Slightly baffled by economy 10

frivolous_fay

We thought we were economy 7 until we got our first bill! New house, storage heaters, trying to figure the whole thing out...

3 heaters in the lounge. 2 have two switches on them, 'Normal Rate' and 'Off Peak'
2 timers in the kitchen, one for upstairs, one for downstairs. Each has a switch you can set, Off, Timed, or Constant.
Upstairs, one heater has a 'Timed' switch alone, and the other has a 'Normal Rate' switch. There's also some kind of convection heater which doesn't have any switch at all.

Using the switches on the heaters downstairs doesn't seem to make them operate in a logical way... ie. we think they're off, but when we come home one of them is warm. (Same settings!)

Could any kind person shed some light on the whole thing?

(Can't wait til it's warm again and we can overhaul the whole wretched system... although we don't have gas )

dieselglider

I'd never heard of economy 10 here in N.Ireland, but a quick google found a couple of links here, and here, which may help explain things.

I would imagine of the two switched heaters in the lounge, that if both switches are off, then the heater should not heat. If you switched one to normal, then it may either be on all the time, or else when each of the three peak(normal) apply. If switched to off-peak, it should only heat at each of the three off-peak econ10 times.
The timers could be for the heaters which are not switched, or have just a 'normal' switch. Are the timers adjustable, or preset to certain times?

Hope this is of some help.

I presently have the remnants of an ecomony 7 system in my house, basically one storage heater and a water heater. The 'on' times of the off-peak is governed by two radio controlled meter units, signalled from the power station as to when to switch on/off.

Terrylw1

This thread has been started up on the gas & elec board now where a lot more detail has been discussed.