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

Monkey_Joe

dunloadin wrote: »

Monkey_Joe wrote: »

Just confirmed with current occupier, there are two electrical meters; one for normal electric and the other is the night time off-peak meter for heating. I assume this is E7 and its with Southern Electric? I assumed there was only one meter involved?

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If theres two meters then it aint Eco7, sounds like something more exotic, could have problems switching in the future.

what are you basing this on, how do you know that by having two meters I could have problems switching? :S

JennyR68

Monkey_Joe wrote: »

did you buy portable heaters or ones that you can connect to the wall, like storage heaters. How much do they go for?

Everything i have learnt today contradicts what Southern Electric told me prior to me posting here. I called them this morning to enquire what the procedure is when one of their customers move house and the new occupant of the house (ie ME) wishes to switch to a different provider. She said that there is no real issue switching but
(1) I will have to pay them for electrical usage until the switch over date to new provider
(2) Since I had storage heaters I can only be on Economy 7 and therefore can not take advantage of any other tariffs nor can I switch meters

However, you guys think I can. Hence my confusion at the start...

1) True, can take six weeks to change but my switch to EDF only took 3.

2) Also true if she thought you were going to be using the storage heaters, they don't work out viable on a standard tariff. Take them out the equation and you can do what you like.

We got ones to attach to the wall as we preferred the look of them. Have a shop around your bound to find something to suit your pocket/style.

Do make sure you go with something with a thermostat though and if it can't be programmed to go to a certain temperature get some room thermometers to make sure what you've got it set at. Electric heaters start getting pricey if you turn up the dial instead of going putting a cardie on.

Also make sure your well insulated, there is nothing like a draught whistling round your feet from a room less heated to make you think it's cold when all you need is a draught excluder and all is well.

We asked £90 for a quick sale as we wanted rid. Check ebay out to see what they sell at to get an idea of what to charge.

dunloadin

The plug in heater vs storage heaters is a red herring, provided your using the storage heating correctly it will be cheaper. As Premier pointed out you turn the 'output' knob down and the 'input' knob up before going to bed. That way the bricks in the heaters get the max heat stored in them for use through the day. If you fail to turn the 'output' knob down then the heat from the elements will escape, hence the hot house in the morning and cold heaters by tea time. It will also cost more as the heater elements will be on for longer and not cut out when the bricks get up to heat; so turning the output knob down at night is a biggie, for both efficiency and cost.

What to do when you move in the house:

1. Take a reading of the meter(s), if you do have two meters take a note of the serial numbers as well as the reads.

2. Contact Southern and set up your account...give them the meter read(s) you have on moving in....and the serial numbers of the meters if more than one.

3. Confirm that the tariff you have is Eco7.

4. Shop round for cheaper deals.

Eco7 setups have one meter which has two reads, the load from the meter is split into two seperate supplies, normally to two different fuse boxes, though they can be in a single 'split' box....

Domestic - this is the box that has your lights, sockets, cooker etc. It will also have an immersion heater to give you a 'boost' for your hot water should you need to heat more up.

Heating - this is the box supplying your storage heaters and immersion for overnight heating, normally each storage heater has its own fuse/CB, so, if you have 4 storage heaters there will be 5x fuse/CB's (1 per heater and one for the immersion)

The meter will have a timeswitch attached to it which switches the suppy to the storage heaters on and off, and change the meter to day/night rate as appropriate. If the meter is a newer version it may well have an internal switch and clock, in which case it has 5 thick cables and not 4 thick and one thin.

If you have two meters and one is for the domestic supply and the other one does the heating via a timeswitch then you don't have Eco7 as we know it....you will be getting the heaters switching on and getting the low rate for that, but the domestic supply will be still being recorded on the other meter....so no cheap rate for anything other than heating.

I'm not going to tell you whats best for you regards getting rid of the heaters, converting to GSH or changing to single rate and using plug in radiators, thats up to you. Just walk before running and live in the place with what is already there before making any decisions you may later regret.

Ada3050

Good advice dunloadin.