I believe you said you had 3 of these. They are 1.74 Kw units - assuming they take 3 hours each to charge that would be that's about 16 kWh per night - a bit under £2 a night. Even if they were on a full 7 hours = £6;; that won't/can't due to thermostats.
The set up has to be questioned. They shouldn't be cold by 1000
How are your meter reads going ?
We only had the smart meter fitted just before the heaters so I cant compare in that sense to last year. But obviously we are aware of our yearly expences. But the company has already been here scrolling through meter readings since we had the heaters fitted and they admit the usage is shocking, but seem unprepared about it all really. Like they are as shocked as us. I have argued the case they shouldn't need to come on during the day but they said they are designed to. I cant get my head around how to read the smart meter. Although they have been here several times and have taken everything down. Its as if they have admitted somethings not right, but are stuck what to do next. I just can't believe we would be the only ones with the problem if they are rolling these heaters out in other people's homes. Or perhaps they didnt have the old storage heaters to compare to is my only thinking there.
Has your Smart meter got a small key pad ? If so press 9 - you should see 1 and xxxxx.x kWh ; press again and see 2 xxxxx.x kWh. Some metres this may be button 6 so you may need to experiment but its the letters kWh you need to see (ignore kVarh and numbers after the decimal point) When installed in October this would have read 0000.0
A photo of the meter and other equipment would be good - make sure it shows the number of cables going into and out of the meter - I think it should be 5.
Your recently fitted Elnur
ECOHHR20 heaters are NOT a replacement for your old night
storage heaters and will cost a lot more to run because they are
designed to operate 24/7, however only seven hours will operate
on off peak rate electricity and seventeen hours on peak rate.
Quoted from the user instructions:
Please
note adjusting the default set temperatures can result in
higher running costs. We recommend a 3˚C - 5˚C max difference
between the economy and comfort temperature.
These are 'running cost is no object' heaters, which is
fine if comfort is your requirement regardless of
operating costs but they certainly won't save you any
money!
You will see no benefit from the 'grant', only the
suppliers/installers have and they are not concerned about
your running costs going forward.
They are high heat retention storage heaters and as such are the most cost-effective way to heat an all-electric home, with the possible exception, sometimes, of a heatpump.
@sweetgirl2015 one key thing to check first is that your heaters are set to charge up at the correct off-peak times overnight. So firstly you will need to establish with 100% certainty when your off-peak time or times are. The best way to do this is by seeing when the changes happen on your meter. If that is not possible then you could contact your local DNO from the link below and ask them:
Since the clocks are about to go forward perhaps best left until after this? weekend to do. Once you are sure of the switching times, go to each of the storage heaters and follow the instructions to check and adjust the off-peak timings under the General Settings:
To enter the general settings menu, turn ON the heater via the switch at the right side of the heater while holding down the moon button at the same time. ST will be displayed, at this point you can release the moon button.
Set their start time 15 minutes later, and end time 15 minutes earlier, than the off-peak times to ensure they only charge within the off-peak period, since the actual times vary slightly from day to day.
It may be that when the chuckle brothers installed your smart meter, they didn't preserve the off-peak supply switching circuits, and instead your new radiators just get power delivered all the time. So these settings may be the only thing to tell the radiators when off-peak rate is in effect. Once you have this aspect sorted, we can look at the other settings to get things set up as you need.
The guys who installed them have been out several times now to alter their settings, something I have no clue about. Its also worth pointing out that the whole reason we qualified for the grant was if the street you live in or property cant get access to mains gas, so it was meant to save us money, so naturally we went for it especially as its all free, the storage heaters to buy we were told are £600 to buy, so we thought we were getting a good deal, but over 3 months we have already used as much electric as half the price of one of the heaters, so they definetly are not paying for themselves. We have already paid clise to £300 over the top of past winters, but actually its not the full winter, its only from January to now. So ironically what was meant to save us money has actually cost us nearly 4 times as much. We are just keen now to know where we stand legally as they have basically ripoed out the heaters that we were satisfied with, but didn't realise it if you see what I mean? A bit like we didn't realise what we lost until it was gone. I can't see this being easily resolved as they been back now at least 3 times, but cant get the running costs down. I had to send running costs of the 4 individual heaters by sending short videos of me going through settings of the heaters each day twice a day, for core heat and room temp etc. We are just awaiting an email now from them as we obviously expressed our disappointment about this.
