High Electric Heating Bills - Any Ideas???

Crash2904

Hi all,

I hope someone can help me or offer some advice.

I have recently moved in to my first home - a 2 bedroom flat which is all electric. I have never had all electric before and am slightly confused by the particulary high bills that I am receiving. There are 2 adults living in the flat, and I wouldn't consider us to necessarily be high users - we are both out of the house from 8AM - 6PM Monday to Friday and so therefore generally only having the (Nobo branded) electric storage heaters on for a couple of hours in the morning and then for about 6-7 hours in the evening. During the weekends the heating is probably on for around 10-12 hours both Saturday and Sunday. This seems to be where the majority of the electric costs are going. I have got a wireless electricity usage monitor and my electric costs are averaging around £7.50 a day, so I'm expecting a bill for around £225 this month (despite being put on a monthly £48 Direct Debit initially)! £225 for a month seems awfully high to me for a 2 bed flat.

My electric provider is Scottish Power and I am on their "Online Capped Price Energy June 2012" tariff and charged as follows:-

Standing charge: 17.53p per day
Electricity ( Primary ) : 10.396p per kWh
Electricity ( Secondary ) : 4.953p per kWh.


They have also informed me that I have Economy 7 meter at my property and that the timings for the off peak tariff is 11pm to 7am.

My understanding was that electric storage heaters started storing energy at night during the off peak period and then released this cheaper energy during the day when you use it. However, as I've never used them before I'm not sure really how they work.

Can anyone advise whether I am on the wrong sort of tariff or if I need to do something special with the electric storage heaters to ensure they take advantage of the off-peak tariff which they don't seem to be doing of at the moment?

Any help greatly appreciated.

Crash

t4mof

The description you've provided of how you are using your storage heaters will mean your bills are high.

You should be an Economy 7 tariff and your storage heaters should only use the electric during the 7 hours off peak. The storage heaters then release the heat throughout the day. If you are putting them on in the evening (before 11pm and the cheap electric kicking in) and all day at the weekends it will cost you a fortune.

Of course, if you're on a standard tariff and not getting the cheaper electricity off peak then that needs sorting out immediately...

Hope that helps.

Crash2904

Thanks for your reply t4mof.

I think ultimately I'm completely confused how to use these storage heaters. I have some instructions but they don't seem to be that clear.

I don't know if electric storage heaters are generally all the same, but the way I have mine set up is that each heater has its own thermostat and zone (basically a number so that you can set it to come on independently rather than having all the heaters coming on together). The thermostat has two points on it and I have the lower one pointing to 15C and the upper one pointing to 20C.

On the main control panel you set each heater by an hourly segment (covering the whole 24 hour period) to either green (economy) or red (comfort) and I have set this up so that they are red only on the times that I want the heater to come on (e.g. 7-9am and 6PM-Midnight during the week), at all other times it is set to green.

I presume that this is the wrong way of doing things - however if you able to confirm what I should be doing that would be really appreciated.

t4mof

I've never had storage heaters myself but know that if you have them using electricity during the "peak" times (7am-11pm) you will be paying a lot for your heating.

They should almost "charge up" overnight and then release the heat during the day. I wouldn't know the technical details on how to do it I'm afraid.

Maybe someone else with experience will be able to help.

My reply will have bumped it back up the list

Be_Happy

Are you sure these are storage heaters. The Nobo heaters I have seen are panel heaters, although the more advanced system has heaters that can be linked in zones throughout the house, but they are not storage heaters.

If these are panel heaters they will be working on full price electricity during the day.

Crash2904

Thanks for your reply.

I've found out they are in fact panel heaters (everyone I'd spoken to said they were night storage heaters).

I've posted my energy tariff details above in the first post, but should I basically be looking for a different tariff (I.e. One that doesn't have peak and off-peak despite the boiler taking advantage of the off-peak) or is there a better way of using these panel heaters more efficiently? For instance in the evenings rather than having them on constantly, maybe alternate between 1 hour on, 1 hour off.

maxmycardagain

11pm-7pm is 8 hours isnt it?

anyway, what i can tell you is that with 4 proper NSRs and 2 convectors we are using 20 day units and 60 night units at 9p+4p respectively (britgas websaver 8) and its costing us £4.50 per 24 hours, in a 2 bedroom bungalow open to snow covered fields to the rear (minus 11 2 nights ago)