Official MSE Economy 7 Guide discussion

eldaniel

I am on economy 10. Benefit of that is you get more hours at off peak rate but problem is competition is not existent and the rates are very high. therefore I doubt that we are making any savings thanks to that.
Can anyone tell me please if I can install storage heaters in each bedroom and connect it to economy 10 supply? at the moment in have storage heater in hall and one in living room, which is not enough to heat up my 2 bed flat in winter without using rubbish heaters (the ones pumping out hot air) in bedrooms and they cost a fortune to run.
My off peak hours are 13.30-16.30, 22.00-00.00 and 02.00 - 07.00. I calculated that we would possibly save £50-100 a year for switching to economy 7 cheapest tariffs. Not sure if it is worth the hassle, given that this is based on too many assumptions so not guaranteed saving plus I have heard so many stories when everything went wrong when people tried to switch from e7 to e10.

puuupi

Hi! I live with my 5 year old in 2 bed flat. I'm on Economy 7 with Scottish Power (Online Discounted Energy October 2013 v2 no standing charge). We live in West sussex. There are 3 old storage heaters in the flat - 2 small in bedrooms and one big in corridor. No heating in living room, so during winer we're using portable heater (afternoons and mornings). I'm paying £102 a month (for short time it was £69) and during last 12 months we used 9535 kWh. Just want to hear an opinion is it a lot or normal... as £102 sounds a lot for me. Washing machine is on during the day as to use it at night I'd have to get up very early or go to bed late and also because of safety (recently my sisters washing machine went on fire). We are home from midday, so all cooking, cleaning done during the day.

lstar337

puuupi wrote: »

Hi! I live with my 5 year old in 2 bed flat. I'm on Economy 7 with Scottish Power (Online Discounted Energy October 2013 v2 no standing charge). We live in West sussex. There are 3 old storage heaters in the flat - 2 small in bedrooms and one big in corridor. No heating in living room, so during winer we're using portable heater (afternoons and mornings). I'm paying £102 a month (for short time it was £69) and during last 12 months we used 9535 kWh. Just want to hear an opinion is it a lot or normal... as £102 sounds a lot for me. Washing machine is on during the day as to use it at night I'd have to get up very early or go to bed late and also because of safety (recently my sisters washing machine went on fire). We are home from midday, so all cooking, cleaning done during the day.

You should have a storage heater in your main living space!

1 storage heater in the hall, and 1 in each of the bedrooms?? I can't think of a bigger waste of a heating system!

See if you can get a storage heater fitted in your living room (you are paying premium for your portable heater), or failing that, try and get one of the others moved. There is no real need for the storage heaters in the bedrooms, use an electric blanket if you really feel the cold, and the one in the hall is a giant waste too.

Your flat is really poorly set up for heating, and something needs to be done about it. £120 is a little high, especially since I'm guessing that you are not exactly living comfortably.

Zacsmum

I live in a Council Bungalow, 2 bedrooms, with E7 heating. Except I can't afford it! This type of heating is so wasteful because the warmth has gone from the heaters by the time it's really needed - in the cold evenings.
During the day, even with the heaters shut down to zero, warmth is being emitted - a complete waste as I like fresh air, have windows open and kitchen door open as I and my dog are in and out of the garden a lot.
So all the radiators are switched off at the wall and I resort to woollen blankets around shoulders and legs plus the horrible hot-air electric fire fitted as standard in the living room and my lovely electric blanket to warm my bed before I get in!
Why do councils who profess to be eco-friendly, still insist on this useless and expensive form of heating? (Please don't bother trying to answer that!) I have been in touch, showing them the adverts for the German version of E7 heating - much neater, more adaptable to needs and cheaper to run. They ignore or send negative reasons why it can't be used.
Even my water is heated ALL NIGHT LONG!!! I now set my alarm to get up and switch it on at 6am, then switch off later in the day. This is all that is needed to give me hot water. However, if I have my grandchildren here and want to bath them before bedtime, there's no way of topping up the hot water - it will only heat during E7 hours.
I am currently paying £60 per month and being quite frugal in order to keep this figure from rising. I am dreading a really cold winter, as is forecast.

