Keeping the house warm is costing a fortune

echoecho_2

As well as the good points that everyone else mentioned, a friend of mine tops up her prepayment meter in a similar way to paying by Direct Debit. She puts in the same amount of money each week even during Summer when she's not using much and when she gets to winter she has a buffer built up to cover the increased cost. This may be a good idea for you too if you don't already do this.

The amount of gas I use in winter more than doubles in comparison to Summer and I bet it'd give me a big shock if I paid on demand.

BorgleBoo

jalexa wrote: »

The storage heaters are switched to a guaranteeed minimum schedule and boosted according to the weather. ALL storage heater consumption is at the low rate.

All permanently wired panel heaters and a permanently wired living room focal point fire use low rate electricity 24 hours a day

I checked this empirically. During "on-peak" I waited for the storage heaters to come on and checked the meter, and the Kwh did indeed add to the lower rate.

jalexa wrote: »

All your other consumption is day rate 24 hours a day.

What does this mean? What is the function of "off peak" if everything always costs the same?

My understanding is that if I turn on the toaster between 2030 and 0030 it will cost less than if I do so at 1830.

Is this not the case?

jalexa

BorgleBoo wrote: »

What does this mean? What is the function of "off peak" if everything always costs the same?

My understanding is that if I turn on the toaster between 2030 and 0030 it will cost less than if I do so at 1830.

Is this not the case?

THTC is quite difficult to find easy information about so I stand to be corrected in what I say (please somebody), but until corrected what I say I believe to be correct.

Unlike E7, with THTC (or E10) your lights and sockets are not low rate during "off-peak" hours. However with THTC (but not E7 or E10) your permanently wired panel heaters and permanently wired living room focal point heater are low rate 24 hours per day.

I realise how complicated this is, its not impossible it is all too complicated for the HA and even the Hydro-Electric "adviser" you spoke with didn't understand enough:( to reassure you the storage heater top-up was at the low rate.

Regarding your "off-peak" question, IIRC originally "off-peak" tariffs only ever heated storage heaters and water "off-peak", not sockets and lighting. If you want all consumption low-rate "off-peak" you need E7.

Up to you how you try to make sense of this. Not easy, even for "experts". I would advise you to check at an "on-peak" time, which register any permanently wired panel heaters are affecting.

BorgleBoo

jalexa wrote: »

Regarding your "off-peak" question, IIRC originally "off-peak" tariffs only ever heated storage heaters and water "off-peak", not sockets and lighting. If you want all consumption low-rate "off-peak" you need E7.

Up to you how you try to make sense of this. Not easy, even for "experts". I would advise you to check at an "on-peak" time, which register any permanently wired panel heaters are affecting.

So in that case the quoted off-peak hours they gave me are meaningless. The advisors on the phone didn't seem very clear on how all of this works. I phoned them back today to ask them how THTC works, and their replies had a lot of "My understanding is...." in them. I don't think they knew.

If everything always costs the same, there are basically no savings to be made except by using what I have more efficiently or reducing consumption. Finally figuring out the output control on the storage heaters will help a little.

But if turning on the cooker or the hoover is always and forever going to cost me 17p per Kwh, my electricity bills are always going to be huge. If what you say is accurate, I am paying through the nose for everything else for the "privilege" of paying a reasonably cheap 8p per Kwh on the storage heaters.

And yet, even with this "cheap" rate the storage heaters still account for easily 80% of my £190 per month winter electricity bill!

I'm not so sure this tariff is actually a very good deal.....

jalexa

BorgleBoo wrote: »

If everything always costs the same, there are basically no savings to be made

Sorry (harsh I know) what is it about "permanently wired panel heaters and permanently wired living room focal point fire are low rate 24 hours a day" which is not clear?

If your home does not have "permanently wired panel heaters etc..." you have been cheated by the HA not Hydro-Electric.

BorgleBoo

jalexa wrote: »

Sorry (harsh I know) what is it about "permanently wired panel heaters and permanently wired living room focal point fire are low rate 24 hours a day" which is not clear?

