E7 and storage heaters storing at expensive rate

Premier_2

cherylvinson wrote: »

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

cherylvinson wrote: »

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

Check your meter to see which rate you are being charged at when the storage heaters are storing up heat.

It could simply be that your time switch which controls when you get cheap rate electricity is out.

You'll still be getting 7 hours cheap rate, but not at the times you were informed of. The advantage then would you would be getting cheap rate during the daytime ... and remember everything you use during the applicable period will be charged at cheap rate.
:beer:

cherylvinson

Hi Richie,

I am on EDF Blue+ price promise sept2013 (E7)

We do have hot water and cooking facilities, getting 24 hour meter readings is hard though as our meter is stored in a cupboard outside and is locked, the key is kept by one of the 4 offices below the 4 flats and they are not there a lot, generally when we are at work, if that :mad:


Photos below... thanks for your help with this...

Erm, I managed to get the photos on here but am not allowd to post them as I am a new user

The Timer this is an AMF Venner and the model appears to be a Vennerette MK11A

Our water heater timer is Kingshield, Model T23B-H and we can and do control this effectivly.

The LED light for our heaters went out at around 1.30pm I am now thinking that maybe the times / time switch for our E7 are messed up as sugested by Premier?
This is so confusing:o

Again, thanks for everyones help

Richie-from-the-Boro

I've got to go out with the grandkids, I'll be back later. For others trying to help that water heating seems at first sight to be nonE7 and must be costing at full rate instead of the night rate E7.

Kingshield Model T23B-H

Vennerette MK11A

Terrylw1

If you've got a radio telemeter hence the nightly signal update via the BBC is sent to show tomorrows settings, it could be either that or the time on the meter itself.

Can you see the time on the meter? Is it correct? If not, your supplier needs to get an engineer out to replace it. They will replace it liike-for-like but since radio teleswitch is being phased out it will be a time switch meter...so be careful it works the same or to a new regime you agre with, I've said this because you've got one of the less common E7 regimes known as a split differential.

If the meter time setting is correct, it might be the signal. Its known (and I've seen this on a lot of meters) that sometimes the signals are incorrect. They can be out by 15 mins but more unusually by 1 hour. Sometimes they can be left on Day or Night for longer or shorter than they should be. In some very unusual cases, they change Daily to show no complete pattern. So, have you monitored this over, say, a week to see if its a consistent problem or not?

Richie-from-the-Boro

cheryl, it seems to me you have :

- an E7 tariff
- but not an E7 system

The benefit of the E7 [proper] system is you have enough cheap priced stored water & heat to service your needs for most days of any year. You appear to have night storage heaters like this which you use for half the year. You should also have an E7 water heating system like this that you use for every single day of the year, and that represents a whole big saving because you have enough [too hot to touch] hot water at cheap rate even during the summer months.

Your water heating timer appears to be non-E7 and is not triggered by your [DNO] lets call it your leccy company, and so your costs will be high / very high, using this at full rate. As for the night heat store as Premier said you may well be getting most / but not all / of your 7 cheap rate hours but may be overlapping expensive rate because your clock is out or you have forgotten to move the summer / winter time settings. Or you may as others have said have a kerknockkerated manual [not telemetry] meter.

One thing for sure it should not be switching at out at around 1.30pm. I assume you are definitely E7 and not E10 because the E10 switching is [ish] 13.30 pm - 16.30 pm Scotland and a similar 13.00 pm - 16.00 pm England. It sounds to me like you in fact are on aggregated or split metering.

I do understand if you can't record your 24 hour figures, but without those its impossible for any of us here to do anything other than use an educated guess about your problem.

Terrylw1

If you are not wired for E7, its possible that the radio telemeter works as standard (but both rates still advance and are billed the same standard rate) as well as E7. If this is the case, your supplier can check if your Standard Settlement Configuration (SSC) works on Profile Class 1 or 2. If so, they can update you from PC 2 for your E7 to PC1 for a standard rate meter. This can be done as a tariff change and the distributor gets the PC update. This saves having to do a meter change but its not available to all SSC's in the market.

Need to know what triggers your heaters though...is is it when the meter starts recording on Night or not?