E7 and storage heaters storing at expensive rate

cherylvinson

Hiya.
I have been discussing with freinds the cost of electricity. We have a 1 bed flat with 2 people living in, we work 6 days a week and dont play computers etc.
Our monthlty DD is 75.00, this is at least double all my freinds costs who are all in simular situations.

I have done a lot of research over the last week and have discovered through speaking to Dimplex that my energy supplier (EDF) controls when my storage heaters store, this should be during our 7 hour cheap rate period but in fact they have been storing during my NOT cheap period.
I have of course contacted EDF regarding this and am waiting to hear from an engineer (3 days and 3 phone calls since I first logged this) to come and rectify the problem.

We have been in the flat 16 months and being nieve / new homeowners we accepted that storage heaters controll them selves.
Now i know this is not the case I am wondering where I stand with regards to getting a refund for all the expensive electricity we have used and paid for through no fault of our own. In short, as EDF controll the storage times, is it in fact there mistake for controling them to store at the expensive rate?:( if this is the case, do I have a chance of getting refunded some of the costs?

Advice would be really appreciated. Thanks

[Deleted User]

Hi, sounds like you have been getting "transposed" readings, night rate billed for day and vice versa. I dont think theres anything to be rectified if that is the case, you should be ok for a refund for overbilling.The Utilities themseves seem to have scant ideas themselves of how all the different meters work and neither do the meter readers.the best advice is for the householder to understand how their eco 7 meter works and if necessary label it, to stop meter readers c*cking in it up again

Terrylw1

So, the heaters have been on in the day? How long for, 7 hours or for 17 hours?

It could be that the meters time switch is wrong, but that would still, charge them at off peak rates.

So, if its been charged at peak rates, it points to several possibilities:

- your heating is wired incorrectly into the day circuit or the Sparky labelled the tails incorrectly.

- your readings are being transposed so they are charged at peak rate, but this wouldn't mean the heaters were one at peak times.

Can you provide more info as its not clear?

In terms of switching times:

- if its a time switch meter, the times are set on the meter on the "bench" based on a standard list.

- if its a radio teleswitch, the signal is sent nightly by the distributor.

The radio teleswitch is much harder to deal with since the signal can be sent with incorrect times. The supplier and engineer will not know much about this part as there are no national documents coveing these meters as they run based on pre deregulation agreements with regional companies.

Richie-from-the-Boro

cherylvinson wrote: »

Hiya.
I have been discussing with friends the cost of electricity. We have a 1 bed flat with 2 people living in, we work 6 days a week and don't play computers etc.
Our monthly DD is 75.00, this is at least double all my friends costs who are all in similar situations.

I have done a lot of research over the last week and have discovered through speaking to Dimplex that my energy supplier (EDF) controls when my storage heaters store, this should be during our 7 hour cheap rate period but in fact they have been storing during my NOT cheap period.
I have of course contacted EDF regarding this and am waiting to hear from an engineer (3 days and 3 phone calls since I first logged this) to come and rectify the problem.

We have been in the flat 16 months and being naive / new home owners we accepted that storage heaters control them selves.
Now i know this is not the case I am wondering where I stand with regards to getting a refund for all the expensive electricity we have used and paid for through no fault of our own. In short, as EDF control the storage times, is it in fact their mistake for controlling them to store at the expensive rate?:( if this is the case, do I have a chance of getting refunded some of the costs?

Advice would be really appreciated. Thanks

Assuming you and all your friends [comparison] are E7 all electric ................

- anyone on £37.50 per month energy costs is very unusual, very lucky and very efficient
- what do you cook with ? how is you water heated ?
- assuming you have recorded the two reading since you discovered the problem what are the 7 separate 24 hour readings?

Who submits your meter readings ? and what type of meter are you on ? - photograph it and put the photo on here so we can identify the meter and the reason the day / night readings are wrong.

chris1973

We have been in the flat 16 months and being naive / new home owners we accepted that storage heaters control them selves.

