Economy 10 electricity

ellie99

Hi all, I was wondering if any of you are on economy 10, and have any tips on how it works and which companies will quote for it?
I don't think I can use comparison sites for it. I've spoken to British Gas, but they said they only do economy 7. I'm with npower just now.
My new flat has old night storage heaters (no gas in the town).
I'm not even living there all the time, just some of the time, and now it's winter I'm leaving the heaters on low in case it turns frosty. I think it's expensive, about £100 per month, considering some weeks there's no-one there!
Any help would be appreciated.

HappyMJ

ellie99 wrote: »

Hi all, I was wondering if any of you are on economy 10, and have any tips on how it works and which companies will quote for it?
I don't think I can use comparison sites for it. I've spoken to British Gas, but they said they only do economy 7. I'm with npower just now.
My new flat has old night storage heaters (no gas in the town).
I'm not even living there all the time, just some of the time, and now it's winter I'm leaving the heaters on low in case it turns frosty. I think it's expensive, about £100 per month, considering some weeks there's no-one there!
Any help would be appreciated.

Get off E10 if you can. It's not competitive at all. All suppliers only have one tariff and all suppliers all charge about the same high charges. If you have storage heating you would be better off on an E7 tariff and if you have a heat pump you would usually be better off on a standard tariff. Then you can compare and switch whenever you find a better tariff.

If there is no one there then turn the heating off. You won't need background heating until the daytime temperatures drop below zero which is usually just late December and January. A night below zero will not cause any damage as the heat from the day will still be in the house keeping the fabric of the house above freezing. If you are worried about pipes bursting then make sure all pipes are well insulated and turn the water off as you leave.

FAI

ellie99 wrote: »

Hi all, I was wondering if any of you are on economy 10, and have any tips on how it works and which companies will quote for it?
I don't think I can use comparison sites for it. I've spoken to British Gas, but they said they only do economy 7. I'm with npower just now.
My new flat has old night storage heaters (no gas in the town).
I'm not even living there all the time, just some of the time, and now it's winter I'm leaving the heaters on low in case it turns frosty. I think it's expensive, about £100 per month, considering some weeks there's no-one there!
Any help would be appreciated.

E10 meters are different from E7 meters.
E10 gives you 3 periods of low rate electricity. The key is whether the tariffs are any good.
SSE, Eon and EDF currently do E10.
You can find EDF E10 tariffs online at the EDF site. They are not on comparison websites.
I got both EON and SSE E10 rates last week for the Reading area. Both needed me to find an expert at these companies. These are below.
So you can see that E10 suppliers are very few. EDF and SSE do one tariff only and EON does 3 but there is 2% difference between them.
EON told me that you have to use 40% overnight usage to make any saving against a standard (non-economy) tariff.
In comparison E7 tariffs are published in online comparison sites e.g. energyhelpline.
The key thing to estimate is what percentage of your usage you can realistically expect to use overnight.
You need to check the break even point yourself. For me the Scottish Fixed price to Nov 2014 tariff has a break even point at about 12%. This means if I choose the E7 version of this tarrif and use less than 12% electricity overnight I will pay more than on the non-E7 version of the tariff. But for every % overnight usage over 12% my bill we be reduced compared with the non-E7 version.
I have decided to go for E7 and not E10 but only after doing the maths myself.

Here are the E10 tariffs. For these you have to do the maths yourself. These are for the READING (RG) area so will differ slightly in your area.

SSE (E10 discounted tariff): standing charge 14.09 per day (monthly DD and paperless) high rate 16.61p/kWh; overnight 8.39p/kWh

EON (1 E10 tariff only): standing charge 21.56 per day + high rate 12.86p per kWh , overnight 6.34 p / kWh

I hope this helps. You are likely to conclude what HappyMJ says, but at least you will have something to sustantiate it if that is what you prefer.

ellie99

Thanks both FAI and HappyMJ for your replies.
I need to sit down with a calculator and a pen and paper! My bills from npower don't have a daily charge, it's added into the tariff, so needs working out.
I'm usually really good at sorting all my household things, but I've never had E10 before, and was feeling a bit lost.
I had hoped to replace the night storage heaters, with economy electric heaters, which have a programmable thermostat - the sales blurb for them says as they are programmable they use less electricity, and you would be on the cheapest standard tariff you can find. However, I was speaking to a guy who does Energy Performance Certificates, and he said he wasn't a fan, as they would be using electricity during the day to keep their temperature up -he would give an EPC a lower mark, which is not good if I want to sell in the future. I haven't managed to find any sort of website which gives guidelines on how different sorts of heating are graded, although someone must be making the rules. It's a government scheme - maybe the rules are secret!
Sorry for wandering off topic - I will do the sums tonight.

equitable

ellie99 wrote: »

Thanks both FAI and HappyMJ for your replies.
I need to sit down with a calculator and a pen and paper! My bills from npower don't have a daily charge, it's added into the tariff, so needs working out.
I'm usually really good at sorting all my household things, but I've never had E10 before, and was feeling a bit lost.
I had hoped to replace the night storage heaters, with economy electric heaters, which have a programmable thermostat - the sales blurb for them says as they are programmable they use less electricity, and you would be on the cheapest standard tariff you can find. However, I was speaking to a guy who does Energy Performance Certificates, and he said he wasn't a fan, as they would be using electricity during the day to keep their temperature up -he would give an EPC a lower mark, which is not good if I want to sell in the future. I haven't managed to find any sort of website which gives guidelines on how different sorts of heating are graded, although someone must be making the rules. It's a government scheme - maybe the rules are secret!
Sorry for wandering off topic - I will do the sums tonight.

