Storage heaters

penrhyn

Time to call in a Sparks methinks.

mjv1986

lstar337 wrote: »

Is the light illuminated during non E7 hours, or does it only light when the timeswitch clicks over?

Or maybe the convector side and the storage side have been wired into the wrong points. Does the convector work during non E7 hours?

The switch with the light - the light is on all the time. Maybe thats the problem?

The Convector switch I have now switched off completely so that is never on! And it does still seem to store heat at night so i'm hoping they are wired wrong.

As someone said above, maybe I just need to get it seen to by a professional as I know its hard to "diagnose" on the internet. I just wanted to see if I was missing anything!

macman

mjv1986 wrote: »

Sorry, I'm not sure if you are not reading what I put or I am not being clear.

The heaters are storing up heat before 00:30, there is no doubt about that. If my meter is using 1 unit every 10 minutes, and when I switch the heater off at the switch the rate goes right down to less than 1 unit an hour, I can only assume the heater is storing?
so I think there must be something wrong with the timer?

It's drawing power, certainly, but that doesn't mean that the NSH side is operating. My assumption was that the power usage is from the convector being on.

lstar337

mjv1986 wrote: »

The switch with the light - the light is on all the time. Maybe thats the problem?

There's your problem.

The night storage side should be wired to its own fuse box which is de-energised for the 17 non E7 hours. That light should only be on for the 7 hours that the NS circuit is energised.

I think you now need to sort yourself out with an electrician who can check and re-wire any NSH which have been incorrectly installed.

mjv1986

Thank you for all your help!

I have contacted my supplier just to let them know what is happening and if they can do anything though I think it's down to me, they probably don't care I'm using more day units! Haha

I'll have to get someone over next week to have a look at it as something isn't right!

SilverSaloon

i went through a similar situation when I moved into a rented property 2 years ago.

Although I was on an Economy7 tarif, the old 1980s CREDA storage heaters were wired up to the "day" circuit, meaning that if turned on via the switch on the wall they were "charging" 24 hours a day!

landlord, electrician and scottish power dragged their feet on it for about 2 monhts so I had to manually turn them all on/off which meant they used "daytime" electric for an hour or so as i turned them on when i went to bed at night. the electric bills were horrendus!!

in the end, it turned out Scottish Power were at fault as it was their responsiblity for the circuits to be set up correctly.

They fixed it in the end and then all the storage heaters got their power cut off during the day and came back on at night when they charged up.

however, the bills continued to be horrendus with these things! I kept most of them off to be honest, the bills were still bad.

Luckily this house was only a stop-gap as we renovated our own new home so we left in December so didnt have to endure another winter with the bloody things!!

I cant remember exactly what the guy from scottish power said but i remember him saying the clocks can stick, and in my case I believe he said it had been tampered with by someone which meant it never clicked on/off and stayed on. He said it was a very old mechanical device anyway. A very elderly lady used to live there so my suspicion is she got someone to make the heaters come on all the time to keep the house warm, as it was always cold in there even with the storage heaters working properly.

My advice - get it sorted ASAP. Also ensure your power company know the wiring is borked as otherwise they will estimate your bills incorrectly aswell and increase your DD payments!

To check that its using power form the E7 circuit, take a note of the meter reading one day, and then see if it changes over the following night....