They do, to a certain extent - electrically at least. Wiring to storage heaters is generally kept seperate from the standard household wiring by using a seperate consumer unit, feeding each heater by way of a spur flex outlet on the wall next to each heater. The mains feed to the consumer unit feeding the heaters is generally switched by a timeswitch, which at the same time tells the meter to switch to its off peak reading.

So power to the storage heaters should only occur when the time switch is switched to 'off peak' hours, and at the same time, the meter will begin recording energy use on its 'off peak' tariff..

Therefore with the storage heater circuits only being presented with Electricity when the Timer (and meter) is recording off peak usage, its highly unlikely that they have been running 24/7 or outside the seven hour timed period using peak rate electricity.

Even if the contactor in the meter had 'stuck' permanently with the heater circuits energised, it would mean that the meter would also be stuck in the lower rate tariff also.

Storage heaters do use a lot of Electricity. On Npowers 5.3p per hour off peak rate, 3 large storage heaters in my flat still guzzle between £2.60 and £3.00 per night in Electricity between them.

Terrylw1

chris1973 wrote: »

They do, to a certain extent - electrically at least. Wiring to storage heaters is generally kept seperate from the standard household wiring by using a seperate consumer unit, feeding each heater by way of a spur flex outlet on the wall next to each heater. The mains feed to the consumer unit feeding the heaters is generally switched by a timeswitch, which at the same time tells the meter to switch to its off peak reading.

So power to the storage heaters should only occur when the time switch is switched to 'off peak' hours, and at the same time, the meter will begin recording energy use on its 'off peak' tariff..

Therefore with the storage heater circuits only being presented with Electricity when the Timer (and meter) is recording off peak usage, its highly unlikely that they have been running 24/7 or outside the seven hour timed period using peak rate electricity.

Even if the contactor in the meter had 'stuck' permanently with the heater circuits energised, it would mean that the meter would also be stuck in the lower rate tariff also.

Storage heaters do use a lot of Electricity. On Npowers 5.3p per hour off peak rate, 3 large storage heaters in my flat still guzzle between £2.60 and £3.00 per night in Electricity between them.

But only if the tails are wired to the correct consumer unit.

If its been on in peak times due to this...whilst suppliers will recalculate the % split...they forget about the extra heating so you have to make them aware they should be taking the hit or compromising if it was the Sparky.

chris1973

But only if the tails are wired to the correct consumer unit.

If the tails were mixed up, and if the E7 designated tails (which are only energised during E7 switched off peak hours) were connected to the main property consumer unit, then their sockets and lights etc, would only be operating during E7 hours.

I live in an E7 property, the 'main' consumer unit is energised 24/7, but the E7 tails are switched by the meter contactor during off peak hours only. If the tails were swapped over, then the main consumer unit would be working overnight only, and the storage heaters would be on 24/7

I think the OP may have noticed the inability to watch Coronation Street outside of E7 hours by now!.

Its extremely unlikely that the DNO would have fed both consumer units from one feed on a dual rate meter!. That would involve a henley block and more effort, and believe me DNO's do not like creating extra work for themselves!!.

I suspect that its down to either the Electricity supplier switching the Day and Night readings and charging the off peak usage at peak rates, as this is far more common than DNO's bridging meter tails to keep busy!.

I also suspect that its the OP's lack of experience in operating storage heaters, as they can be expensive if not used correctly, certainly thinking that £37.50 / month is a reasonable outlay in an Electrically heated property, is a little naive!. My Mother and Stepfather pay £35 a month in 'general usage' Electricity for a property which has a 91% Efficient gas combi boiler heating the water and radiators, and a new-ish gas cooker.

Terrylw1

chris1973 wrote: »

If the tails were mixed up, and if the E7 designated tails (which are only energised during E7 switched off peak hours) were connected to the main property consumer unit, then their sockets and lights etc, would only be operating during E7 hours.

I live in an E7 property, the 'main' consumer unit is energised 24/7, but the E7 tails are switched by the meter contactor during off peak hours only. If the tails were swapped over, then the main consumer unit would be working overnight only, and the storage heaters would be on 24/7

I think the OP may have noticed the inability to watch Coronation Street outside of E7 hours by now!.

