Worth switching from Southern Electric to EDF?

macman

CaptainAwesome wrote: »

Thanks for the replies, it seems like EDF will be a fair bit cheaper but I was wondering, will the Online Saver 7 plan result in me potentially running out of hot water on the evenings etc?

Eh? Could you explain your reasoning behind this please? You decide when to heat your hot water, not your utility co.

backfoot

As its cheaper it probably isn't as good quality especially as it comes from France. Sort of fizzles out after 7.00 p.m.

Merci.

CaptainAwesome

macman wrote: »

Eh? Could you explain your reasoning behind this please? You decide when to heat your hot water, not your utility co.

You'll have to excuse my ignorance, I've only ever lived on my own once. Basically at the last place I was living there was an issue with the hot water being fine sometimes, but then being cold, mainly towards the end of the night.

Then I read up on the uswitch.com website about Economy 7 (I don't even know if this particular product from EDF IS Economy 7 or not) and read this

"Your lifestyle - if you have storage heaters and a hot water tank, you will probably find that your home and water will be nice and warm in the morning, but will cool down again by the evening."

And this from Money Supermarket

"One of the criticisms of Economy 7 is that even though you may heat your water and storage heaters continually overnight, there still may not be sufficient heat generated to last throughout the day. You will need to take baths and showers in the morning and your home could be cold in the evenings."

I started to get a bit concerned as I hated going to have a shower and the water being freezing. That being said, I admittedly have no idea whether I have storage heaters and a hot water tank, I'm pretty much useless.

devildog

Backfoot-I will dig out my paperwork in the morning and try and be a bit more concise

macman

CaptainAwesome wrote: »

You'll have to excuse my ignorance, I've only ever lived on my own once. Basically at the last place I was living there was an issue with the hot water being fine sometimes, but then being cold, mainly towards the end of the night.

Then I read up on the uswitch.com website about Economy 7 (I don't even know if this particular product from EDF IS Economy 7 or not) and read this

"Your lifestyle - if you have storage heaters and a hot water tank, you will probably find that your home and water will be nice and warm in the morning, but will cool down again by the evening."

And this from Money Supermarket

"One of the criticisms of Economy 7 is that even though you may heat your water and storage heaters continually overnight, there still may not be sufficient heat generated to last throughout the day. You will need to take baths and showers in the morning and your home could be cold in the evenings."

I started to get a bit concerned as I hated going to have a shower and the water being freezing. That being said, I admittedly have no idea whether I have storage heaters and a hot water tank, I'm pretty much useless.

This tariff is available on both E7 and non E7.
You can't just switch to E7 by changing tariff-it requires an E7 meter to which your storage heaters and other devices (eg immersion heater) that you want to run on E7 are connected.
You will know if you have an E7 tariff or not because it will say on your bill -and you will be billed at two rates-one cheaper E7 and one more expensive non-E7.
Storage heaters charge up overnight and release heat during the day, as a result they may not produce enough heat in the evening to be warm enough.
How do you heat your house and hot water at present?

CaptainAwesome

macman wrote: »

This tariff is available on both E7 and non E7.
You can't just switch to E7 by changing tariff-it requires an E7 meter to which your storage heaters and other devices (eg immersion heater) that you want to run on E7 are connected.
You will know if you have an E7 tariff or not because it will say on your bill -and you will be billed at two rates-one cheaper E7 and one more expensive non-E7.
Storage heaters charge up overnight and release heat during the day, as a result they may not produce enough heat in the evening to be warm enough.
How do you heat your house and hot water at present?

Ahhh now that's making a lot more sense, I'm definitely not on E7 at the moment as I have just the one rate on my bills and don't have the meter either. It was just the "7" part of the Online Saver 7 that was leading me to believe it was a necessity to have E7.



To be honest, in regards to heating the flat and hot water, I have no idea how it is done. We have little radiator/heater type things in each room wired to the wall with a plug, but they've been on maybe 30 minutes total since we moved in. The hot water just....comes from the taps.

That's just how clueless I am here, if you could tell me where to look/how to find out I'll have a look around etc.:rotfl:

Edit: I should add, the heaters we have don't seem to "run out" so to speak, they're just hot when you put them on.

macman

E7 was the successor to 'E6'-nothing to do with Economy 7.
You just have standard convector wall mounted heaters by the sound of it.
If no boiler, then you will probably have an immersion heater/hot water tank in the property. I suggest you find out, because if that is switched on 24/7 then you are going to get huge electricity bills-it only needs to be on for a couple of hours in the morning and in the evening normally. It may already have a timer fitted, if not get one.

t0rt0ise

So you don't have Economy 7 and you shouldn't change to that but you can sign up for the EDF online 7 deal (or whatever it's called) which sounds like it would be a good idea and a good bit cheaper for you. You have just a couple of days to do so and get the bonus payments from EDF and Quidco.

backfoot

devildog wrote: »

Backfoot-I will dig out my paperwork in the morning and try and be a bit more concise

Bump! Any luck?