understanding storage heaters

baron777

Qyburn said:

baron777 said:

Regarding how much it cost to run, my night unit rate with octopus is 12.93p per kw/h, so for 7 hours it will use approx. 11.9 KW/h per night totalling £1.54 (1.7x7x0.1293) is that right?

It shouldn't be as much as that because the heater will switch off when it gets hot enough which will depend on its settings, how much heat was already left in the core and to a lesser extent the room temperature.

this is what confuses me, when trying to estimate how much elec it will use, so if i put the input to 6, and it didnt have any unused heat, does this mean that it will retain the maximum amount of heat, but how long does this take? and if its put the 1 it will retain less heat, which will not take as long, and hence not use as much electric.
would it be a good assumption to say 6 on the dial will use 6 hours of elec, and 1 will use 1 hour? 

Gerry1

The missing seal needs to be reported in writing PDQ.  It's a classic sign of electricity theft.

brig001

Could the day and night meter readings be swapped? Take both readings in the morning and again in the evening. Only one should have changed 

Brian

Gerry1

brig001 said:

Could the day and night meter readings be swapped? Take both readings in the morning and again in the evening. Only one should have changed.

The rate shown by the steady state display is likely to be the rate in use at that time.

Ectophile

The storage heater is a box of bricks with heating elements in them.

The input control operates a thermostat that sets how hot you want the bricks to get. 1 = warm, 6 = really hot.

The output control opens a flap to let the heat out faster. 1 = slowly, 6 = fastest.

if i put the input to 6, and it didnt have any unused heat, does this mean that it will retain the maximum amount of heat, but how long does this take?

If you set the input to 6 then it will use the most electricity, heating the bricks up.  If you want to retain heat, turn the output control down.

It's done by a thermostat, so there's no obvious link between the input setting and how many hours it will use electricity for.

Scot_39

Thats a modern'sh 5 port non smart digital meter - with the E7 ALCS (load switching) circuit built in.

There wont be any external time switch in meter cabinet.

Ampy were taken over by - and they after a couple of years - rebadged some Ampy meters -  Landis + Gyr

https://www.landisgyr.com/webfoo/wp-content/uploads/product-files/5246_Technical_Specification11.pdf

It's not that clear in photos - but I think you can make out just the 2 output live tails on RHS - it should have 5 meter tails - live nuetral in neutral, live 24.7 and E7 switched live out.  As per schematic in above pdf.

Two things I forgot in my post.

1.5kW heater - if using that on / off all day - depending on thermostat - that could easily draw near 10kWh over 17 hours peak window, if drawing power even just a third of the time.  On a high setting in a lossy house - possibly even more.

Covered elsewhere in posts above - at least in part - but not all suppliers use the same rate 1 and rate 2 order - so check which register is actually recording at each time day and night - and check which reading matches the equivalent rate charge on your bill.

(People have literally paid the wrong rates for years in past by not checking)

From  photos

Note the first of 4 meter photos only has an R - no qualifying 1 or 2 shown - meaning ?

baron777

thanks for all the replies.

So I went round to see the heaters and have a look at it for myself, there are 3 storage heaters, all similar size, probably 1.7KW – I have attached photos, all are run from a switch on the wall.

There is also a hot water tank with lagging around, and a switch which looks like its connector to a timer, that comes on between 2 and 3 (not sure if its AM or PM), my brother has told me that there is always hot water when he runs the tap, and the shower works by pulling the cord and then switching the shower on, it’s a 9.5kw shower which ive found costs about 45p for a 10 min shower,

The Main elec meter is outside in a brick shed, and this also has got a fuse box, and another plug socket with something plugged into it, which I need to find out what this is. This is a short 30 sec video of it

https://1drv.ms/v/s!An93ajQiWFLyoS_czqFdBLvr-R4L

 when i was there i took both readings and the day went up to 39148 (up by 49) from 30th march to 2nd april, and the night went up to 60702 (up by 10)  

I have been researching how much each of his appliances should be using as an average, and i have come to the conclusion its got to be the 1.5kw radiator that’s been on more than he’s telling me, or the storage heaters are being billed on the day rate.

The bill for 37 days is £327 made up of £269 (926 day units) and £23 (for 183 night units) about standing chg and VAT. Average weekly usage being 175 day units (£50). and 34 night units (£4.35)

What I am doing is asking him to take readings every day, at the same time, now for the next week, without using the radiator at all, and see what that uses.

I have put all 3 heaters input to 3, told him not to touch the input dial all week.

I have attached photos of the meter, the water heater switch and timer, and one of the heaters

thanks

Alnat1

If the shower is electric, does your brother actually need a tank of hot water every day? If he's happy to wash his hands with cold water and boil a kettle before he washes up, then he might not need to heat the tank at all.

baron777

Gerry1 said:

brig001 said:

Could the day and night meter readings be swapped? Take both readings in the morning and again in the evening. Only one should have changed.

The rate shown by the steady state display is likely to be the rate in use at that time.

i think they are the right way round in the last 3 days the day one has gone up by 49, and the night one has gone up by 10.

Gerry1

Worst type of timer because a power outage will make it drift.  If you didn't take the photo at 5.35pm then it's wrong.  Turn the big knob clockwise until the hands show the correct time.

2am to 3am may not be optimum time to heat.  As previously stated, in some areas that could charged at peak rate.

Charging closer to the end of the E7 off-peak rate will slightly reduce the heat lost by leakage; if you used a hot water bottle you wouldn't fill it at 7pm if you went to bed at 11pm.