Eco 7 or Standard Rate

Ck_4

Hello there

I’m just wondering what others think.

I moved into a 2 bed semi back in September which is electric only. Currently on economy 7. We have a storage heater in the living room, one in the kitchen and a rather small pointless one at the bottom of the stairs by the front door. 

We’re not planning on using any of these as we have an open fire, soon to be a log burner where I have a good free supply of wood so heating the downstairs is no problem and next door say theirs heats upstairs if they leave the doors open.

Currently there is no heating upstairs so the only thing that we really use on economy 7 is the immersion which gives us hot water for the morning when we get up but if me or my girlfriend have a bath in the morning we need to top it up in the evening if we want hot water.

I don’t know if it makes a difference? but the immersion isn’t wired up to the off peak, just the main consumer box.

we put the dishwasher and washing machine on after midnight for the eco 7.

but sometimes if we have a bit of washing we may need to do two loads so it would be easier to do during the day.

I’m wondering if I should go to standard rate tariff or stay as we are?

There is usually someone at home every day due to our work patterns, so we do use a bit during the day.

Thanks

[Deleted User]

Ck_4 said:

 the immersion isn’t wired up to the off peak, just the main consumer box.

Good, because otherwise you wouldn't be able to heat any water in the day.

Ck_4 said:

I’m wondering if I should go to standard rate tariff or stay as we are?

Work out how much you use at night and how much you use in the day (kWh).  If it's less than about 30% or so at night, you might well be better on single tariff (although this depends on your prices).

Ck_4

[Deleted User] said:

Ck_4 said:

 the immersion isn’t wired up to the off peak, just the main consumer box.

Good, because otherwise you wouldn't be able to heat any water in the day.

Ck_4 said:

I’m wondering if I should go to standard rate tariff or stay as we are?

Work out how much you use at night and how much you use in the day (kWh).  If it's less than about 30% or so at night, you might well be better on single tariff (although this depends on your prices).

That’s what I was planning but wasn’t sure what to base it on. I’ll aim at 30%. We’ve only been in here a couple of months, we got carried over from the previous owners with Eon but they were charging a lot of money.

So Energy our supplier from our old place didn’t seem to want to supply us so went over to Utility Warehouse.

our current rate is
Day 44.939
Night 14.555

Standard Rate 35.313 

How would I work out the 30%? Sorry, not to good with things like that.

[Deleted User]

You need to start reading your meter.  As you're on E7 now, there will be two readings going up.

If, for example, your night reading goes up by 100 and your day reading by 300 (so 25% at night):

Cost on split tariff = (100 x 14.555p) + (300 x 44.939p)   = £149.37

Cost on standard = 400 x 35.313p   = £141.25

So for that usage (100 night and 300 day), standard rate would be cheaper.  Get your own usage readings and work out the same maths.

Gerry1

You may find that E7 can sometimes be worthwhile with night use as low as 15% - 20%.  However, the differentials between day and night rates have now become quite extreme, varying significantly between regions even with the same supplier, so do the sums carefully.

If you have only one immersion heater, consider fitting an 'immersion heater timer' (search online) that shadows the E7 night rate times, but make sure you use the actual meter times, not merely what they are supposed to be.  Make sure it has battery backup (i.e. not motorised) otherwise a power cut could be expensive !

If you opt for cheap rate, you don't need a change of meter: most suppliers will just bill both registers at the single rate.  Keeping the E7 meter gives you the flexibility to go back to it if standard rate turns out to be more expensive; you can't really be sure until you have usage figures for a full 12 months.