Economy 10 - Comments invited

smudgie76

My house is heated by storage heaters as I have, and can get, no gas supply.
I am finding the heat has run out towards the end of the night, especially during a cold spell that we have had recently.
Apparently Economy 10 is good for storage heaters as you get two boosts in addition to the main overnight cheap rate heater charge.
Has anyone out their got or used the Economy 10 plan and what is your opinion/experience of it.
:cool:

Ken68

The extra meter expenses make it difficult for you to shop around. Assuming you can get a provider to quote and install. Powergen are the specialists.

dfh4np

Can be done and works well for me, It makes a big big difference in the heating comfort, although I should point out that I put in new storage heaters as well. Please bear in mind that everyones set up is different and the costs of the units can make a big difference.



To explain ........................................,


I Changed from Scottish Power (Comfort Plus) to Scottish Hydro (E10) four months ago.

You will not normally get an E10 meter fitted when you have storage heaters, however the new supplier never asked what I was powering but the meter man said he would not fit if storage heaters where present.

As I had been warned about this I ripped out the old storage heaters (20 Year Old) last summer before starting the switching and fitted the new ones after the E10 meter was fitted.

Changing suppliers and getting the E10 meter fitted took approx 3 months from start to finish.

Firstly to switch suppliers the old dual meter system and timeclock needs to be removed so there was only 1 supply number. This took 3 weeks and then another 3 weeks after that for them to update the mpan before I could apply to change suppliers.

Then the transfer took another 3 weeks and then getting the new E10 meter took another 3 weeks after that as I could only apply for it once they had taken over the supply.


The Technical Bit


As there is no control or timeclock in an E10 setup and storage heaters are heavy duty I had a 50A contactor and time clock fitted. This cost me £30 in parts from eBay and £60 for an electrician to fit them and wire up the storage heater side of the mainboard to the permanent supply block.

My E10 hours are : (varies by area and controlled by the digital e10 meter that gets a radio signal to switch between the 2 rates):

04.21am - 7.21am
12.51pm - 3.51pm
8.21pm - 00.21am (Weekends 7.51pm - 00.21am?)

Set Up

In my house (Small 3 Bedroom) I have 3 storage heaters :

(1) 3.4kw in the lounge
(2) 2.5kw in the hall(Not Been switched on yet)
(3) 2.5kw on the upstairs landing

Currently the heaters are given a 2.5 hour charge at 4.50am to 7.20am,
Then a 2 hour charge between 1.30pm and 3.30pm,
The landing heater is given an additional 1 hour charge between 11.20pm and 12.20am.

The lounge heater keeps the room (18SQM) warm to up to 24 Deg till late in the evening and never goes below 20 Deg if at all till 2 in the morning; Last year I was having to use the electric fire to boost heating levels, It has not been on once this year.

The landing heater is used to heat the small landing and the 3 upstairs bedrooms with the doors left open and maintains a temp of at least 18 but can be up 21, This heater is given an extra 1 hour charge late at night so the area does not go cold, without this the bedrooms can drop back to 10-12 degrees (Kids have asthma and I like to maintain the temp).

Overall I am very happy with this set up as it gives me total control of the charging periods and I would say that incremental charging is much better than a straight 7 hours overnight with the house at its hottest in the morning and cooling thereafter. I find that closing the vents whilst charging helps them build up heat, Compared to the old units they leak very little when closed.

Cost wise it’s more expensive to run heating on economy 10 as the units are more expensive than E7 or comfort plus (varies by area)

Comfort plus ; Peak : 9.7, Off Peak : 4.2, Daily Charge : 28.5
E10 ; Peak 8.5 , Off Peak : 4.6, Daily Charge : 21.3

But I think charging the heaters this way has less waste as the heats not bursting out and being wasted after a full charge in the morning. The rest of the house usage at the cheaper rate periods and cheaper peak rate / standing charge (£25PA) also makes it better and should make it cheaper over the summer months as well.

Its impossible to compare overall running costs to 12 months ago as its weather dependant on how much is used but in October 07 I used 100 less off peak units than in Oct 06, 217 less in Nov 07 than in Nov 06 and 210 less in Dec 07 than in Dec 06.