I suggest you escalate in two ways this 1) to the installers. Look up details of them on the Companies House website - find the names of the directors and write/email/phone them. Make a real nuisance of yourselves .
2) to Elnur
Elnur UK Ltd, Brown Street North, Leigh, Lancashire WN7 1BU
Just an update, I had an email today from the people behind the grant I had for the Elnur heaters who were All Seasons Interiors, they have said the technical director at Elnur has been informed and will look into this. As its now been proven from my energy supplier Octopus that it must be the Elnur eco heaters which has caused my electric consumption to triple in cost, as the only price rise was 7% and that was in April, but my heaters were fitted in early December. So this proves its the heaters are at fault.
Just an update, I had an email today from the people behind the grant I had for the Elnur heaters who were All Seasons Interiors, they have said the technical director at Elnur has been informed and will look into this. As its now been proven from my energy supplier Octopus that it must be the Elnur eco heaters which has caused my electric consumption to triple in cost, as the only price rise was 7% and that was in April, but my heaters were fitted in early December. So this proves its the heaters are at fault.
That's not an update and you have proved nothing! Two months since you last
posted, what have you actually done in that time?
You have now had them installed for six months
since December and all you know is that they are costing more to run
but you are still fixated on the cost in £££'s rather
than the consumption in kWh.
An update would provide
useful information e.g. programmed settings, charge times, what temperatures you have them
set to, how many day units and how many night unit you
are using each day, week, month for comparison with the old heaters.
You could have read your
meter immediately after they were fitted and seen that
you were using more energy from the outset rather than waiting months to
find out on your first bill.
There is no magic wand
solution to your increased running costs and you need to
be much more proactive yourself, by learning how to
program them correctly and understanding how to read
your smart meter so that you can keep detailed daily
records of usage.
The manufacturer will not
be interested in your running costs, especially as you
admit that you don't understand how to use them
by correctly following the manufacturers detailed
instructions. e.g. The manufacturer recommends a 3˚C - 5˚C maximum difference between the economy and comfort temperatures.
These heaters are not faulty as you infer and you have absolutely
nothing to actually back up this wild assumption.
Your new heaters are next generation
heaters that have been developed to be far better,
providing the user with constant comfort and therefore
cannot be directly compared with your old inferior
storage heaters.
Presumably you assumed
these heaters would reduce your heating costs but you won't
accept that these heaters have been designed to use energy
during the day, which will obviously increase your
running costs and they certainly won't save you money on
your tariff with it's extortionate day rate!
You are on a very expensive tariff
and you could probably save money by switching to the
cheapest possible single rate tariff if your detailed
actual consumption figures showed this would be
advantageous.
How many day/night units are you
using now compared to using the old heaters? You can't
just say that you don't understand how to use them and that you can't
read your smart meter!
This is your problem, so don't expect anyone else to fix it for you.
Just an update, I had an email today from the people behind the grant I had for the Elnur heaters who were All Seasons Interiors, they have said the technical director at Elnur has been informed and will look into this. As its now been proven from my energy supplier Octopus that it must be the Elnur eco heaters which has caused my electric consumption to triple in cost, as the only price rise was 7% and that was in April, but my heaters were fitted in early December. So this proves its the heaters are at fault.
That's not an update and you have proved nothing! Two months since you last
posted, what have you actually done in that time?
You have now had them installed for six months
since December and all you know is that they are costing more to run
but you are still fixated on the cost in £££'s rather
than the consumption in kWh.
An update would provide
useful information e.g. programmed settings, charge times, what temperatures you have them
set to, how many day units and how many night unit you
are using each day, week, month for comparison with the old heaters.
You could have read your
meter immediately after they were fitted and seen that
you were using more energy from the outset rather than waiting months to
find out on your first bill.