Cardew

puuupi wrote: »

Hi! I live with my 5 year old in 2 bed flat. I'm on Economy 7 with Scottish Power (Online Discounted Energy October 2013 v2 no standing charge). We live in West sussex. There are 3 old storage heaters in the flat - 2 small in bedrooms and one big in corridor. No heating in living room, so during winer we're using portable heater (afternoons and mornings). I'm paying £102 a month (for short time it was £69) and during last 12 months we used 9535 kWh. Just want to hear an opinion is it a lot or normal... as £102 sounds a lot for me. Washing machine is on during the day as to use it at night I'd have to get up very early or go to bed late and also because of safety (recently my sisters washing machine went on fire). We are home from midday, so all cooking, cleaning done during the day.

The crucial piece of information is what proportion of that 9,535kWh is at off-peak rates?

The £102 monthly is not an indication of overall costs as it is probably calculated to pay back a debit balance built up when you were paying £69.

In any case a total electrical consumption of 9,535kWh pa is not high when you consider many people will use 4,000 to 5,000kWh a year without using any for heating.(i.e. they have gas/oil CH)

Richie-from-the-Boro

Zacsmum wrote: »

HiYa Zacsmum,

because the warmth has gone from the heaters by the time it's really needed

- is that really the case, most of this is down to (1) user error or an (2) inadequate storage quantity of the cheap-rate stuff

I like fresh air, have windows open and kitchen door open

- that's a lifestyle choice not the heating systems fault ?

So all the radiators are switched off at the wall

- that's one option, a choice, your choice !

I have been in touch, showing them the adverts for the German version of E7 heating

- which German E7 heating ?, there is no German E7 night store heating !

I now set my alarm to get up and switch it on at 6am, then switch off later in the day

- again an option, a choice, your choice to self-limit the amount of cheap stuff you store, it has a thermostat to control itself,

I am currently paying £60 per month

- is indeed frugal, and totally unrealistic in an all electric dwelling. Its an option, a choice, your self imposed choice to live without heating

puuupi

lstar337 wrote: »

You should have a storage heater in your main living space!

1 storage heater in the hall, and 1 in each of the bedrooms?? I can't think of a bigger waste of a heating system!

I'm renting the flat and my landlady is not happy to change anything till it breaks...It took several long conversations to convince her to do wall insulation (and it was free). It's really cold and damp in here if heating is off in winter Last year we didn't put the hall one on and that £102 is without it. It sounds a lot for me, because the place I lived before had 2 storage heaters and my bills were £60 a month maximum. I was even thinking to pay for gas heating installation myself (all my neighbours have gas heating), but takes time to save...

I've just checked my old bills to see how much I use. The bill was for 3 winter months:night time - 1607kWh, daytime - 1095kWh. In summer it looks like that: night - 234kWh, day - 594kWh (3 month bill).

Just managed to read all the posts about eco7 heating, lots of good advice... will have to use some
And thank you for your opinion

HappyMJ

puuupi wrote: »

I'm renting the flat and my landlady is not happy to change anything till it breaks...It took several long conversations to convince her to do wall insulation (and it was free). It's really cold and damp in here if heating is off in winter Last year we didn't put the hall one on and that £102 is without it. It sounds a lot for me, because the place I lived before had 2 storage heaters and my bills were £60 a month maximum. I was even thinking to pay for gas heating installation myself (all my neighbours have gas heating), but takes time to save...

I've just checked my old bills to see how much I use. The bill was for 3 winter months:night time - 1607kWh, daytime - 1095kWh. In summer it looks like that: night - 234kWh, day - 594kWh (3 month bill).

Just managed to read all the posts about eco7 heating, lots of good advice... will have to use some
And thank you for your opinion

Your summer usage times 4 is 3,300kWh per year...exactly equal to the national average on a standard tariff....and your usage includes electrically heated hot water. The average on E7 including hot water is closer to 5,500kWh per year allowing for an additional 6kWh per night to reheat the hot water cylinder.

If you were to now take your winter bill then deduct your summer usage then you are only using 15kWh per night and about 6kWh per day on heating...that's pretty low. It's about enough for 1 storage heater charged overnight and an electric heater on it's maximum setting for 3 hours each evening. That's not much heating.

If you were to install gas central heating it will cost a lot more to run....mainly because you will have so much more heat. It will be comfortable....but at a price.

