Economy 7 - advice please

kelsososo

I am 36 weeks pregnant and i'm moving house (so i'm a little stressed at the moment and desperately need advice!)
The new property is a flat and is electric only and i've been told by the landlord its on economy 7 - i've read about it and from what i understand it will only benefit us if our main appliances are running at night.
Has anyone been on economy 7 and did you benefit from it?
I am thinking as it's being run at night like a washing machine wouldn't this wake up us/baby/and other people in the flats?! and with me being on maternity leave now until November i'll probably be using my electricity during the day?
If anyone has any experience on economy 7 please please share, i have no idea. And did it cost you to take your a tariff from economy 7 to a standard tariff?

I'm desperately trying not to stress out but things like this i have no idea about so any advice/knowledge would be so useful.
Thanks

lstar337

Do you know what form of heating there is?

All electric will be expensive, less so if you have storage heaters, but if the are direct panel heaters then I would suggest you look elsewhere.

jrio

I've been on Economy 7 for nearly 12 years. By far the biggest saving is using storage heaters to charge up at night on the E7 tariff.

In the winter months I often use 20-30 Kwh per night on heating and hot water. Historically 65% of my electricity usage has been on the reduced rate. As my night rate is a third of the day, that's quite a massive saving, probably around £250 for me.

The washing machine seems to use only about 1Kwh and it's quite an old one. It won't make a vast amount of difference if you have it on during the day. I did use to live below someone with a baby who seemed to put their washing machine on around 5-6am, so I presume they were on an E7 tariff.

kelsososo

Many thanks for your input. I've checked and do have storage heaters and i've checked the tariffs online and its showing around 5p at the night right which like you say is incredibly cheaper than the day rate.
Thanks again!

NittyGritty

I,ve been on all electric eco 7 for years, our last bill came to £1042 for the year. using 13000 units overall, 3000 day, 10000 night rate,
we do washing in the day as normal never done it on eco 7 times, the only things that are on in night (during eco 7 times) apart from storage heaters (4) are thefridge, freezer, and immersion heater that comes on around 3am and again around 3pm to heat water ready for the morning and evening rush

matelodave

E7 can work well but to get the best out of it you need to adapt your lifestyle a bit.
Use your washing machine, dishwasher and tumbledryer overnight - lots of appliances now have delay timers to enable this, rather than you having to sit up to midnight to put them on.

Make sure that you only heat your hot water during the overnight low tariff time. You can even save more by doing your ironing and vacuuming overnight but that's taking it a bit far and a bit anti social if you live in a flat.

Ideally read you meters frequently so you can keep an eye on your consumption and try to maximise your low rate consumption and minimise the day time use and make sure you are on the best available tariff.

Having a new little one in the house will take up a fair amount of your time but keeping on top of your energy bills by checking them properly, making sure that you are correcting any estimates and that you are paying for what you use will only take five minutes a month and will save you any grief in the future