Its extremely unlikely that the DNO would have fed both consumer units from one feed on a dual rate meter!. That would involve a henley block and more effort, and believe me DNO's do not like creating extra work for themselves!!.

I suspect that its down to either the Electricity supplier switching the Day and Night readings and charging the off peak usage at peak rates, as this is far more common than DNO's bridging meter tails to keep busy!.

I also suspect that its the OP's lack of experience in operating storage heaters, as they can be expensive if not used correctly, certainly thinking that £37.50 / month is a reasonable outlay in an Electrically heated property, is a little naive!. My Mother and Stepfather pay £35 a month in 'general usage' Electricity for a property which has a 91% Efficient gas combi boiler heating the water and radiators, and a new-ish gas cooker.

But still a possibility, just a much rarer one. I've only seen this very times but I don't think anything should ruled out just incase.

Transposition is very common due to all the isdues with meter operators making cheap decisions shoving conversion stickers on them to transpose the readings plus the freedom to appoint new data collectors has caused regionally inexperienced readers to cause transposition by not knowing about old meter operator dodges.

Since the OP has stated the heaters are being charged outside of the off peak period and they have spoken to the suppliet, its likely they have Bern given some times and they have noticed the heaters charging outside of the off peak.

We also need to know more about this since the OP has stated they have a radio teleswitch by explaining its supplier controlled (its not of course, its distribution) so it could be something else and the OP has been given incorrect times since suppliers are not very aware of the radio teleswitch mes out there. So the OP may have other issues.

Given a meter operator visit is required, if its transposition then the meter operators records are transposed...which is not the most common form of transposition at all.

cherylvinson

Wow, some of this is hard to understand.

We are on Economy 7 with EDF. Our cheap rates run from 10:30pm to 12:30am an again at 2:30am to 7:30am.

To clarify...

Although we are new homeowners, after the 1st scary quaterly bill we did a lot of research on how to use storage heaters efficiantly and use the input / output controlls well and have even had the bedroom (1 of 2) heaters off for the majority of the cold season! Poor use of the heaters is not the issue.

I am off today an got up at 9am the LED on the wall that inducates that the heaters are storing was on an is still on now at 12:10pm. This is not our E7 cheap period.
I am not sure when they will stop storing (I am looking for that today) but I know they are not storing 24/7 as the LED is off when we get in from work at around 5:30pm an stays off untill we hit the sack at around 11pm.

With regards to our consumer unit, we only have 1 and a VERY old looking dial thing next to it, on closer inspection it ha 4 dials that show the to and from times of our E7 times. I have checked my cheap times with EDF.

I have tried to add a photo but cant figure out how?

Sorry for being a little thick and thanks for all your help
Cheryl Now obsessed with storage heaters

macman

EDF do not control the cheap rate hours anyway-that is done by your regional DNO.
Put your pic up on a photo hosting site (eg photobucket) and then post a link to that.
£37.50pm is absurdly low for any form of electric heating, even with E7.

Richie-from-the-Boro

It starts from this group understanding what type [E7 / E10] of product you are on - what tariff you are on - and what meter you are on. Can I asume you have no hot water and no cooking facilities in the flat, and no 24 hour meter readings ?

In addition to the photo of the consumer unit & 4 dial thingy do you have a water heater timer that looks something like this or do you have anything with the word Hostmann on it ?

NOTE to the group: Yes I know there were many companies other than Horstmann, but Horstmann was the main one used for 30 or more years and makes available their pdf's which helps a newbie understand controllers .. .. .. so .. .. a good starting point.

Cheryl, you really need to (1) copy the 4 dial figures each 24 hour cycle and (2) relate them to the point at which the LED on the wall is ON/OFF. A couple of bits of foolscap and a pencil is all that's required.

- you take a photo
- put it on your puter
- send it here
- copy the link in the box called Direct Link for Layouts
- then paste that link using the MSE picture icon above the place you type in