Economy 7 Help Please....

mikeyjj

Hi everyone

Long-time visitor to the boards and after a staggering electricity bill, I'm in need of some help and am making my first post!

I'm on Economy 7 in a 1 bed flat. There are 3 storage heaters and a hot water tank which heats up overnight.

After receiving a huge bill, I've been trying to monitor my usage and currently seem to be using around 10-12 units (day rate) and 30 units (night rate) each day.

Our electric company suggested that this is a high night rate usage so I've been switching off the storage heaters one by one to see what difference that makes. I've managed to get the night usage down to 17 units with just 1 storage heater on and the hot water heating up overnight.

My question is whether this still seems an excessive day and night usage? Especially as the flat is now pretty chilly with only 1 heater on!

Thanks in advance for any help and advice.

Premier_2

30 units per night for 3 storage heaters plus an immersion (plus usual 'background' usage) is not particularly high.

3 storage heaters in a 1 bed flat is quite a lot - we only used to have 2 stoage heaters in a 2 bed flat ... but I guess it depends on a number of things including the size of the heaters.

Typical storage heaters are about 3kW each (but as I say, they can vary in size)
An immersion heater is 3kW too.
Just the immersion heater being on could therefore possibly use 21kWh (3kW x 7 hours)

Of course, what will happen is the heaters and immersion probably reach the desired temperature/heat loading before the 7 hours are up and so cut out.

Remember also that the reason your flat has 3 heaters is because (hopefully) someone calculated this is what is needed to adequately heat your home. Turning off 2 heaters means the remaining one has to work harder (and so costs more)