as a 3kW heater / immersion uses in less than 10 minutes.

I think the OP will need to turn the heaters off when they are in as well as when they are out unless they want some extortionate bills.