In my opinion your usage is low.

Cardew

Zacsmum wrote: »

I have been in touch, showing them the adverts for the German version of E7 heating - much neater, more adaptable to needs and cheaper to run. They ignore or send negative reasons why it can't be used.

As said above, there is no such thing as 'the German version of E7 heating'

There are some adverts that imply that their heaters are a form of storage heaters and are cheaper to run. The adverts change a lot every time the Advertising Standards Authority rule they are misleading. Most of these heaters cost several hundred pounds each, some well over a thousand, and give out no more heat(for the same running cost) than a £10 heater from Argos.

You have the cheapest form of electrical heating - including heating your water - albeit I accept that some people don't like storage heaters; and some people don't operate them correctly. £60 a month is way below the average for an all electric property.

You save virtually nothing by getting up to switch on your immersion heater. when leaving it on for the whole 7 hours a well insulated hot water tank will 'waste' next to nothing as the thermostat will have operated.

You could ask the Council to install a secondary immersion heater that will run off day-time electricity if you run out hot water; I am surprised one isn't already fitted.

restinproportion

I've read all this with much gratitude to all and will go away with a calculator and try to get my head around it. I'm now living alone in a relatively modern flat (20 years old), four flats to a floor, on the top of three floors. All therefore have at least two outside walls, at right-angles. It seems to me that insulation is very relevant to these discussions, but not seen it mentioned? This block, because of the slope of the land, has open garages beneath the two flats at the back (but not the front), and the corresponding flat to mine on the ground floor at the back (so over the open garage) pays more than twice as much as I do for power. The flats were originally designed for Economy 10, with a large storage heater in each living room, small one in each of the two bedrooms, and fan heaters on the wall in the kitchen and bathroom. Neither of the latter has ever been used in this flat, and nor have those in the bedrooms.
The water cylinder has two immersion heaters, one which works on the cheap storage rate and the other for top-up or emergency use. Again, it's never been necessary to use the top-up, as the cylinder is factory-insulated. It just comes on for a few minutes a couple of times in the night. If I'm away for a few days and turn it off before I go, the water is still warm when I come back.
The electricity meter shows not two but three readings, for day, night, and storage as well as the charge per day; the account has always been with Southern Electric on standard tariff Superdeal. As far as I can work out, this just means that power is available on the storage circuit for a few hours in the afternoon if needed. I've never lived in such a new building before, it is all sealed very tight and condensation can be a problem where the occupants don't use the trickle ventilation in the window frames; I have had to remove some of the insulation from the loft where the builders had just dumped masses and masses.
Like everyone else, I'd really like to find a fix but no other company seems to use a three-reading meter. I do have an ancient upright freezer that I'm planning to give to Emmaus when it's empty, but that's the only economy I can make apart from always just-one-cup-in-the-kettle. I'm in all day and feel the cold, but the big living-room heater has quite good controls (dials for input, output and a rocker switch to turn on the convector fan) and I've read the manual. Apparently there's a baffle above the firebricks which can be opened (the output) later in the day to increase the flow of warmed air, but it should be closed again at bedtime to keep the heat in the firebricks as it accumulates at the cheap rate. This seems to work very well, I pay £60 per month by DD and my account is always in credit. I've seen all the sales material from both the German companies that sell here, and now claim that their products can be used on the storage circuit. I'm told they are expensive to buy and as the existing ones work perfectly and have never needed maintenance there seems little point in replacing them. In theory at least, any 3kw/h heater would consume that same amount of power, but the German ones have more sophisticated electronic controls, so could be programmed more precisely to suit the occupants' times in the flat. Possibly being German they would always function perfectly but to me, that's just something extra I don't need which might go wrong eventually.
I've seen instructions somewhere on this site for making window quilts, but can't suggest anything extra otherwise for insulation. Many landlords now prefer all-electric properties for lettings, and I can quite see why - although the boilers probably have only a similar lifespan, there are no leaky radiators, no need for a gas certificate or carbon dioxide detector, and at £720pa for all heating, lighting and cooking my bill is well below average. I looked at the switching options through this site last year, but only npower would have saved a few pounds and they had such bad reviews that the effort and likely hassle didn't seem worthwhile.