Electricity consumption

wobbler75

macman wrote: »

Then you need to reduce the output step by step as suggested. If it's at zero when you get up, you'll have no morning heating at all.

Exactly my thoughts...I'll have to experiment with the settings a little, I guess, find a balance that works, for the input AND the output. If I have the input too high, then presumably I run the risk of paying for leccy I dont actually need to use...too low and I'll run out of heating in the evening.

It make sense to turn output to a minimum when I go out in the mornings and turn it up when I get in, but it does also need to be on whilst the heaters are charging so the flat is warm when I get up.

With regard to the actual consumption - does 9,000kWh seem over the top for my night time use?

macman

No, it's about £1.20 per day. Your usage is perfectly normal.
If the output is at zero overnight then the heat output will be minimal when you get up, so yes you'll be cold. If you turn it down when you go out, you'll come back to a colder flat. Because it's only controlling preheated bricks, it's not as responsive as a conventional electric heater is.

wobbler75

macman wrote: »

No, it's about £1.20 per day. Your usage is perfectly normal.

That's what I feared...

I use 7 units per day for my daytime consumption, spread over 17 hours. I use 25 units per night for my night time consumption, over 7 hours.

In summer, I use only 3 units a night, and 31 in winter, meaning my storage heaters use 27 units per night. ouch!

(average figures...)

To put into perspective how much that is, my consumption for everything else combined over 24 hours without the heaters is approx 10 units, but with the heaters on, its approx 38 units. About 75% of my consumption is the heaters!

macman

But your E7 units are very cheap-about 5p per kWh. So 27 units is only about £1.35. And your hot water is also presumably being heated on E7 cheap rate.

HappyMJ

wobbler75 wrote: »

Exactly my thoughts...I'll have to experiment with the settings a little, I guess, find a balance that works, for the input AND the output. If I have the input too high, then presumably I run the risk of paying for leccy I dont actually need to use...too low and I'll run out of heating in the evening.

It make sense to turn output to a minimum when I go out in the mornings and turn it up when I get in, but it does also need to be on whilst the heaters are charging so the flat is warm when I get up.

With regard to the actual consumption - does 9,000kWh seem over the top for my night time use?

It depends on how warm you want the flat to be for that short period of time. When I had storage heating I'd get up turn the setting to max on the storage heater in the kitchen/diner and put the kettle on. Then go and have a shower using an electric wall heater, (still at cheap rates as it was early in the morning), then I'd go back to the kitchen turn the heater down to minimum. Make breakfast and lunch eat that (the breakfast) then go to work. I also had a convector heater in the bedroom to use whenever necessary again as it was early in the morning it was cheap rate.

9000 kWh is not excessive for your usage pattern.

wobbler75

macman wrote: »

But your E7 units are very cheap-about 5p per kWh. So 27 units is only about £1.35. And your hot water is also presumably being heated on E7 cheap rate.

Yes it is, and the washing machine only gets used on cheap rate too...it just seems that, at £90 a month, it's quite expensive for just me living on my own...or am I just being a little too optimistic with that?

HappyMJ wrote: »

9000 kWh is not excessive for your usage pattern.

The total yearly consumption of 11,500kWh isn't too bad, then?

grahamc2003

I take it your storage heaters aren't the large ones (3.6kwish)? I'd guess they were the smallest ones (about 2ft wide, 1.2kwish), but possibly the medium sized (about 3ft wide, 2.4kw).?

Just a few points - yes, your output setting DOES affect how much charge you take on at night. If set low, then you're unlikely to use all the charge during the day and evening, so still have residual heat, meaning you'd take on less heat the next night.

Seems madness to me the way you operate yours. You're chucking out loads of heat while you're asleep! I always - even on the colest nights - have the output set to zero before I go to bed - firstl;y so I'm not heating the place a lot while I'm asleep, and secondly so more heat gets stored for use later in the day. You won't fully charge your heaters if the output is set high at night!. Storage heaters in any case radiate heat even when the output is set to zero - all the output controls is the convective heat - the radiation is uncontrolable (that's why people complain about them 'leaking ' heat). With output zero and input set high, the heaters themselves are hot in the morning (meaning they're radiating quite a bit of heat).

Unless you want your flat hot while you're asleep or oput working, you'd be more economical to turn your output to zsro before bed, then turn it up when you get home. Sure, it may not be 80 when you walk through the door, but it wouldn't take long to warm up i8f the input has been set to max. (making reasonable assumptions). When you get up in the morning, it will certainly be cooler than you're used to, but you're bills would go down quite a bit if you could tolerate that. On really cold mornings, we put on a 1.5kw instant radiantr heater, still in the cheap rate - but that's exceptional, and I hope it won't be cold enough for that this year.

Also, having the input on full at this time of the year seems pretty extravagent to me, assuming you're in England. Ours aren't even on at all yet - but we have had the woodburner on most evenings for the last couple of weeks, just to heat the living room.

HappyMJ

wobbler75 wrote: »

Yes it is, and the washing machine only gets used on cheap rate too...it just seems that, at £90 a month, it's quite expensive for just me living on my own...or am I just being a little too optimistic with that?




The total yearly consumption of 11,500kWh isn't too bad, then?

Depends on your point of view. I think it's high but you like a warm flat all the time so it's not too bad for that. You can get it down quite a lot if you want.

Changing the input down doesn't make a huge difference as there should be heat left in the storage heater the next night. It won't use as much electricity to heat the bricks back up to max if they are still a bit warm. I'd rather know there is heat in there than having it run out at 9pm on a freezing cold night then having to turn on the convector heater at high daytime rates for a few more hours.

chris1973

It obvious that the consumption is down to the storage heaters, as I'm usually asleep during the cheap time and just about everything is off - but do they cost THAT much to run? There are only 3 heaters in the property.

With 3 storage heaters running on input '8' or '9' I use around 50 - 55 units per night. I'd love to reduce the input setting on these but probably would freeze. During the mid-winter I already use paraffin heating during the 'peak rate' Electricity periods as my daytime rates are hovering around 20p / KWH with Npower.

On the flipside, at least your Heaters keep you toasty warm in return for the outlay, so at least you are getting the full benefit and dont seem to need to use any additional heating at the more expensive daytime period. I only really benefit during the milder winter weekends as they are out of useful heat by early evening!. Then again, I am in an early 1900's built, stone walled farmhouse annex which is sat in the middle of a field in the Staffordshire Moorlands. Lovely in summer, bloody cold in winter.

maxmycardagain

check your timeswitch is set right to allow the NSR to ONLY get cheap rate leccy

is it digital or mechanical?

switch all heaters off for 24hrs so everything is stone cold, switch back on when you can keep feeling the heaters from about 5pm hourly, and check what your E7 hours are, they should stay stone cold till the start of cheap leccy be it 00.30 0r 01.30 hrs