Help! Very confused by heatingelec/gas!

lindsaygalaxy

Help

Ive never really understood the economy 7, boiler etc stuff an dalways left it up to my ex.

At my old house we had storage heaters using economy 7. Ran up a huge bill that im not havign to pay back, and just eralised from looking over my bills they charged me £29 when the new people had moved in for their first bill!

Anyway...

In my new house( its about 3 years old) I have gas and electric. So a boiler in the kitchen??? and water heater upstairs in the airing cupbaord? ( im so sorry if i sound as sappy as i think i do!)

But on my electic bill it still comes up as economy 7? They wont put the old and new account seperate.

i have a box that controls the c.heating(radiators) and water heater in the kitchen that i can switch on and off or to timer. Does anyone know if its chaper to set it to timer or just put it on as and when needed?

Thank you for any help

MarkyMarkD

In some Electricity Board areas, all users were given Economy 7 meters whether or not they had electric heating. This applies to us where we live.

It is not necessarily any more expensive - you get your night-time units cheaper, and your day-time units are more expensive, and also the standing charge is higher.

I believe that others have posted that you can request to go onto a single meter tariff if you feel it will benefit you to do so.

Regarding timing or not timing, it will always cost less to turn on the heating exactly when you want it on than to use the timer (as long as that doesn't mean it's on for more hours in total!) but it's going to be way less convenient. The cost savings are also not going to be particularly great unless your routine is very unpredictable.

We have a 7-day timer on our central heating and hot water, so we can set things to match our normal weekly behaviour very accurately. The more simplistic timers often fitted to central heating (where there is only one timer, with a few on/off iterations per day, and no difference between days of the week) are not as good IMHO and it could be worth getting a newer timer installed if you have different patterns of behaviour like we do!

Almost definitely as well your central heating does both the heating and the hot water; if there is also an immersion heater in the airing cupboard you want to make sure that's switched off and NEVER, EVER use it unless your gas boiler breaks down as it's way more expensive than heating water using gas.

caveat_emptor

I'm guessing that the Economy 7 part of your statement is for the amount you owe from your old house. Normally the water heater in the airing cupboard would only be used in an emergency as your boiler will do this job.If you put the boiler on manually as and when needed it takes a while for the central heating and hot water (unless you have a combi boiler) to heat up. By using the timer you can avoid the waiting time but you will use more energy as the boiler will be on for longer. You pay for the convenience of coming home to a warm house and hot water.

Terrylw1

MarkeyMarkD - The Supplier has the option to bill you a single rate on your bill even if you are E7, they just change your system tariff. The meter will still switch over for your heating but it won't affect the charging. It does effect how the Supplier gets billed so those who are more on the ball will insist you change to a single rate meter.