Official MSE Economy 7 Guide discussion

Will62

Just a few thoughts from someone who has been on E7 now for 30+ yrs. We live in a rural area and mains gas is not an option. My experience relates to a 4 bed detached house built in the 90s - pretty standard.

With E7 you need to make sure your night usage is much higher than during the day. This means most (if not all) heating and hot water should be produced at the cheaper night rate. Around 80% of our electricity is at the night rate (calculated over the whole year). We have standard storage heaters in every room (simple input and output settings) - these have been in the house since it was built. Even during colder months they are not all switched on, some are set low to provide background heat only (e.g. bedrooms, hall). We try to keep main living rooms most comfy (20oC). We turn down input settings if the weather improves. Of course this means they should be off completely during warmer months. Our one indulgence is we have an LPG gas fire in the lounge. That said this only gets used when it is very very cold normally later in the evening when the storage heater is giving out less warmth. Of course heating costs rocket in the winter but are basically zero in the summer.

For hot water we recently installed a large 250l pressurised tank (Heatrae Sadia). This is so well insulated very little heat is lost during the day and we get plenty of piping hot water all day. This despite the fact that it is sited in the garage! Older less well insulated smaller hot water tanks are not up to the job. Even on days when we run baths the cost (of hot water) is no more than 9-10 units (70-80p) a day.

The final part of making E7 as cheap as possible is to reduce expensive day time use. Current day time rates are typically over 20p a unit so savings here are important. Obviously we use low energy bulbs, switch to efficient appliances when we can, and use as many of these during the night. Our new washing machine used two thirds less electricity and has a timer delay to lower costs still further. A new LED tv can use less energy than a standard light bulb (70w), older tellys as much as 3 or 4 times more. We even have a small table top oven for smaller meals, this uses half the electricity of the main oven which is only really needed for the Sunday roast. It is useful to work out annual savings on each appliance - so for example the new TV will save around £60 a year (based on 5 h use a day).

Of course always look for best deals. We currently just switched from Scottish Power to Edf (Simply Fixed Feb21). The night rate is 7.65p and day rate 20.78p but this fixed for 2 years. We found this on a comparison site (Edf did not have it on their own site). Their own standard tariff is much much more. In our case the night rate was the most critical - when 80% of use is at this rate there is less value looking for a lower day rate. We currently spend around £100/month.

One other positive about storage heaters which is often not mentioned - the maintenance costs are virtually zero. Our heaters are all at least 25 yrs old - aside from an element going in once (£25) and a fuse needing replacement in another (£20) they are all working just fine. There are no moving parts, no annual service, nothing. I am told that you can no longer buy the standard storage heaters - the new programmable ones cost a packet (£700 each). They are meant to be more efficient but the upfront cost is high (£700 each). If you have standard heaters think carefully before ditching them. Used sensibly they will give good reliable heat through most of the day.

The other thing to mention is storage heaters are even better if you at home during the day - if you are retired or work from home for example. You get plenty of heat in the first part of the day.

In rural areas like ours with no mains gas the only other option is either oil or LPG central heating. However although you would have more direct control of how and when you heat your home the cost (at least for LPG) is about twice that of mains gas (they spend around £1000-1200 a year on gas). Our neighbours were left without any gas one winter due to supply problems and are always telling me the price goes up on a monthly basis at times. Of course they have to pay for annual service checks and repairs on top of this. They have replaced their boiler at least once (£3000) during the same period we have had our storage heaters. Oh yes - they still have (albeit a smaller) electricity bill as well!

Mister_G

Will62 wrote: »

In rural areas like ours with no mains gas the only other option is either oil or LPG central heating. However although you would have more direct control of how and when you heat your home the cost (at least for LPG) is about twice that of mains gas (they spend around £1000-1200 a year on gas).

Not quite twice. See here:

https://nottenergy.com/our-services/resources/energy-cost-comparison/

I pay 30ppl for lpg, so very similar in price to mains gas.

