Electric Storage Heaters

thriftykitty

Been on the phone with nPower - they seem to think their readings have just been put in the wrong way around. So in fact my day reading is a lot higher than my night reading.


Don't know who lived there before me - either the storage heaters have never been wired in right and that's why the day reading is so high or they were at home all day with all electrical devices on and never used the storage heaters (find that hard to believe being in the countryside in the north!).


After doing some maths I've worked out that my kwh per day has shot up on my day rate since I started using the storage heaters (intermittently at first) while the night useage has remained the same.


Day useage gone from 3.8kwh per day in September to 11kwh per day in the middle of October and between then and now up to 14kwh per day (had the heaters on for the past week or so). Night useage at a steady 3.5-4kwh per night.


More convinced that heaters are charging during the day now as I have not changed my electricity useage during the peak periods and am generally very careful, keeping lights turned off, switching things off at the wall etc. Will double check next week with the energy meter.


It's that or my day and night rates on the elec meter are the wrong way around - is that possible?

Should I contact the letting agent about the heaters - see if they will pay for an electrician to come and have a look at them?


Grateful for any advice

lstar337

Do you have two fuse boxes?

In the setup that I am used to, the digital meter has two outputs.

Output 1 is always live and this is what is connected to your main fuse box and powers all of your personal appliances.

Output 2 is only live for 7 hours (chosen by your DNO) and is connected to your storage heaters and immersion heater.

Each output goes to its own fuse box, with its own set of fuses.

IF they were wired the wrong way round then none of your personal appliances or lights would work outside of the 7 hour period. Therefore it is unlikely that they are.

If your NSH were connected to Output 1 along with all your other appliances, they would charge at any time of the day and if they were left on I'm guessing they would trip their internal safety fuse.

I think getting an electrician to check it all out would be a good idea. Try voicing your concerns to the letting agent, they may offer an electrician to take a look providing you pay if there is found to be no problem.

thriftykitty

Yes, I think I do have two fuse boxes. I will have another look on Sunday.


Thanks for all your help lstar337, you've helped me to narrow it down significantly! You're an :A

lstar337

thriftykitty wrote: »

Yes, I think I do have two fuse boxes. I will have another look on Sunday.


Thanks for all your help lstar337, you've helped me to narrow it down significantly! You're an :A

No problem. I'll keep an eye on this thread for updates.

thriftykitty

After to chatting to my upstairs neighbour last night have narrowed it down to the meter being the problem. Apparantly she had exactly the same issue last year with hers. The meters are approx. ten years old and the wiring just 'goes' in them and so doesn't tick over onto night rate - so the heaters don't know to come on then.


Called nPower today to get an appointment to fix/change the meter and told 26th November so have 2.5 weeks of freezing my proverbial off. Tried to get an emergency appointment due to the whole flat being about 10 degrees C now (not had the heaters on coz I can't afford to run them at day rate) but apparently having no heating isn't classed as an emergency - that's only if you've lost supply. Is this the policy of all energy companies or is it just another example of nPowers wonderful customer service? Personally I think they should have some kind of priority service on the appointments rather than just emergency and non emergency but that's just me!


Been to morriscones and bought a couple of convector heaters to tide me over until then. Any heat is better than no heat and I will only have them on in the evening in the living room and before I go to bed in the bedroom.