E7 Meter Question

marsman802

Hi

I had an engineer come round because I didn't think my 2 rate electric meter was working correctly.

He then told me when he looked at it he didnt think I should have one because I don't have a storage heater anyway so no way I'd be better off with a 2 rate meter.

The house used to have a storage tank once upon a time but this was taken out prior to us moving in and a combi boiler installed instead.

He told me I could go back to my supplier and ask them to change this and if I got to a single rate meter I would be 15-20% better off than what I would currently be.

Is that right and any tips on pushing the issue with nPower as I don't think they'd be keen on this!!

thanks
marsman802

rogerblack

It's likely, yes. You may have to change your meter, and it may cost.
'no way' - this is somewhat debatable.
Dig out your bills.
Find out what you used (in kWh) for last year both at normal and cheap-rate.
Put this into a comparison site such as http://uswitch.org/ and then search for the cheapest offer on economy 7.
Repeat this excercise for the cheapest offer on a 'normal' tariff with the total number of units.
See which is cheaper for you.

marsman802

Hi roger!

thanks for that. I'm in a position of advantage actually because the current two rate meter is not clocking round on the night meter and the engineer told me its no good so I could use this to get a new meter out of npower free of charge.

So currently I have no sight of the night rate and he reckons everything is going through the day rate.

in that case I would surely save wouldn't I?

HappyMJ

marsman802 wrote: »

Hi roger!

thanks for that. I'm in a position of advantage actually because the current two rate meter is not clocking round on the night meter and the engineer told me its no good so I could use this to get a new meter out of npower free of charge.

So currently I have no sight of the night rate and he reckons everything is going through the day rate.

in that case I would surely save wouldn't I?

Not necessarily. If your night rate meter register is faulty then you got 7 hours of free electricity at night. If it had been working then it would have cost you around 12p/kWh on a standard rate.

It seems strange but I do not have storage heating but I do heat water at night and I still save with E7 electricity over standard electricity. So it depends on your day/night split if you would have saved or not. In any case the difference isn't that much. The issues where big bills are generated is where the day/night readings are read the wrong way around and then corrected and back billed.

[Deleted User]

Hi,

marsman802 wrote: »

The house used to have a storage tank once upon a time but this was taken out prior to us moving in and a combi boiler installed instead.

The main advantage of E7 is for electric storage heating, nothing to do with a storage tank.

HappyMJ wrote: »

Not necessarily. If your night rate meter register is faulty then you got 7 hours of free electricity at night. If it had been working then it would have cost you around 12p/kWh on a standard rate.

Not necessarily, could be that it was all going through day rate.

marsman802

ok thanks guys. I'll try and clarify just where all the usage is going - the engineer thought it was all going through the day rate (as did npower) but obv I want to confirm that before anything changes!

The engineer told me to tell npower a friend told me not him lol as it could cost them quite a bit if the single rate is cheaper...!

[Deleted User]

Hi,

the single rate will be cheaper per day unit, but it will depend on your day/night usage whether overall it is cheaper for you.

Go on to your supplier web site and get their prices for E7 and standard, and compare.

macman

You don't necessarily have to change the meter to switch to a single rate tariff-many suppliers will just total the readings from a dual rate meter.
Unless you are using around 30% on cheap night rate, it's unlikely that E7 will save you anything.
Until you dig out your annual % figures for each rate, no one can really tell.