G/f has high bills on economy seven?

vitamin_joe

My girlfriend has got storage heaters in her flat, on economy 7. Over the winter, she was paying £100 a month- to me this seems extortionate. She is not there much during the day, only evenings. The electric is providing hot water, cooking, light and heating.

I think that the storage heater clicks off at 8am, even though the rate changes at 7am. She has spoken to the company about this, but they say it is not important.

I'm just wondering if there's any way of getting her bills down. I don't know if the problem is the storage heaters or something else. I have wondered if she should just apply to go on a normal electricity rate- not economy seven- and use a small plug-in heater when she needs it, which wouldn't be often as she has a wood-burner in the living room.


Thankyou

molerat

Storage heaters are probably the most economical way of using electricity for heating. Using them incorrectly can be costly though. Heating on single rate electricity is unlikely to save money.

How many kWh does she use on day and night rates ? Has she checked when the rates change over, some old mechanical timers are way out meaning the cheap rate is not as advertised and some modern timers are set to GMT.

Are the heaters and immersion controlled by the E7 timeswitch or by their own timer ?
Is the meter being read and charged correctly, day charged as day and night charged at night rate ?
Is the meter being read actually the one connected to the flat ?

ERICS_MUM

My late Mum had this problem a few years ago and when I started checking it out I found that the meter readings were being transposed when entered into Mums account. As a result she was being charged for her storage heaters at the daytime rate and her daytime usage of the cooker, lights and telly at the economy 7 rate.

I didn't know this was going on for a couple of years (Mum was in her late 80's and didn't read her bills !), until I spotted the DD on her bank statement. She got a refund of £2,000 odd in the end but I had to produce detailed spreadsheets before they would take notice.

I presume it was a clerical issue, whoever did the data entry didn't understand it. How many others were over-charged but have never realised ?

House_Martin

Its British Summer Time now, BST so the timerswitch is an hour out.No timer switches adjust for this, they are all an hour back from GMT.. so your hours are now 1 am to 8 am...If your GF has working storage heaters then day/night tariffs are the best if the night usage is more than approx 30% of the total which all night storage users comfortably beat..All you can do is try and get the best one year fixed eco 7 tariff and try and make economies on things like electric ovens and dryers dish washers ..Peg out washing as much as possible and microwave more.and get Led bulbs installed instead of 50 watt GU10 s

House_Martin

ERICS_MUM wrote: »

My late Mum had this problem a few years ago and when I started checking it out I found that the meter readings were being transposed when entered into Mums account. As a result she was being charged for her storage heaters at the daytime rate and her daytime usage of the cooker, lights and telly at the economy 7 rate.

I didn't know this was going on for a couple of years (Mum was in her late 80's and didn't read her bills !), until I spotted the DD on her bank statement. She got a refund of £2,000 odd in the end but I had to produce detailed spreadsheets before they would take notice.

I presume it was a clerical issue, whoever did the data entry didn't understand it. How many others were over-charged but have never realised ?

Transposed meter readings usually are not a clerical issue its duff meter readers who can t tell day from night on their data recorders. Put a label next to the meter in big letters with the night rate clearly explained.Digital meters can just show rate 1 or rate 2 and they can vary which one is night rate

vitamin_joe

Thanks all! I'm going to check out all the information you've given and then get back to the thread.

macman

£100 per month in winter is not exceptional. Now the heating is off the usage will fall to maybe 20% of winter usage. What is the annual consumption on each register in kWh?

welshmoneylover

vitamin_joe wrote: »

My girlfriend has got storage heaters in her flat, on economy 7. Over the winter, she was paying £100 a month- to me this seems extortionate. She is not there much during the day, only evenings. The electric is providing hot water, cooking, light and heating.

I think that the storage heater clicks off at 8am, even though the rate changes at 7am. She has spoken to the company about this, but they say it is not important.

I'm just wondering if there's any way of getting her bills down. I don't know if the problem is the storage heaters or something else. I have wondered if she should just apply to go on a normal electricity rate- not economy seven- and use a small plug-in heater when she needs it, which wouldn't be often as she has a wood-burner in the living room.


Thankyou

£100 a month over winter is not exceptional, actually it's pretty good.