First time renting: electric E7 heating - help?

gaplonk

Hello experts,

I'm a newbie - first time renting, first time on the MSE forums, first experience with E7 heating. Sorry if I'm asking obvious questions - I did trawl the forums first but couldn't find what I was looking for.

I'll be moving into a flat with my toddler next month. It's top floor, built in the 1970's, 2 bedrooms, single glazing, electric heating with storage heater. I've used gas central heating up til now and I don't understand how electric E7 works. Really worried it'll be freezing cold for the little one, and I can't really afford to spend more than £50 per month.

The current landlord said that with EDF, the previous bill (for light-moderate usage) was only £200 for the whole year. She said it was 15p per unit for the day rate, and 5p for the night rate. Does that sound about right or ridiculously cheap? And if I stuck with EDF, would the costs be similar for the coming year?

In essence, what I'd like to know is:

1) How much should I expect to pay per month, given that I work 3 days per week, will probably be at home for 2/3 of the rest of the time and have two bedrooms to heat?
2) Should I consider switching energy providers?
3) I need to make sure there's hot water at about 7am and 6pm - do I use timers to do this?
4) I've heard people say that the storage heaters 'leak' heat during the day - does this mean it'll be cold in the evenings, or is there anything I can do to insulate the storage heater better to prevent this?
5) Should I consider Economy 10 heating?

If anyone has any tips or advice I'd really appreciate it! Thanks.

grahamc2003

Hmmm, I think you'll be pretty lucky to get through the next quarter for £200.

Depending on many factors (the main one being how warm you like the place), I'd budget for at the very least twice what your landlord told you, and probably four times.

The unit rates quoted are roughy in the right ballpark, give or take.

Sorry if that's not what you wanted to hear.

Keep a close track of what you use (say take a meter reading every week, at the same time (say 10pm on Sundays), then it's simple to work out how much you have spent if you know the rates you are paying (which you can get by ringing your supplier). Post the info here and someone will work it out for you.

jalexa

gaplonk wrote: »

2) Should I consider switching energy providers?

Regarding "first time renting", when you move in it is important to note the meter readings. I recommend you take a photograph. With E7 there are two registers to read, depending on the type of meter it may or may not be clear which is "night" and which is "day".

Then you need to contact the current supplier to set up an account. The supplier will ask you for the readings. There are not huge switching savings to be made for E7, but there will be modest savings if you agree to pay by Direct Debit. Be aware that currently Edf has a "dysfunctional" billing system.

Unless you understand what you are doing, beware "guaranteed discount" or "deferred discount":eek: tariffs. As long as you don't sign up to a tariff with a fixed or minimum term you are free to switch at any time. Post again if you have any questions.

chris1973

Everybodies' situation is different, as is the insulation level in dwelling to dwelling.

I'm currently in accomodation with E7, and yes I during the worst parts of last winter I found it expensive, often topping up the pre-pay with as much as £90 - £120 per month. Most of this usage was not only the E7, but the supplementary electric heating that I needed to use outside of the E7 period when the dwindling heat output from the storage heaters was no longer enough to maintain a comfortable level of heat - ie mid to late evening.

There is a lot of debate about for how long Storage heaters actively consume current for during their 7 hour 'on' period, before they reach their set temperature and begin to cycle on/off using their thermostats.

As a rule of thumb, from my personal experience (and meter readings) running 3 storage heaters in a one bedroom property, all set at 7 - 8 on the 'input' control comsumes a total of roughly 50 - 55 E7 units per night. At 5.3p per unit for E7 rates, 55 units would cost around £2.91 per night to heat all 3 heaters, or £87.45 per 30 day month.

At your slighty better unit price of 5p per E7 unit, the same 55 units would cost you £2.75 per night, for 3 similar sized storage heaters. So i'd be budgeting at least this amount for heating before taking into consideration your other general electricity usage.

In some properties the heat from these might be enough to heat the house all day and evening as well, in others it might not be. In mine, during the times of year when the temperature dropped below freezing during the early evening, it wasn't enough and I was arriving home from work I was faced with an evening of indoor temperatures of 15 - 16c, despite the damper on the heaters being opened to full upon my arrival. So I had no option but to use additional fan / convector heaters to bring up the room temperature to a comfortable level and this was where the expense began, as I was paying nearly 4 times the price for 'daytime' electricity as I was for E7 (5p E7 vs 18p Peak as at Feb 2011)

I found the 'daytime' price of heating with Electricity so crippling, that I actually went out and bought a high-Tech Paraffin heater, because this 'old' method of heating is around 1/3 of the price of Daytime Electricity - at my rates anyway!.

