how do i switch tariff's or supplier

kingsandeep

i am currently with e-on on a E.ON HeatWise EnergyPlan 6 plan for electricity only. i have recently bought this property and it used to have storage heaters but does not now. it will powered by gas. i rang them to switch tariff's but they said i couldn't. because i have storage heaters but i dont as i got rid of these. how do i switch to a cheaper tarrif for electricity. i am a novice to this, so unsure who to contact, what to say, how firm i should be

please help
:rotfl:thank you

footyguy

kingsandeep wrote: »

i am currently with e-on on a E.ON HeatWise EnergyPlan 6 plan for electricity only. i have recently bought this property and it used to have storage heaters but does not now. it will powered by gas. i rang them to switch tariff's but they said i couldn't. because i have storage heaters but i dont as i got rid of these. how do i switch to a cheaper tarrif for electricity. i am a novice to this, so unsure who to contact, what to say, how firm i should be

please help
:rotfl:thank you

Your post make no sense. If you are currently with Eon, and wish to switch, you need to contact the new supplier, not Eon.

However, the property you bought has heatwise. This is an old legacy tariff that no other supplier supports. (E.on are obligated to carry on with support to existing customers)
Who took out the NSHs? If you arranged this, get the sparky back & get him to finish the job properly, then contact Eon and pay them to change the meter to either a single rate or E7 dual rate one, as you prefer. Then you will be in a position to contact a new supplier of your choice and use them.

If the NSH's were removed before you bought the house, (or even if you planned all this) isn't this something you should have investigated before committing to buy and then factored that into the price offered?

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

Hi kingsandeep

Hope the move into your new property went well. Thought it might help if I give you a bit of information about your particular metering set up.

Heatwise meters were specifically designed for all electric properties with storage heaters and electric water immersion heaters.

They're designed to give 10 hours of cheaper electricity in every 24 hour period for heating/water heating purposes only. This is split into three time slots during the afternoon, evening and at night.

Heatwise sits alongside a conventional meter that records all the non-heating/water heating usage. This can be either single rate or Economy 7.

If you've an Economy 7 meter, you'll also have 7 hours of cheaper electricity for general usage like lighting, appliances etc.

To work, the Heatwise part of the meter will have been wired directly into the heating/water heating circuits at the property.

With these types of specialist meter, we've only the one tariff available. This is the tariff you're on.

Now you've taken the storage heaters out and with gas at the property, it's highly unlikely you'll benefit from the current set up.

Probably best to look at changing the meter to a more conventional type. This will give you access to more tariffs, both with us and with the other suppliers.

We'll need to change both the Heatwise and conventional parts of the set up. Once done, you'll be able to choose either a single rate or Economy 7 meter.

Please be aware, to benefit from Economy 7 tariffs, you need to use a certain percentage of electricity during the cheaper night period.

Given the way the meter was originally wired into your circuits, I always recommend customers looking to change meters ask an independent electrician to check over their wiring first. This is just to make sure there are no knock on effects.

We're not currently charging to change Heatwise meters. Any electrical work needed, though, will be down to you.

Hope this is of interest kingsandeep. Let me know if you need any more details as happy to help.

Malc

matelodave

You'll probably have to get your existing supplier to change your meter to a single rate tariff before you can change. I don't know exactly how heatwise works but you might need some of the wiring changed depending on how the place has been wired.

Our place had two distribution panels, one which served the house lighting,sockets, cooker and immersion heater. The second just served the Night Storage Heaters. Both panels were connected into the dual rate meter (prepay) which I assume switched the NSH on during the low rate.
I stripped out the heaters and replaced all their switched outlets to 13A sockets.

I got the dual rate meter prepay meter swapped to a credit meter (dual rate) and then to a single rate by my existing supplier (for some reason they had to come twice) and both panels are fed from it. I then changed supplier and have done several times since

Terresa

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc wrote: »

Please be aware, to benefit from Economy 7 tariffs, you need to use approx between 45 and 55 per cent of electricity during the cheaper night period.

OMG, have we just made a huge mistake? :eek:

We are located in the East Midlands, are electric only and so currently use about 6000kWh per year.

We've been with E.on since, well I can't remember, I think we've always been with them. I admit we are a bit late coming to the switching party.

Anyway, DH and I finally got round to sorting out our energy last week, or so I thought.

We are currently on E7 standard tariff, paying monthly by DD and use only about 35% low rate electricity. According to you, we would be better off on a single rate tariff? Is that correct?

We actually looked into this quite a bit before deciding to act positively to reduce our huge energy bills, but I think from what I am reading, we've now made a huge mistake somewhere.

Currently, on E7 standard rate paying monthly by DD we expect to pay £874 p.a
The cheapest tariff with Eon we could find remaining on E7 was your Fixed 1 year v6 tariff and that would save us £28 p.a. (£847 p.a)

We did look at a single rate tariff but according to our calculations doing that & remaining on standard Tariff that would cost us £892 p.a. (an oncost of £18 p.a.) or on your Fixed 1 year tariff that would cost £864 (an oncost compared to E7 of £17p.a)

I'm now wondering if we have done something incredibly silly in our comparisons.

Please help as we have just applied to move to iSupply who we believe are only going to charge us £691p.a. (compared to £729p.a. if we moved to a single rate tariff with iSupply)

But now you have me incredibly worried. Please help! We are still in our cooling off period with iSupply, so if we have made a big mistake in our calculations, it isn't too late to cancel & start again.

Thanks in advance.

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

Hi Terresa and welcome to the Forums.

Sorry, didn't mean to alarm you. The numbers I mentioned are only an approximation meant to raise awareness of this particular possibility.

Cases differ depending on the individual circumstances. Best to pop your usage in kWh on to the independent comparison sites. These will list out all the options both with us and with the other suppliers.

I've had a quick look at our tariffs based on the information you've posted. With us, it looks as though you're a bit better off on Economy 7 rather than single rate.

Sorry again for the alarm.

Malc

matelodave

You can always optimise your usage of low tariff electricity by doing your washing, dishwashing and tumble drying during the low rate period but that does require you to either stay up to after midnight or get up early in the morning unless your appliances have timers which allow you to delay them.
Likewise you can heat your water tank during the night and then shower/bath in the mornings. You should still have enough hot water for your evening washing up & ablutions.
Reduce the amount of hot water that you use by not letting it run down the sink, having shorter showers or shallower baths (or fewer of them) Try fitting flow reducers on the shower and taps.
Turn lights and stuff off when it's not being used, especially during peak rate times, that includes microwaves, cookers, TV's, video recorders, computers etc. Anything that's got a standby button will use power even it's its off (even our washing machine, dryer and dishwasher use a few watts each unless they are switched off at the wall)

We are electric only and both at home all day. We have a heatpump so it runs during the day and reduces it's output at night so we'd get no benefit from E7 electricity (there's no way we'd be mucking about doing all our washing and stuff after midnight - even though our appliances have got delay start).
We use about 8000kw a year which costs us about £950 on a single rate tariff. About £450 is heating, the rest is general usage (cooking, washing, hot water, lighting, TV computers etc)