There is no magic wand
solution to your increased running costs and you need to
be much more proactive yourself, by learning how to
program them correctly and understanding how to read
your smart meter so that you can keep detailed daily
records of usage.
The manufacturer will not
be interested in your running costs, especially as you
admit that you don't understand how to use them
by correctly following the manufacturers detailed
instructions. e.g. The manufacturer recommends a 3˚C - 5˚C maximum difference between the economy and comfort temperatures.
These heaters are not faulty as you infer and you have absolutely
nothing to actually back up this wild assumption.
Your new heaters are next generation
heaters that have been developed to be far better,
providing the user with constant comfort and therefore
cannot be directly compared with your old inferior
storage heaters.
Presumably you assumed
these heaters would reduce your heating costs but you won't
accept that these heaters have been designed to use energy
during the day, which will obviously increase your
running costs and they certainly won't save you money on
your tariff with it's extortionate day rate!
You are on a very expensive tariff
and you could probably save money by switching to the
cheapest possible single rate tariff if your detailed
actual consumption figures showed this would be
advantageous.
How many day/night units are you
using now compared to using the old heaters? You can't
just say that you don't understand how to use them and that you can't
read your smart meter!
This is your problem, so don't expect anyone else to fix it for you.
We been busy sending readings and communicating with both the company that installed the heaters, and more recently heater manufactures, plus Octopus. My point is Octopus have not increased the prices until April and only by 7% then, so we presented this to the heater manufacture and they must have seen theres an obvious problem and now taken it up a gear. The main reason I posted this months ago was to see if anyone had simular problems with Elnur heaters, I wasent seeking help as such. We knew something wasn't right from the day the heaters were fitted as our smart meter showed we used £8 that same day, and we never used that amount in a day before. Its just taken roughly 6 months to get Elnur to admit it. Even the company that was behind the grant has agreed with us and put the pressure on Elnur to sort it out. Will know more soon hopefully. My point is these eco heaters were meant to save us money, not cost us triple what we used to use. So basically our argument is we dont want to be stuck with expencive heaters. We would rather have our old heaters back or something simular.
Default Weekly Program The ECOHHR storage heater has been preset with a weekly program designed to give comfort level heating throughout the day and is based on the following times. From 00:00 till 07:00am the program runs in economy mode at 18°C, from 07:00am till 22:00pm the program runs at the Comfort temperature of 21°C and from 22:00pm till 24:00pm will run in economy mode.
21c from 7am till 10pm is for people that are in all day.
Storage have high latency so do need to run the background a bit higher (we run 15c with gas) and overlap.
Replies
But the company has already been here scrolling through meter readings since we had the heaters fitted and they admit the usage is shocking, but seem unprepared about it all really. Like they are as shocked as us.
I have argued the case they shouldn't need to come on during the day but they said they are designed to.
I cant get my head around how to read the smart meter. Although they have been here several times and have taken everything down.
Its as if they have admitted somethings not right, but are stuck what to do next.
I just can't believe we would be the only ones with the problem if they are rolling these heaters out in other people's homes.
Or perhaps they didnt have the old storage heaters to compare to is my only thinking there.
A photo of the meter and other equipment would be good - make sure it shows the number of cables going into and out of the meter - I think it should be 5.
What tariff did you used to be on E7 or E10 ?
Your recently fitted Elnur ECOHHR20 heaters are NOT a replacement for your old night storage heaters and will cost a lot more to run because they are designed to operate 24/7, however only seven hours will operate on off peak rate electricity and seventeen hours on peak rate.
Quoted from the user instructions:
These are 'running cost is no object' heaters, which is fine if comfort is your requirement regardless of operating costs but they certainly won't save you any money!
You will see no benefit from the 'grant', only the suppliers/installers have and they are not concerned about your running costs going forward.