I had hoped to replace the night storage heaters, with economy electric heaters, which have a programmable thermostat - the sales blurb for them says as they are programmable they use less electricity I had hoped to replace the night storage heaters, with economy electric heaters, which have a programmable thermostat - the sales blurb for them says as they are programmable they use less electricity.

It sounds like a Fischer type 'panel' heating system - you should halt and exclude such a consideration from your calculations.

HappyMJ

ellie99 wrote: »

Thanks both FAI and HappyMJ for your replies.
I need to sit down with a calculator and a pen and paper! My bills from npower don't have a daily charge, it's added into the tariff, so needs working out.
I'm usually really good at sorting all my household things, but I've never had E10 before, and was feeling a bit lost.
I had hoped to replace the night storage heaters, with economy electric heaters, which have a programmable thermostat - the sales blurb for them says as they are programmable they use less electricity, and you would be on the cheapest standard tariff you can find. However, I was speaking to a guy who does Energy Performance Certificates, and he said he wasn't a fan, as they would be using electricity during the day to keep their temperature up -he would give an EPC a lower mark, which is not good if I want to sell in the future. I haven't managed to find any sort of website which gives guidelines on how different sorts of heating are graded, although someone must be making the rules. It's a government scheme - maybe the rules are secret!
Sorry for wandering off topic - I will do the sums tonight.

Sure they use less electricity. About 20% less (my estimate) as you use the heaters when you need heat rather than heating the house overnight but the cost of that electricity is at least double the cost of E7 night rate electricity. The other cost to consider is how you heat your hot water. On an E7 rate or an all day tariff?

macman

Ripping out night storage heaters and replacing them with any other sort of electric heaters will massively increase your heating cost, probably by around 300-350% once you are no longer on E7. And you'll no longer have cheap rate hot water either.
All electric heaters are the same efficiency (100%) and cost the same to run for the same rated output. All modern electric heaters have a thermostat-a timer can be added for a few pounds if required.

equitable

Id like to know from the O/P precisely what are these :

>economy electric heaters, which have a programmable thermostat - the sales blurb for them says as they are programmable they use less electricity<

10-20 or 30% less electricity use is precisely 10-20-30% less heat.
Otherwise speculating on spending on them is comparing apples and camels !

ellie99

equitable wrote: »

Id like to know from the O/P precisely what are these :

>economy electric heaters, which have a programmable thermostat - the sales blurb for them says as they are programmable they use less electricity<

10-20 or 30% less electricity use is precisely 10-20-30% less heat.
Otherwise speculating on spending on them is comparing apples and camels !

I'm getting the impression some of you think I'm crazy for even considering other types of radiator, I'd always been told night storage heaters were not a good idea, so wanted to look at alternatives.
The link to what I was looking at - economy-radiators dot com.
My neighbour has these and is very happy with them so far. It's not that I'm desperate to rip out my heaters, but they're about 25 years old, bit rusty, and tbh often in the evening I'm not really warm enough, and it's not that cold yet.
Being all electric is new to me, and I'm just interested in the options available. I may eventually change to new night storage heaters, but can't make that decision until I know what's out there. Right now, I'm still getting my head round E10, and trying to get my bills down.

HappyMJ

ellie99 wrote: »

I'm getting the impression some of you think I'm crazy for even considering other types of radiator, I'd always been told night storage heaters were not a good idea, so wanted to look at alternatives.
The link to what I was looking at - economy-radiators dot com.
My neighbour has these and is very happy with them so far. It's not that I'm desperate to rip out my heaters, but they're about 25 years old, bit rusty, and tbh often in the evening I'm not really warm enough, and it's not that cold yet.
Being all electric is new to me, and I'm just interested in the options available. I may eventually change to new night storage heaters, but can't make that decision until I know what's out there. Right now, I'm still getting my head round E10, and trying to get my bills down.

The only thing I have against them is the price of them. They do use less electricity (only due to you using them when you need them rather than storing it overnight therefore wasting less) but they use electricity at a more expensive rate. However, these so called economy radiators cost over £1,000 for the entire house (and that's only 4 radiators). For about £40 you can go to any shop and buy 4 convector heaters and have exactly the same amount of heat for the same efficiency and you can use them whenever you want too. You can wall mount a convector heater and if you spend a little more you can buy a timer for a couple of pounds to make sure they are switched off overnight. You can also spend a little more such as £20 and have a better quality heater. There is no sense in spending as much as economy radiators want.

If you have E10 then you should be getting a few extra hours of heat in the early afternoon but at a much higher rate than E7. Work out the rates it isn't worth it.

equitable

economy radiators dot com - is, as suspected, the Fischer / WIBO product, I've read on this very site from unfortunates who admit they were foolish enough to purchase these products that the price per panel [ not storage - the do not store any heat ] heater is about £1200 and about £5000 - not the £1000 per dwelling quoted by HappyMJ.

A reply in that thread by davidj1964 said :

WARNING: Do not be tempted by Fischers brochure or salesman. We have just had six of their so-called storage radiators installed, replacing our Dimplex Night Storage Heaters, after seeing their advert in a national newspaper offering up to 40% savings.

It is the biggest mistake we have ever made! They do not heat our house half as well as what our storage heaters did and judging by our meter readings so far, they may even cost us more by the end of the quarter.

We have just wasted £5000 and there is nothing we can do to go back now. We have complained to Fischer that we are not happy but all they have done is phoned us to say that we are not using them properly, but we are using the initial recommended settings.

We know their is little chance of a refund so that we could go back to storage heaters.

Go and read the whole thread - best of luck ellie99