Storage Heaters & Economy 7

jwright10

Hi,

I moved into a small 1 bed flat 5 months ago spent christmas/new years away from the flat. However my bill is £370+ for the winter quarter.

To try and tackle the issue I bought an Owl USB+ energy monitor to track what the issue was. I think I have set it up correctly... but could be wrong. However, at 6:45pm I notice that my "Cost per Hour" is at £7!!! I have two sets of lights on and things on standby (plus the router).

I looked around and decided to turn one of the storage heaters off.. BOOM! down to 82p per hour.... however, 30 minutes later, back up to £4 per hour... I turned the second and last heater off and BOOM! again back down to 80 ish pence.

Do you think I have something setup incorrectly with my monitor or is it possible that my heaters are powering on at the wrong time?

Can anyone please help me..?

matelodave

I'd guess that your heater timings are out of sync with the low rate period.

Assuming that you are on E7 your low rate period should be about 12:30 am to 07:00 so that's when the storage heaters and your hot water should be coming on. Ideally you should try and do your washing during that time as well.

jwright10

Do you know how I can change this? I can only see Input and Output on the heater.. (they are very old)

Also, at the moment I have a two tariff meter but no Economy 7 setup with British Gas (long story about should have being switched but never went through)

Will not having an Economy 7 tariff mean that the Heaters are confused and draw heat during the day?

Cardew

Firstly you need to check the timings of your cheap rate E7 electricity.


The times vary across the country, and indeed if you have a mechanical clock that changes from cheap rate(off-peak) to peak rate, that could be out by several hours.


I am in the Midlands and in winter(GMT) the 'official' 7 hours are 00:30am to 07:30am although mine changes 20 minutes later.

I don't know how you have got your Owl set up, but even if your storage heaters were using peak rate it would never approach £7 an hour. Even if your peak electricity cost 20p/kWh(and 15p/kWh is more typical) that would represent an electrical load of 35Kw which would represent qty 10 large storage heaters.


The 2 heaters in your small flat are probably 3.4kW each or smaller. So on Economy 7 off peak should use around 40p - 45p an hour and even if wrongly set up so were drawing power at peak rate the Owl should read around £1 to £1.20.


P.S.
Just noticed you don't have E7, even so the Owl shouldn't read more than the £1 an hour.


In any case you should switch both storage heaters off and buy two £10 fan heaters and use those until you get your E7 sorted.

Ectophile

jwright10 wrote: »

Do you know how I can change this? I can only see Input and Output on the heater.. (they are very old)

Also, at the moment I have a two tariff meter but no Economy 7 setup with British Gas (long story about should have being switched but never went through)

Will not having an Economy 7 tariff mean that the Heaters are confused and draw heat during the day?

There's lots of different ways of metering Economy 7, depending on the age of the install.

The meter might have two outputs - one for heating and one for everything else. Or it might have an output signal which can be used to switch the heaters on and off through a "contactor" (a big relay).

Either way, if you're not actually on E7, then it makes no difference when the heating is on - you are paying the same rate all the time. So I would expect that the timer feature of the meter has been disabled, leaving the heating on 24 hours a day.

jwright10

Thank you for your responses, we will be on E7 in a few days (finally).

I will see how it goes when we switch over and try to find out if the Owl device is configured correctly.

G_M

If you are not on an E7 tariff, you will be charged at normal rate for ALL your elctricity usage, whatever time of day. As you've found, storage heaters use a lot of power!

Once you are on E7, you will be charged at a reduced rate, at night, between the hours designated by your electricity supplier. You need to find out what those hours are.

Then you need to ensure you maximise electricity usage between those hours, for everything, and therefroe minimise usage at other expensive times.

so if your washing machine etc has a time delay switch, set it to run at night. If not, buy a cheap timer to switch it on at night.

But most importantly, find out how to programme the storage heaters.

Check the make/model, and google it - most user manuals are now available online.

Make sure you understand how the 2 electricity meters and their controls work. If in doubt

* ask your landlord/agent (if renting)
* ask your electricity supplier
* photograph the controls and post an enquiry here, or better still on the Electrics forum here
* speak to other flat owners in the building
* ask the Developer (if it's a brand new building)
* pay an electrician
* ???