Storage heater and electricity charges

Pippajane

I have a one bedroom flat. I did not use my storage heater for a year and still was paying £70 a month all year round on economy 7. I contacted my electricity provider who advised I was on the wrong tarrif and had overpaid by nearly £300 but I cannot have this money back. They would only change my tarrif.
I now have one storage heater and one electric radiator. I am concerned not being on economy7 now and using this storage heater I am going to get huge bills. Can someone advise me if I should switch the storage to an electric radiator? This alone will I understand cost me over £400 but will it be worth it in the long run?
Any advice gratefully received...

macman

Pointless being on an E7 tariff if you don't take advantage of the cheap night rate. More to the point, all your other consumption is then charged at a higher rate than the non-E7 tariff.
Work out what proportion of your annual consumption is on E7 and what on non-E7 rate. You probably need to be using at least 33% on E7 to make it worthwhile.
You'd probably be better off with 2 heaters of the same kind, running on the same tariff, rather than mixing the two.
An electric rad does not cost £400...

Pippajane

Thankyou. I will try and work this out. I don't think the usuage will be that high. The electric radiator I am looking at is an Elnur, around £300 and the for labour to remove existing heater and replace I am thinking around £100. Do you think this is expensive? I have been looking at radiators online and for the size it seems about average.

macman

All electric radiators are the same efficiency (100%), so from that point of view any of them will do the job.
It's not just changing the rad, you'll need the circuit altering so that that rad is powered off your non-E7 supply.

Lotus-eater

macman wrote: »

All electric radiators are the same efficiency (100%), so from that point of view any of them will do the job.
It's not just changing the rad, you'll need the circuit altering so that that rad is powered off your non-E7 supply.

Not necessarily, I believe econ 7 can work on the same circuit.