storage heaters - confused

roosaaliiee

wittynamegoeshere said:

Don't tell your supplier if it is, keep quiet and consider it a rare bonus, as it means you can get cheap power during the day.

I'd rather have cheap electricity during the night if that's when the heaters are charging!

[Deleted User]

Hi,

if timer is out and heaters charging through the day you will still be on the cheap rate as meter will switch according to the timer.

You said you work from home, so that should suit.

Gerry1

roosaaliiee said:

wittynamegoeshere said:

Don't tell your supplier if it is, keep quiet and consider it a rare bonus, as it means you can get cheap power during the day.

I'd rather have cheap electricity during the night if that's when the heaters are charging!

They should be charging whenever the lower rate is on, and that's when usually the meter says so.  The NSHs won't know what time it is unless they're fan assisted and have an inbuilt clock and display.  However, you said yours was an old one so it'll just charge up when the supply is live and the thermostat is calling for heat...

The advantage of a drifting meter clock is that IF you are on Economy 7 then you may have cheaper electricity at more sociable hours and be able to benefit by using the tumble dryer, washing machine, cooker etc at those times.  Similarly, your NSHs may also be hotter when you're awake rather than wasting heat when you're asleep.

You still haven't told us whether you're on Economy 7 or some other tariff which does have afternoon boost, nor have you told us the times when your meter actually does switch, so without proper info there's not much help that can be given.

roosaaliiee

Soo... I had the electrician over today: the timer has drifted indeed: at 9am this morning it was set to 5pm. So that's why the heaters haven't been coming on until late in the day, and (as I discovered) are still on full blast at 3am. So they're going to get the electricity board to come out to correct it.

That's good to know I suppose? They also said that the NSH's were very old, with one faulty for sure, and said I'd be better off getting electric panel heaters instead, so that I can control when I have heat...
Do folk on here agree? I am on Economy 7.

Another thing: my electricity company is putting my monthly charge up to £120, from the £60 I paid in my old house (and it's not a price rise they stress, it's because I use a lot more electricity than in my old place). They base this on the month of half Sept to half Oct, when I mostly wasn't even heating the house. This new place is very similar in build (old cottage) to the place I just moved out of, but this has one less room and generally less floor space.

I don't understand why I'm paying so much more. The previous tenant said he paid £128 per month, it just seems a lot for a small 2 bedroom cottage? 

What do people on here think? I assume it's not the drifted timer? Is it the old storage heaters? The immersion heater (which now that I think of it was set to heat for two hours during what was meant to be off-peak but actually was during peak hours with the drifted timer)? The electric shower (though I had exactly the same in my old place)? I don't do anything different here, some lights, a laptop, cooker, laundry about once a week.... Anyone?

Thank you!!!

molerat

The electrician is correct in one respect.  Panel heaters are much more convenient and controllable than storage heaters ................ unfortunately the negative side is that they will likely cost twice as much to run !  Get the old heater fixed, there is not a lot to actually go wrong and it is usually fairly cheap to fix them.

QrizB

roosaaliiee said:

That's good to know I suppose? They also said that the NSH's were very old, with one faulty for sure, and said I'd be better off getting electric panel heaters instead, so that I can control when I have heat...
Do folk on here agree? I am on Economy 7.

I agree with molerat; get the old heaters fixed. They're a box of bricks with an electric heating element inside, very little to go wrong and should be cheap to fix. (If you rent, this might be the landlord's responsibility?)
Electricians like panel heaters because they're cheap to buy and easy to fit. They're also the most expensive mainstream means of heating a property, so generally not a good idea if you're plannign to live in the property and pay the bills..

EssexHebridean

I’m going to politely disagree and say that your money might be better invested in replacing the faulty heater with a far more modern version. Here we have one elderly Creda NSH, 2 “standard” Dimplex ones - both inside 10 years old - and one modern “Quantum” which was installed a couple of years ago and is a total game-changer. Costs less to charge and produces more heat than ANY of the others. Far better insulated so it actually retains what heat it stores. Actually controllable so you can have heat when you want it and not when you don’t. They’re not cheap, but our single one has already gone well on its way towards recovering its cost due to the savings in running it. It also has the advantage of having a “boost” function which runs as a fan heater effectively, from the daytime rate electric and costs in the region of 20p an hour to run - so very affordable and useful on an occasional basis when the weather has turned colder than expected. 

There is a thread on here somewhere about energy saving - I posted some Economy 7 specific stuff on there earlier today which you may find useful if you’re relatively new to it. 

As far as billing goes, we’re a rather different style of property here but by the sound of it a similar sort of size - pre pandemic we used approx 5500KwH a year of which we manage to get in the region of 70% at the cheap rate. The more you can do overnight, the lower your costs will be. 

coffeehound

roosaaliiee said:

So they're going to get the electricity board to come out to correct it.

Glad you've got to the bottom of it.  Just to mention, if they want to change the meter to a 'smart' meter, it's important that they know (preferably in advance) that you need a meter which switches the circuits automatically.  There have been reports on here of people having new meters fitted and losing their automated switching because they just put in an ordinary smart meter.

roosaaliiee said:

I don't understand why I'm paying so much more. The previous tenant said he paid £128 per month, it just seems a lot for a small 2 bedroom cottage? 

What do people on here think? I assume it's not the drifted timer? Is it the old storage heaters? The immersion heater (which now that I think of it was set to heat for two hours during what was meant to be off-peak but actually was during peak hours with the drifted timer)? The electric shower (though I had exactly the same in my old place)? I don't do anything different here, some lights, a laptop, cooker, laundry about once a week.... Anyone?

Once your timer is corrected, it's worth trying to use the shower during off-peak hours since they use a lot of power.  If that's not convenient, then you would be better off with a mixer shower that uses your E7 water from the tank.

roosaaliiee

Once your timer is corrected, it's worth trying to use the shower during off-peak hours since they use a lot of power.  If that's not convenient, then you would be better off with a mixer shower that uses your E7 water from the tank.

Thanks for this. I don't think I'll be up late or early enough to have showers during off-peak time, and I don't think my landlord will put in a mixer shower, sadly. Is that the main culprit you think? I'm surprised because I had exactly the same shower in my previous house and I only paid £60 per month for electricity...

wittynamegoeshere

I'd have kept very quiet about that timer being out.  Too late now.