Official MSE Economy 7 Guide discussion

Upwind

harryhound wrote: »

Economy-8 or do you mean 7 hours somewhere within these limits in GMT.?



Does 1 mean cheap rate?
Is the clock mechanical and does it give off a rattling noise as it ticks over?
Presumably it has 4 tabs, but these are set to turn on and off only once per day?.

Beware the clock might be on its last legs and each day it slips a little or a lot. The upside is that it will be cheap at more sociable times of day; the downside is that you could be doing something using a lot of electricity, thinking you are within the cheap rate, when you are not.
Beware of meter readers reading the meter the wrong way round.
When the the clock eventually dies you might be able to revive it with a good slap, especially as the odds are that it will die on full rate electricity.

There are two rates with Rate 2 being the E7 rate.

Clock is mechanical and does give off a slight rattling noise. Can only see two small metal tabs on the outside of the 'clock face' - one saying On and the other Off. You may be right that it is slipping - last night went home and it went onto E7 about 7.30pm and stayed on it through the evening - again I did all my electric sapping stuff like ironing etc..... I know it is on E7 rate as this is the rate flashing (and increasing) on the digital display. Will continue to monitor though - just in case it dies on me.

Upwind

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

Upwind sounds like E10 not E7 !

Thanks RftB. I'm not there during the day (normally), but I will have a look at this. I can only see 2 tabs (on/off) on the dial - but maybe I get an afternoon boost also?

But wouldn't (or shouldn't) my bill state that I'm on E10?

Richie-from-the-Boro

Upwind wrote: »

Thanks RftB. I'm not there during the day (normally), but I will have a look at this. I can only see 2 tabs (on/off) on the dial - but maybe I get an afternoon boost also?

But wouldn't (or shouldn't) my bill state that I'm on E10?

- your meter suggests E7
- your description [on & off] suggests E10
- your account will have a [tariff type] 'product name'
- your bill will show 'energy charges this period' as E7 or E10

Does your bill or account clearly state E7 ?

Upwind

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

- your meter suggests E7
- your description [on & off] suggests E10
- your account will have a [tariff type] 'product name'
- your bill will show 'energy charges this period' as E7 or E10

Does your bill or account clearly state E7 ?

Tariff is Online Fixed Price Energy through Scottish Power
Bill states Economy 7: Night Charge.

Richie-from-the-Boro

Upwind wrote: »

Tariff is Online Fixed Price Energy through Scottish Power
Bill states Economy 7: Night Charge.

In that case as lstar337 suggests you are getting the standard 7 maximum hours in 24 of cheepo night rate delivered [pre 1am] during the daytime and can make maximum use of it just continue. The alternative is to ask for the meter to be checked / changed.

Upwind

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

In that case as lstar337 suggests you are getting the standard 7 maximum hours in 24 of cheepo night rate delivered [pre 1am] during the daytime and can make maximum use of it just continue. The alternative is to ask for the meter to be checked / changed.

Seems like I should continue with the way it is currently set up - so long as there is no chance of me getting into bother - I assume it is their responsibility to set the timer and check?

I hadn't considered asking for it to be checked / changed, but I wonder where I would stand if I told them they had been applying my E7 at the wrong time (over the last 3 years) and that I had been setting my washing machine/ dish washer etc to start overnight and was therefore being ripped off by their incorrectly set meter........... might I squeeze some compensation out of them?

John_Pierpoint

This is a very obvious question: Have you checked what is on the meter with what is on the bill?.
I used to have a set up that sounds a bit like yours and nearly every time I got bill it was estimated and I would go onto the web site and correct the estimate. Eventually things came to a head, when the estimate was so far out that the web site refused to accept my correction (reduction).
Now I had never understood the mechanism of my bill I was just correcting the guestimated readings. I though they knew what they were doing:mad:

Ah well that explained why some of the reference numbers seemed not to agree - when my old meter had been replaced by a little white one the size of a large post card with a flashing red light, there was a muddle up and ever since I had been billed for someone else's meter.

John

PS The flashing red light is what the meter actually measures.
here is a simplistic example:
You time the speed of the flashing of your meter. It turn out to be one flash a second - 60 flashes a minute.
So so you are using 60 * 60 = 3,600 flashes per hour. That is 3.6 kWh hours or 3.6 "units" - it is the result you would get in the evening with say some music playing the lights on and a large 3kW kettle boiling all the time. [You can check this by turning almost everything off and then voiling a kettle and see the difference the kettle makes to the flashing.]



If you can count the flashes on this one, I make the result that the house is powering along at about 6.3 kWh - is someone preparing Xmas dinner with an electric cooker?

lstar337

harryhound wrote: »

Economy-8 or do you mean 7 hours somewhere within these limits in GMT.?

Your answer is in the post you quoted harry.

You may have an hour in the middle where it is peak again, and look out for
mechanical timers which are often out of sync with time.

lstar337

Upwind wrote: »

Seems like I should continue with the way it is currently set up - so long as there is no chance of me getting into bother - I assume it is their responsibility to set the timer and check?

Most of the time, if you tell them, they are not interested. That goes for the supplier and the DNO.

They simply don't want to bother with the cost of an engineer, to claw back a few pence.

I have personal experience of this.

We have a mechanical clock where I work (electronic/mechanical engineering firm) which is way out (currently 1PM - 8PM). EDF are not interested in correcting it, we have checked with them several times, and got them to send confirmation that we informed them, so we are not liable for their loss. And we have very high usage during those hours due to our mechanical machine shop.

Upwind

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

This is a very obvious question: Have you checked what is on the meter with what is on the bill?.
I used to have a set up that sounds a bit like yours and nearly every time I got bill it was estimated and I would go onto the web site and correct the estimate. Eventually things came to a head, when the estimate was so far out that the web site refused to accept my correction (reduction).

John,

I've got the bill in front of me

It shows the following:

Economy 7: Day Charge

Followed by two readings a Start Reading and an End reading

It then shows the Units used: 439 KWh

This is further broken down into two Consumption Charges reflected as so:

Consumption Charge, secondary 232 KWh x 12.596p = £29.22
Consumption Charge, primary 207 KWh x 22.362p = £46.29

This reading matches the indicator on my digital meter that flashes with a small 1 to the left of it.


Underneath this there is a further section that says:

Economy 7: Night Charge.

Followed by two readings a Start Reading and an End reading

This is reflected as follows:

Consumption Charge, 199 KWh x 5.778p = £11.50

There is then a Total Charge Box = £87.01

This reading matches the indicator on my digital meter that flashes with a small 2 to the left of it.

These figures are then added to my Gas charges (+ Vat) to form my bill.