If your home does not have "permanently wired panel heaters etc..." you have been cheated by the HA not Hydro-Electric.

My home does have permanently wired panel heaters and storage heaters. I do not use the panel heaters due to their enormous cost.

My point is that if there are not variable prices per Kwh during the day then it is not going to be possible for me to economise further than I am already doing. By "everything costing the same" I mean each electrical item in my home will always cost the same to run. So heaters are always low rate, and sockets are always high rate.

Ergo I will not be able to reduce my bills by timing my usage to off-peak periods.

BorgleBoo

I should also add I have tested what you said about on-peak/off-peak.

I waited till one of the times Scottish Hydro said were offpeak and had the wife turn on the oven hobs. Watching the meter I could see quite plainly the Kwh were added to the expensive rate.

So Scottish Hydro were talking cobblers. There are no on-peak/off-peak times on this tarriff.

However, looking at the meter we consume 4x as many Kwh running the heaters and hot water as we do everything else. As expensive as it is, maybe this is still the cheapest way to run a house with electric heating.

I've made a note of my meter readings and I'm going to plot my cheap-rate and expensive-rate consumption levels over the next few days.

jalexa

BorgleBoo wrote: »

My home does have permanently wired panel heaters and storage heaters. I do not use the panel heaters due to their enormous cost.

And what is the unit price charged for the panel heaters? I suspect you don't know but here is your chance to inform the Forum (and me:D) of a little known fact.

The problem with your discussions with Hydro-Electric is that you are using different definitions of "off-peak". You are expecting all your consumption during "off-peak" hours to be cheap rate as would be the case with E7, (but not E10), except you are not on E7. However when you refer to "off-peak" in discussion with Hydro-Electric the adviser may well be restricting comment to the storage heaters and main water heating.

This THTC thing is unusual and quite complicated. It does not surprise me that the usual adviser used to E7 hasn't a clue. You need to speak with a THTC specialist.

And it is the HA which has made the decision to wire their homes for THTC rather than E7, which it seems is what you would prefer. Though you may be misguided about that since you should be benefiting from 24 hour low rate on your panel heaters.

BorgleBoo

jalexa wrote: »

And what is the unit price charged for the panel heaters? I suspect you don't know but here is your chance to inform the Forum (and me:D) of a little known fact.

The digital meter in my cupboard gives me the rates. It would seem the panel heaters are priced at the same rate as the storage heaters: 8.96p per kwh.

Most of my panel heaters are permanently off at the wall and several of them are behind items of furniture due to never being used. Even at this rate I find them a very expensive way to heat house

jalexa wrote: »

And it is the HA which has made the decision to wire their homes for THTC rather than E7, which it seems is what you would prefer. Though you may be misguided about that since you should be benefiting from 24 hour low rate on your panel heaters.

I don't know that I would prefer E7. I would prefer my winter electricity costs to not be £190 a month.

However, it seems like that is par for the course on a 3 bedroom house with electric heating in winter.

PS - The original woman I emailed just emailed me back and confirmed that there are no on-peak or off-peak periods that vary during the day, and that she was in error to tell me that there were. Apparently I basically have two meters priced at different rates, and nary do the twain meet Heating and water go to the cheap one, everything else goes to the expensive one (which is charged at 17.10p per kwh).

I think its not so much that THTC gives you cheap electricity bills when you have electric-only heating, but rather that it stops you from having mind blowingly crippling electricity bills!

I guess electrical heating is just a real expensive way to put heat into a house however you slice it.

What I wouldn't give for a nice coal fireplace right about now!

pothole50

BorgleBoo wrote: »

I don't know that I would prefer E7. I would prefer my winter electricity costs to not be £190 a month.

However, it seems like that is par for the course on a 3 bedroom house with electric heating in winter.

I guess electrical heating is just a real expensive way to put heat into a house however you slice it.

What I wouldn't give for a nice coal fireplace right about now!

£190 a month is expensive, what you need to know is how to slice it more economically.