Excessive electricity costs

neas

Elibrown wrote: »

We had the meter installed as in our previous property we were sometimes getting bills of £300 a quarter for electric ( mid 90's ) so at least we know where we stand now.

I think you answered your own question.

macman

So you've got rid of your storage heaters, and replaced them with an overpriced convector (prettier it may be, cheaper it most certainly is not)? But you are still on an E7 tariff, so you are now paying peak rate charges to run that heater (and any other heating) during the day? Your heating bills will rise by around 250% in that case.
NB: your usage is obtained from the meter, you just cycle through the displays-or ask your supplier.

spiro

You put the immersion heater on in the 'early evening' when you are paying a premium rate for electricity, thats going to push your costs up.
Suggest you read your meter once a day for the next week and post the day and night readings on here with dates. That will allow people so assess your usage and also determine if an E7 tariff is right for you.

macman

PS: what hours are you running the Fischer? Anything other than the seven E7 hours between midnight and 8am are costly.

Elibrown

All the economy 7 wiring is gone. Only the meter remains and not for long. I did scroll through the meter last night and the normal electric rate is 18 point something pence. The heater is Roinke and on all the time at the moment. I am gong to program it tonight to come on for a couple of hours in the morning and evening. The heater is only 900 or 1000 watts.

macman

But my point is that you are still apparently on an E7 tariff. If the Roinke is on for those 4 hours then it's always at peak E7 rate.
One 1kWh convector cannot possibly replace several storage heaters.
It's not always necessary do change the meter in order to change from E7 to single rate.

KTF

What tariff are you on from your supplier at the moment as stated on your bill or online account?

HappyMJ

KTF wrote: »

What tariff are you on from your supplier at the moment as stated on your bill or online account?

I would as a wild guess based on the information so far say EDF's E7 prepayment meter tariff. An OK tariff but there are better.

Elibrown

KTF wrote: »

What tariff are you on from your supplier at the moment as stated on your bill or online account?

On E7 on a key meter

chris1973

I did scroll through the meter last night and the normal electric rate is 18 point something pence.

At 18p per unit, a 1000 watt heater would cost 18p an hour to run, as if it is currently on 24 /7 then 24 hours x 0.18p = £4.32 per day potentially consumed by this heater alone

Okay so on the E7 tariff there will be 7 hours where it will be running at cheap rate off peak, but even so....

7 hours (off peak) @ 6p per unit = £0.42
18 hours (peak) @ 18p per unit = £3.24

Total £3.66 per 24 hour day on E7 tariff where the one 1kw heater is left running continuously

Yes it has a thermostat but if its attempting to heat up the entire house singlehandidly or expected to heat up a large space such as a hallway with frequently opening internal and external doors, then it won't be switching off for long!

Is the mystery solved yet?

Compared to a more powerful and conventional 3.4kw storage heater running 7 hours per night on a full input setting using cheaper off peak electricity

3.4kw x 7 hours = 23.8kwh (units) x 6p per unit = £1.43 per night

The Ronte may look nicer, but note at what price comes cosmetics?

Also enter in the room(s) dimension(s) which this heater is expected to heat, using a room size calculator

http://www.qvsdirect.com/kW-Heating-Calculator-p-50.html

This will show you in KW how much energy the room needs to keep it warm in mid winter.

Since you can't change basic physics, the figure which the calculator gives will remain the same whether you use gas, horse manure, peat, electricity, oil filled radiator, fan heater, paraffin, LPG or 2nd hand panels from the starship enterprise to produce the heat.

In Addition, why is your immersion heater running all night?. It generally only takes a 3kw immersion around 90 minutes to heat a full tank of water, so having it heat up, and then cycle on/off periodically all night keeping it warm when everyone is asleep is a waste of time and money. Set it to come on 90 - 120 minutes before the first person is due to require any hot water!.

Either way, you will pay through the nose in an all electric property. Currently you pay 18p kw/h for Electricity, compared to somebody with Gas Heating / Hot water who pays 4p kw/h