I can't understand how Economy 7 meter works

jenny59

I'm trying to get to grips with my electricity consumption which is horribly high. (Always has been, not just recently). At the suggestion of British Gas I am currently taking a meter reading every morning and every evening for a week - I'm on Economy 7.

I have noticed that the reading I take each evening for the night-time rate has gone up from the morning reading.

e.g. Monday, 9am; night reading is 00630. By 10pm it reads 00634. By Tuesday morning, after I've had dishwasher/washing machine going through the night, it's only moved up to 00637 - a smaller increase.

Why does the night time reading increase during the day?

Can anyone explain how it works?

dave461_2

I had a white meter fitted last year which has 3hrs in the afternoon and 4hrs overnight (03:00-07:00 & 13:30-16:30). My old meter used to just be 7hrs overnight. i did phone scottish power to question off peak in the afternoon (manweb region) but they never got back to me.

Scottish_Power

Hi dave461

What tariff does your statements say you are on? It should tell you on the 2nd page of your statement under description.

What is your question regarding the off peak in the afternoon?

Kind Regards

Colin @ ScottishPower

penrhyn

What sort of meter do you have? Is it like thsi or a digital (LCD) type, or do you have two? Is the timing for the E7?

vic_sf49

I've got to say I got a bit lost with your OP, I'm tired and really should go to bed, but.......does this help at all:

I had an economy 7 meter on which you pressed a button to switch between readings 1, 2 and a total. (They may have officially been called other things, but 1 & 2 makes this a much easier tale).

I was being billed at the day rate for reading 1 and the night rate for reading 2. I'd not long since moved in (first house) then had to work away from home for a while. I was paranoid about huge bills so I'd taken tons of readings before going, one just before departure, and one as soon as I got back.

Whilst away I'd left my storage heaters on (middle of winter to stave of pipes freezing etc), so the highest usage by far should have been the night rate. The only other thing left switched on was my fridge / freezer.

However, I was seeing that my readings, and subsequent bill came to the opposite conclusion. In other words, they were billing me backwards. They were billing my actual night usage at the ridiculously high day rate rather than vice versa.

Luckily for the previous owners, I knew where they'd moved to, so I nipped round to tell them they'd been seriously overcharged for years just because the readings were typed into the wrong boxes.

sarah_elton

Stupid question first, are you certain those aren't the day rate readings? That would have gone up during both periods, and by more from 9am-10pm than from 10pm-9am as the latter only includes about four hours of day-time. As someone else said, maybe they are billing you the wrong way round.

What does your day reading do? Is that going up during the day but staying the same overnight? (I know it's hard to tell precisely as you'd have to read it immediately before the switch to night-time and right when night-time ended).

I live in a 2-bed flat which is all electric, no gas and on Economy 7. I don't limit myself on usage (I turn lights off when not in rooms and that sort of thing, but I don't worry about putting the heating on when needed or having the TV on for an evening) and my quarterly bills range from about £110 in summer to £450 in winter. :eek: Electric heating is bl&&dy expensive! I only have storage heaters in two rooms!