Economy 7

buckrogers

hi all

can you give me advice if its worth been on Economy 7

we used to have night storage heaters but now have gas central heating installed.
when the storage heaters were took out they left the Economy 7 in so now we use the washing machine,dishwasher and hot water tank at night 'plus fish tank running' to make use of the cheap electric.
i checked the meter to see how much we use when using the said above at night 11 units but when not heating the water tank 5 units
bill for 3 months is roughly
1200 units night eletric
1578 units day electric
question is, am i using a lot of electric at night to justify been on Economy 7 or would i be better off on normal electric taff

some people say to me why i dont use the gas to heat water tank but i thought if i am paying a cheaper night electric i would use it for heating the water tank
and if i did use gas to heat water tank then Economy 7 night units would be less than half of the 1200
hope i have explained myself probably

tomstickland

Trouble is that the day time costs more with Econ 7.
You need to look at the tariffs closely and do the sums based on how many units you use.

My guess is that gas will work out cheaper - the energy saving trust gave some figures to a times article about this and reckoned that a house using gas was cheaper to run than one using econ 7.

Cardew

Agree with Tomstickland above.

You need to look at the price of a kWh of gas on your current tariff. Then factor that by the efficiency of your boiler - as it is new you can probably use a figure of 90% if you don't have the actual figure. e.g the 'real' cost of gas supplied to you at, say 3p/kWh will be approx 3.33p/kWh for comparison purposes.

If 3.33p/kWh is cheaper than your E7 electricity then it obviously makes sense to use that for all water heating.

You then have to do some arithmetic to see if E7 is more economical than normal tariffs. That depends on where you live, the company you use and how much you use in the 7 hour night period and how much in the day.

I had exactly the same dilemma and worked out that it would be cheaper for me to move from E7 to 'normal' tariff.

As a general rule approx 30% usage on E7 is about the break-even point where an E7 tariff becomes viable.

buckrogers

hi thanks for replys

been a council house who do i get to remove Economy 7 meter council or electric provider?

Cardew

buckrogers wrote:

hi thanks for replys

been a council house who do i get to remove Economy 7 meter council or electric provider?

For myself I contacted British Gas - my supplier. They didn't change my meter, they just add both readings(E7 and 'normal') together and it is all treated as 'normal' for billing.

buckrogers

also i am with Scottish Power
night electric price per unit 4.437
day electric price per unit 8.844

Cardew

buckrogers wrote:

also i am with Scottish Power
night electric price per unit 4.437
day electric price per unit 8.844

Thats a good day rate but a poor night rate.

BG Standard Tier 2 Rates(depending where you live) are 12.181p to 14.845p & 2.537p to 3.382p(all incl VAT)

There are of course much cheaper tariffs than BG Standard.

Graham1

You will often find that suppliers with a good night rate have a poor day rate and vice versa. So for those who do have storage heaters it can pay to switch twice a year (when the heating goes on and off).