Electricity increase, Scottish power comfortplus white metre

Cucumber3

Hi

I'm looking for some advice on 2 issues- an increase in my electricity use this winter (dec 12-feb13) compared to the same period last year and my storage heater.

I'm currently on a prepay Scottish power metre on comfort plus white meter. Im in a 1 bedroom flat with just electricity & 2 storage heaters, hall & living room. I did notice this winter I'm having to top up about £50-60 a month which I'm sure was more than last year.

I've just received a statement which says for the period mentioned above I have used 1619kwh compared to 781kwh last year & I don't understand why! Most of my usage seems to come from the control rate (1181 kwh costing £71). My night rate only used 101kwh (£7) and my day rate 337kwh (48).

The only thing different from last year is that I had an element removed from the storage heater in the living room. It kept tripping overnight (leaving the flat freezing the next day). The electrician said it was a faulty element & so removed one, leaving 3.

It has now started to trip again randomly on some nights. On the nights that it doesn't trip it seems to be quite warm in the morning but I'm always cold at night as it seems to run out of heat in the early evening. I normally have output at 1 in the morning & turn it up high when I come in from work but i dont really notice a difference in the heat coming out when i change the output. The input is on maximum as if I put it any lower I get hardly any heat. It's a dimplex & quite old I think.

Sorry for the long post & thanks for any replies! I'd really appreciate some advice.

penrhyn

Get a qualified electrician ( preferably not the same one as before) in to inspect the heater. It may have reached the end of its life an need replacing. Modern storage heaters are better at retaining heat than the old ones. Slimmer too.

http://www.dimplex.co.uk/products/domestic_heating/installed_heating/storage_heaters.htm

Cucumber3

Thanks for your reply Penrhyn. Obviously the heater is faulty as it's tripping but I can't understand why removing an element would increase my electricity usage. The electrician who looked at it before said there was another element which was heating up a bit more than the others so if this became a problem he could remove it too.

It's a rented flat so I'll speak to my landlord about getting someone in to look at it. I think they would prefer fixing the current one as new ones seem very expensive!

penrhyn

Regarding your usage, check that the White meter timer, if you have one is switching at the appropriate time.

Richie-from-the-Boro

Cucumber3 wrote: »

Hi

I'm looking for some advice on 2 issues- an increase in my electricity use this winter (dec 12-feb13) compared to the same period last year and my storage heater.

I'm currently on a prepay Scottish power metre on comfort plus white meter. Im in a 1 bedroom flat with just electricity & 2 storage heaters, hall & living room. I did notice this winter I'm having to top up about £50-60 a month which I'm sure was more than last year.

I've just received a statement which says for the period mentioned above I have used 1619kwh compared to 781kwh last year & I don't understand why! Most of my usage seems to come from the control rate (1181 kwh costing £71). My night rate only used 101kwh (£7) and my day rate 337kwh (48).

The only thing different from last year is that I had an element removed from the storage heater in the living room. It kept tripping overnight (leaving the flat freezing the next day). The electrician said it was a faulty element & so removed one, leaving 3.

It has now started to trip again randomly on some nights. On the nights that it doesn't trip it seems to be quite warm in the morning but I'm always cold at night as it seems to run out of heat in the early evening. I normally have output at 1 in the morning & turn it up high when I come in from work but i dont really notice a difference in the heat coming out when i change the output. The input is on maximum as if I put it any lower I get hardly any heat. It's a dimplex & quite old I think.

Sorry for the long post & thanks for any replies! I'd really appreciate some advice.

- the biggest heater, the 16 bricker - 3.4kW has 4 of these, 850 Watt x 4 = 3400
- running a continuity test [15-20 ohms] from the switch through the heater might have identified that particular element as 'open'
- in which case they're about £9 trade, why remove, why not just change ?
- the overheat cutout may have been triggering, removing 1 element may cure the overheat trigger
- changing the overheat cutout & installing a new element would be the proper and cheap way to sort the problem

If you put clothes to dry on these heaters - they will always cut out - cutting out is better than burning your house down. They're a pretty crude box~o~bits, I've never understood why sparkies are terrified of them.

NOTE : To the group & the O/P - I stated a 2500 3 element [3 x 850 = 2550], but meant a 3400 4 element - sorry - corrected !

Cucumber3

Thanks for your replies guys.

The electrician definitely said there were 4 elements in it but I wasn't in the house at the time he was working on it! I'll organise someone else to come and have a look at it.

I should also have said i'm on E10 so get cheap electricity during the night (which is fine and has used 101KwH in 2 months apparently) but also get cheap electricity during the day for a couple of hours. This is just for my storage heater and are the control units. These times seem to be decided based on the weather so i've no idea when they actually are. I'm going to phone up Scottish Power tomorrow as this is where i'm really confused. Apparently I have used 1181KwH on these in 2 months.

Wywth

Cucumber3 wrote: »

...It's a rented flat so I'll speak to my landlord about getting someone in to look at it. ..

Perhaps you should have done that in the first place

Lets hope the LL doesn't deduct the damage your employed contractor has caused from your deposit.

Cucumber3

It was my landlord who organised the last electrician. I just meant getting someone back in again to look at it.

Richie-from-the-Boro

Cucumber3 wrote: »

It was my landlord who organised the last electrician. I just meant getting someone back in again to look at it.

- get him to test the stat first, if the stat has 'gone wild' the cut-out will come in to protect
- if the stat's ok go for the cut-out [less than £10] - its usually the stat, but that almost always results in never switching on at all

Scottish_Power

Cucumber3 wrote: »

I'm going to phone up Scottish Power tomorrow as this is where i'm really confused. Apparently I have used 1181KwH on these in 2 months.

Hi Cucumber3 If you e-mail us at [EMAIL="social@scottishpower.com"]social@scottishpower.com[/EMAIL] we can help Thanks David

Maathai

Mate. Qualified electrical will be best for you. Modern storage heaters are best to meet the demands and requirements you need. It save electricity and power. More electricity usage can provide you unexpected loss. So hire someone to check it properly.