I wouldn't actively recommend you go out and get one of these paraffin heaters, certainly not with having a baby around, but Electricity remains on of the most expensive methods of heating there is - at Daytime rates at least.

The property i'm in is an annexe of on old farm house, so I would hope the insulation is better in a 1970's built property, so you may find the storage heaters are adequate as a sole form of heating for your property, and you dont have to resort to topping up the heat in the evenings with extremely expensive daytime rate electric heating. There is no other way of knowing this though until it gets cold and you actually put the storage heaters to the test and physically find out, as all properties are different.

I assume that with 2 bedrooms and a living area, you will be using at least 3 storage heaters (possibly 4 with a bathroom?) so based on my £2.91 findings for heating 3 heaters, I would be budgeting for at last this amount, or £3.60 - £4.00 a night if you are using four heaters. This doesn't include other daily consumption for other things like immersion heater, washing machine, lights, TV, cooker, shower etc.

I seriously doubt the claims of heating an E7 property for £200 a year, unless the previous tenants moved to their Property in Spain for the winter months! , in fact I find the claim laughable, even a non electrically heated property of the same size would be consuming 3 - 4 times this amount per year in general usage. At 15p per unit in the day, your property would have to be consuming around 3 units of Electricity per DAY and nothing at all at night to match the £200 estimate, even washing a few loads in a washing machine will use more than 3 units, a 5 - 10 minute shower will use about 1.5 - 2

gaplonk

Just wanted to say a massive thank you to everyone who has replied so far. It really helps, knowing something of what to expect. Will have to tighten the belt even more and budget lots more for energy consumption.

Thanks again everyone.

spiro

gaplonk wrote: »

The current landlord said that with EDF, the previous bill (for light-moderate usage) was only £200 for the whole year.

The place must have been empty to only use £200 in a YEAR. As the top floor you will gain from some heat rising from below but this can be more than offset by the loss through the roof if you have poor insulation plus you dont have double glazing.

Dont put the water heater on during the day, have it on overnight (cheap elec) and make sure the tank is well insluated. Remember each unit you use in the day costs 3 times that used at night.

jalexa

gaplonk wrote: »

4) I've heard people say that the storage heaters 'leak' heat during the day - does this mean it'll be cold in the evenings, or is there anything I can do

This was alluded to by Chris1973, if your model of storage heater has "controls":( make sure the "output" control is set at minimum except when you need a boost of what little heat is left:D (some do that "automatically").

Set the "input" control to minimum initially and increase it gradually in cold weather or when you feel more heat is required (the following day).

spiro

Looking at your post again £50pm/£600pa would probably not be enough for a gas/elec property (average is now £1000), especially a poorly insulated one. For an all elec one I would guess it would be quote a lot higher.

If you used it all at night £600 will buy you 12000kwh or 4000kwh if all used during the day. With a fifty/fifty split in units you'll get 3000kwh pa which is less than the average which is 3300kwh.

Gas gets you more kwh per penny than elec so you needed to have factored this into your costs.

boysim34

Some people have already said to keep the output as low as possible, and the input low. the thing is are you storage heaters automatic or manual. we have 2 manual and 3 automatic heaters ( by that i mean they have a thermo stat out side the heater ) if they are set too low you will not get the heat out at night when you need it. i tend to always look at the weather forcast for a day in front and if it's getting cold we turn them up. another thing we do, is the storage heater in the hall we put on a full charge ( 2kw heater ) input at max, but then we leave the output on 1 all the time and we find we can turn the others down. o and yes we get through about £100-120 per month during the winter months

dogshome

Hi gaplonk - Unless there is something about this building we don't know, £200 a year for a 2 bed flat with ECO7 heating seems very wide of the mark - £1200+ a year would be more likely

However you do know that EDF are the current supplier, so phone them and ask what record they have for the number of Day/Night Kwh the flat used in the previous 12 months.

As a 'new' account EDF will automatically put you on an expensive Standard tariff, so as soon as you have the numbers from EDF, pop them into a Switch site