Electric only heating

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

crusty_dread wrote: »

Hi Malc,

Thanks for the input. You're right of course about the evening times...:o

Going back to our usage, the 527 KWh figure can be accounted for by using the washing machine and showering just prior to the cheap rate ending in the morning. The machine washes at 30 degrees on a 20 minute economy programme. My partner showers at this time, I don't, so only one shower is at the cheap rate. We don't use anything else electrical at these times, nothing else we can use really.

So as you can see, the entire 2216 KWh stored figure, which makes up the bulk of the 48% has gone into heating the big concrete slab under the floor. I wouldn't mind if it was effective but it's not. I'm typing this at 5.00pm and the room temp is 16.8 degrees, which is as warm as it's been throughout the day. It will only get colder as the night goes on so we supplement it with an oil filled radiator at one end of the room and a panel heater at the other. The bedroom panel heater goes on for 20 minutes prior to bedtime too. All of these are using peak rate, but that's when we need them.

I put our figures through uSwitch, and they reckon we'd be £156 a year better off with E.ON's Energy Fixed 1 Year v12 tariff. I think I'm right in saying that this is a regular single rate tariff. Even accounting for the cheaper rate time on E10, this is a substantial amount. Made me think, although I'd want to firm up the costings a little before switching.

It's tempting to just forget about the underfloor and go with a single rate and panel heaters. It would be simpler and more controllable. I know some people may say it's expensive but then so is running an ineffectual heating system that means you pay over the odds for the rest of your electricity...:o Assuming our peak rate usage is 52%, we're paying for all of that at a higher rate in order to support the cheap rate heating which we end up supplementing with peak rate powered heaters anyway.!

To be honest, I wouldn't be too bothered about any savings if we could feel the benefit in terms of warmth.

We're generally pretty good on "vampire" gadgets, mainly because we don't have many..:) No TV boxes, consoles, stuff to leave on standby etc.

I really appreciate you taking the time to respond,

Looks like I may have more questions to answer now....!

Hi crusty_dread and sorry for the late reply. I'm still playing catch up.

You seem to be well on top of your non-heating usage. Looks like it's the heating that's causing the difficulties.

The Fixed 1 Year version 12 tariff is available as a single rate or Economy 7. It's not, though, available to customers with Economy 10 meters.

To take version 12, the meter would need to be changed to a more conventional single rate/Economy 7. As I said earlier, I'd ask a qualified electrician to check the set up first.

Economy 7 tariffs have a premium day rate and lower night rate. To benefit, customers need to use a fair amount of usage during the off peak hours.

The figures you've quoted suggest Economy 7 won't be cost effective for you, particularly if you take out the usage going through the dedicated circuits and recorded on the Stored Heat register.

Hope this is of interest crusty_dead and sorry again for the late reply.

Malc