Perhaps you neighbours need to shop around.

Will62

The reason I mentioned LPG was that my neighbour said that he had only last week had another letter from Flogas - the price was "almost 60p a litre". Maybe we are stuck in a poor service area (it really is a choice between Flogas and Calor). I would not be surprised if there is regional pricing. He did say that you can get very low prices initially while you are making the capital investment (boiler + LPG tank) but they then rapidly go up after a year or so - often at the slightest hint of a rise in energy prices or supply problems from the middle east. At one time he was getting letters almost every month about a price rise. If you can get it as cheap as mains gas then that's brilliant.

Mister_G

Yes, Flogas are not renowned for being 'good value'!

Across the country there are number of small independents and there should be one or two in your area.

You will see on this forum that a number of users are achieving sub 40ppl rates.

Scrobs

Good Morning to you!

We live in Kent, and buy our electricity from Ebico, because we have night-storage heaters and an immersion heater which deals with the hot water cylinder during the night. The system was originally designed by Seeboard in 1997.

Our account is Ebico's Night Owl V2, as we are on Economy 7, and do not pay night time rates, although day time rates are enhanced. The value of the monthly payments is roughly competitive with other suppliers, as there are only two of us in the house now.

I note that the available hours for Economy 7 here are between 22:30 and 00:30am, and then 02:30 - 07:30am. During the hours when Economy 7 isn't operating - like between 00:30am and 02:30am, I regularly hear the timer on the immersion kicking in during this 'down time'. Are we being charged full rates for anything pulling electricity during this period?

Ebico seem satisfied that I am not being charged full day-rates for these two hours, but I would feel more comfortable knowing that the grid supplier can confirm this also! I have no complaint against Ebico.

I've been trying to get an answer via the Grid contacts, but am getting nowhere at the moment! Does anyone here know what the situation is please?

Best wishes!

Scrobs.

BillL

The standard advice to check when the cheap rate applies is to contact your supplier which I did. The fact is they only have a range, in my case between 11.30 pm and 8.30 am. Apparently the only way I can check when I am getting the cheap rate is to watch the meter. To say this is unsatisfactory is an understatement!

Gerry1

Make a free call to 105?

coffeehound

Scrobs wrote: »

I note that the available hours for Economy 7 here are between 22:30 and 00:30am, and then 02:30 - 07:30am.

Where did you find these timings from?

During the hours when Economy 7 isn't operating - like between 00:30am and 02:30am, I regularly hear the timer on the immersion kicking in during this 'down time'. Are we being charged full rates for anything pulling electricity during this period?

Since your immersion heater is conrolled by a timer, perhaps the easiest and cheapest solution would be to set its timer to only switch on at 02:45 hrs when you are confident that it is using the off-peak rate. Should be plenty of time for it to heat by 07:30.

skwerl

Apologies if someone has already asked this but why don't all smart meter users automatically get an E7 tariff during E7 hours? Smart meters know exactly when energy is being consumed so the need for an E7 meter should no longer be required, in order to know if you are consuming between midnight and 7am. I've done some searching and I can't find any explanation as to why this isn't a very simple thing to do.

Gerry1

skwerl wrote: »

Apologies if someone has already asked this but why don't all smart meter users automatically get an E7 tariff during E7 hours? Smart meters know exactly when energy is being consumed so the need for an E7 meter should no longer be required, in order to know if you are consuming between midnight and 7am.

Welcome on board !

Traditional E7 tariffs have always had a sting in the tail: although you get a lower rate for a few hours at night, the day rate is is significantly higher, often with an increased standing charge as well. Unless you had storage heaters E7 would have been noticeably more expensive. There would have been countless posts from forumites saying 'I had a smart meter installed and my Direct Debit rocketed from £60 to £120 !'

E7 can be competitive with low night use from smaller suppliers such as Avro and Yorkshire Energy, but making it the default with all smart meters is unlikely to happen.