@sweetgirl2015 one key thing to check first is that your heaters are set to charge up at the correct off-peak times overnight. So firstly you will need to establish with 100% certainty when your off-peak time or times are. The best way to do this is by seeing when the changes happen on your meter. If that is not possible then you could contact your local DNO from the link below and ask them:
https://www.energynetworks.org/operating-the-networks/whos-my-network-operator
Since the clocks are about to go forward perhaps best left until after this? weekend to do. Once you are sure of the switching times, go to each of the storage heaters and follow the instructions to check and adjust the off-peak timings under the General Settings:
To enter the general settings menu, turn ON the heater via the switch at the right side of the heater while holding down the moon button at the same time. ST will be displayed, at this point you can release the moon button.
Set their start time 15 minutes later, and end time 15 minutes earlier, than the off-peak times to ensure they only charge within the off-peak period, since the actual times vary slightly from day to day.
It may be that when the chuckle brothers installed your smart meter, they didn't preserve the off-peak supply switching circuits, and instead your new radiators just get power delivered all the time. So these settings may be the only thing to tell the radiators when off-peak rate is in effect.
Once you have this aspect sorted, we can look at the other settings to get things set up as you need.
Its also worth pointing out that the whole reason we qualified for the grant was if the street you live in or property cant get access to mains gas, so it was meant to save us money, so naturally we went for it especially as its all free, the storage heaters to buy we were told are £600 to buy, so we thought we were getting a good deal, but over 3 months we have already used as much electric as half the price of one of the heaters, so they definetly are not paying for themselves. We have already paid clise to £300 over the top of past winters, but actually its not the full winter, its only from January to now.
So ironically what was meant to save us money has actually cost us nearly 4 times as much.
We are just keen now to know where we stand legally as they have basically ripoed out the heaters that we were satisfied with, but didn't realise it if you see what I mean? A bit like we didn't realise what we lost until it was gone.
I can't see this being easily resolved as they been back now at least 3 times, but cant get the running costs down.
I had to send running costs of the 4 individual heaters by sending short videos of me going through settings of the heaters each day twice a day, for core heat and room temp etc.
We are just awaiting an email now from them as we obviously expressed our disappointment about this.
1) to the installers.
Look up details of them on the Companies House website - find the names of the directors and write/email/phone them. Make a real nuisance of yourselves .
2) to Elnur
Elnur UK Ltd, Brown Street North, Leigh, Lancashire WN7 1BU
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
Perhaps email technical firstEdit
Elnur's web site is quite comprehensive - lots of videos - also an interactive map which gives local sales reps
As its now been proven from my energy supplier Octopus that it must be the Elnur eco heaters which has caused my electric consumption to triple in cost, as the only price rise was 7% and that was in April, but my heaters were fitted in early December. So this proves its the heaters are at fault.
You have now had them installed for six months since December and all you know is that they are costing more to run but you are still fixated on the cost in £££'s rather than the consumption in kWh.
An update would provide useful information e.g. programmed settings, charge times, what temperatures you have them set to, how many day units and how many night unit you are using each day, week, month for comparison with the old heaters.
You could have read your meter immediately after they were fitted and seen that you were using more energy from the outset rather than waiting months to find out on your first bill.
My point is Octopus have not increased the prices until April and only by 7% then, so we presented this to the heater manufacture and they must have seen theres an obvious problem and now taken it up a gear.
The main reason I posted this months ago was to see if anyone had simular problems with Elnur heaters, I wasent seeking help as such.
We knew something wasn't right from the day the heaters were fitted as our smart meter showed we used £8 that same day, and we never used that amount in a day before.
Its just taken roughly 6 months to get Elnur to admit it. Even the company that was behind the grant has agreed with us and put the pressure on Elnur to sort it out. Will know more soon hopefully.
My point is these eco heaters were meant to save us money, not cost us triple what we used to use. So basically our argument is we dont want to be stuck with expencive heaters.
We would rather have our old heaters back or something simular.
The ECOHHR storage heater has been preset with a weekly program designed to give comfort level heating throughout the day and is based on the following times. From 00:00 till 07:00am the program runs in economy mode at 18°C, from 07:00am till 22:00pm the program runs at the Comfort temperature of 21°C and from 22:00pm till 24:00pm will run in economy mode.
21c from 7am till 10pm is for people that are in all day.
Storage have high latency so do need to run the background a bit higher (we run 15c with gas) and overlap.