how do i go about removing an economy 7 meter?

Cardew

wannaberich41 wrote: »

weve not got storage heaters. were on gas heating. just looked at a years bills on electric as follows.

feb 07 day 1112 kwh used
night 248 kwh used
charges for this are
primary 229 kwh at 18.37p
secondary 883 kwh at 9.93
night 248 kwh at 4.26

May 07 day 713 kwh
night 179 kwh
charges primary 168 kwh 18.37p
secondary 545 kwh at 9.93
night 179 kwh at 4.26

Aug 07 Day 787 kwh
night 197 kwh
charges primary 227 kwh at 18.28p
secondary 560 kwh at 9.88
night 197 kwh at 4.24

nov 07 day 800 kwh
night 202 kwh
charges primary 224 kwh 18.28p
secondary 576 kwh 9.88p
night 202 kwh 4.24p

Not sure what the primary and secondary mean?

Should i change the tariff being im on gas heating and gas cooker?

We do work so heating isn't on until we get home unless its the school holidays. And it is only the basic electrical things that are left on all the time. fridge, freezer , alarm clock.
you advise would be gratefully appreciated.

Firstly primary units(called tier 1) are higher priced units charged in lieu of a daily standing charge - normally 900 units a year.

You use approx 25% of your consumption on E7 rates so it is doubtful if it makes financial sense to be on E7. The break-even point varies by company and area but(as stated above) it is normally around 30% E7 usage.

I am surprised you get your E7 consumption as high as 25%, unless you use an immersion heater for hot water and/or you get up very early/go to bed late.

hulltrucker

I just looked here to see if it was worth swicthing to E7 and running a dishwasher at night - clearly not!

foxybabe

Just to say, I am having a meter exchange as we have got an e7 meter. We have been in the house 7 years now and have constantly had problems with the meter readings as they never tally!! (not sure why) We were assured that this problem had been sorted out and decided to change supplier. We are now having the same problem again so I have insisted on a meter exchange. I don't think they like to do this readily. Just to say though I have always felt that our electric bill was very high, so we will see wheter it changes with the new meter. Hope that made sense.

code-a-holic

I have thought about this for such a long time and planned to investigate changing. Have now made a call to npower and having the meter changed for free in a weeks time. This should slice a decent chunk off our bill i hope.
Thank you to the OP for posting this thread that gave me a good kick up the behind!

MATH

Before you ditch your econ7 tariff why don't you see if you can make it work for you. The rule that econ7 only pays if you have storage heaters is a myth, many people I know do make it pay. You need to do the math based on your own annual figures. Switching to single rate and 'hoping' it saves you money may end up costing you more.

Different households have different habits and usage but at the end of the day if you can't make it work for you then you haven't lost anything and can change to the single rate, but as your off-peak usage is already 25% it shouldn't be too difficult to exceed the break even point by working the off-peak to your advantage.

I have gas central heating & hot water but find just one load of dish-washing, one load of washing and one tumble drying easily pushes my night-time consumption way above the break even point. Last year I saved over £100 on paying a single rate.
Noisy appliances do not have to crank up at 3am:eek: I set mine for 6:15am, they run as we are getting up and then can be emptied and laundry folded before I leave for work. I found that once I got into this new routine it become so normal you don't even notice you are doing it.

Cardew

withabix wrote: »

What starts yo outweigh this is the number of PCs you might have in your household, humming away at typically 500W per PC!!!

Not many computer's consumption approach anything like 500W. The fact that they have power supplies rated at 350W or 500W is meaningless.

Typical consumption for desktops are 150-200W including LCD monitor. Laptops are around 30W. Power management systems reduce those figures considerably.

Older desktops use even less, although CRT monitors use more - typically 70-80W.

code-a-holic

I have tried for 2 years to make economy 7 work....unfortunatly i cnat get the percentag of usage at night up. The washing machine has a time so that always goes in the night. But with a family of 5, i also do a load during the day. The dishwasher wont work of a timer as you have to press start, so that goes once/twice a day. The dryer also needs you to press start when power on so that goes once a day. Then my husband, an IT/website person, has a super duper computer which runs 24 hrs a day (uploads/downloads all night and works from home a lot).
compared to some our bills are not too high for a family of 5, 3 bedroom house. We pay £52 a month and in credit during spring/summer. Once the meter is changed im hoping that this might go below £50 a month

espresso

withabix wrote: »

For 500W I was including base unit, monitor, printers, modem, router, switch, speakers, hubs, UPS, the light that's probably on and other paraphenalia which all add up!

Not to half a kilowatt though!

:rolleyes:

espresso

withabix wrote: »

says what all?

There have been many discussions on this board about how useless the electrisave is, when compared to using the much cheaper energy monitoring devices, that measure individual appliances with a 13A socket. Search and you will find.

withabix wrote: »

Please provide the typical figures that you are using (with links to sources) to confirm that my figures aren't typical then.

Read this thread here and another post here for actual measured figures.

Cardew

withabix wrote: »

Please provide the typical figures that you are using (with links to sources) to confirm that my figures aren't typical then.

I can't help feeling you have plucked your figures out of thin air!(or read the label on the PC and assumed that meant something).

Instead of trying to defend an unsupportable statement; why don't you provide links to support your statement? Or admit you are wrong?

As espresso stated there have been scores of people post their figures on this website and as far as I can recall nobody has posted a figure above 200W.

My PC, which was as high a spec as you could get a year or so ago, rarely reads above 160W, even with DVD working. Even with my router switched on, scanner/printer etc it is only a few watts more. My previous PC used about 80W.

A lot of us have power measuring meters that are far better than the electrisave for accurately determining consumption of these devices; and for that matter better than the electrisave for almost everything else.(and cost a fraction of the price)