Total Heating Control or Not?

LisaHarcus

Hello,



We recently bought a new house and at the time of purchase, our house was heated by storage heaters and was on a Hydro Tarriff with 2 meters (total heating control and standard). We have recently changed our heating to Air to Air (Air Source). Would it be cheaper for us to ask for our meter to be changed so we can go to a range of suppliers or would it be more economical for us to stay on Total Heating Control? I find the total heating control is quite expensive, however I am scared to change in case we can't change back! Any advice would be much appreciated.



Thanks in advance

Lisa

ProDave

Think carefully before doing anything.

Total Control is a tariff I believe unique to Scottish Hydro. It charges you a cheap night rate for storage heaters, an normal day rate for ordinary stuff, and the unique bit, is a 24/7 cheap rate for "heating"

Take a look at your consumer units, you will find usually 2 of them. One will be labelled Off Peak, one Normal or Domestic, and one "total control" Often two of these are combined into one consumer unit.

Whatever is connected to the "total control" consumer unit gets metered 24/7 at the cheap rate. It was intended for electric showers and "focal point heaters" But I have before now connected an electric boiler to this to get the cheap rate 24/7 for the boiler.

So your Air Source Heat pump should be connected on it's own circuit to the total control board and it will run at the cheap rate all the time.

No other tariff from any other supplier will give you that.

You have to work out if the higher standing charge and higher day rate for normal stuff makes it worthwhile keeping this tariff, or changing. If you are changing, look at economy 10, which gives you cheap rate for 10 hours a day in I thing 3 chunks, including one in the afternoon, or there is now an E2000 but I have not looked up the details of how that one works