I have however compared last months usage on both tariffs and it worked out £1.75 cheaper on e10 for the same usage based on :


Dec 07 Peak Units : 254

E10 : Unit Cost 0.08505. Service Charge : £3.20. Cost : £24.80
Comfort Plus : Unit Cost 0.09731. Service Charge : £3.55. Cost : £28.27

Dec 07 Off Peak Units : 830

E10 : Unit Cost 0.04670. Service Charge : £3.20. Cost : £41.96
Comfort Plus : Unit Cost 0.04262. Service Charge : £4.87. Cost : £40.24

Total : E10 : £66.76 Comfort Plus : £68.51


E10 = £1.75 Cheaper.

The only thing I will add is that if you are on E7 then having the flexibility to charge the hot water during the daytime cheap periods could be beneficial as well, it was not for us as we got the cheap rate all the time for water.

As an aside I looked at replacing the storage heaters with wet radiators (Kalirel) at a cost of £1300 but managed to update the heating from Ebay for a total of £315, As good as the Kalirel heating looks and sounds on paper it would take a long time to justify the cost difference and as I like the house heated all day would have been a lot more expensive to run as it would have required a mixture of both peak and off peak units to operate to the same level.

3 New Creda storage heaters for £240 ( 2 x 2.5 & 1 x 3.4)
2 New Dimplex fan heaters for the bathrooms at £17 each
1 Air curtain heater for the kitchen at £40, (Replaced a storage heater that was only on twice last winter at parties.)


Hope this helps.



DFH4NP :j

Cardew

DFH4NP,
Great post!

Nice to see a detailed breakdown of costs.

The point you made that should be emphasised time and again is that the modern storage heaters do not 'leak' as much as the old ones; and that would apply to E7.

As you are aware the biggest criticism of old Storage heaters(for people out at work all day) is that they leak heat all day and run out at night.

Many people inherit old storage heating when they buy a house - and hate them. They don't appreciate that for a fairly modest outlay they could buy new storage heaters and transform their heating.

conrod_2

I have my storage heaters on E10. My E7 meter, with seperate clock, was changed to a single digital meter that switches everything electrical to cheap rate between 12am-5am, 1pm-4pm & 8pm-10pm (+1hr BST). Everything is normal rate outside these hours.
I currently pay a daily standing charge of 10.67p, a normal rate of 9.32p & a cheap rate of 4.78p. I get 6% discount because I pay by DD. I believe the daily charge varies around the country.
Scottish and Southern Electric 0800117116 or 08009123000
My neighbour, who had an old twin Mpan set up, was able to swop to E10 by changing to a single Mpan E7 meter first, with their existing supplier, then migrating to SSE E7, then to their E10 tariff.
HTH

Gorgeous_George

Just a note to agree with Cardew.

Old night storage heaters (NSH) can lose their stored heat especially if the vent doesn't close properly. Spare parts can often be bought and anyone with a technical mind should be able to carry out repairs (BE SAFE!). The heater should be less warm with the vent closed. If not, have it checked (by a competent person). It's still important to keep doors closed so that heat loss is slower.

My parents NSH have a 2 hour boost in the afternoon and this seems to work well. They switch the lounge NSH on for the afternoon boost as they do not use the lounge during the day. With some common-sense and reasonable steps, NSH can be a decent, clean form of heating. Obviously, it suits some people better than others. I have gas central heating

GG

ukbill69

Id say get your metre chnaged to e7 and then swtich the edf where they will install free of charge a credit metre. You will loose the daily standing charge and the rates will be better.

Billy_Bunter_2

We now have an economy 10 metre from Scottish & Southern and find it useful. It cost us nothing to switch from NPower and the new metre was fitted within 3 months with no problems.

We use it to run an electric heating system, Kalirel, and are very happy.

Mynewt

Economy 10 is a comfort and conveniance tarriff not an economy tarriff (despite its name). Its deisnged to be able to offer heating at any point of the day more or less regardless of cost. There are a few providers offering E10 support so it is possible to support, but it the majority of cases consumers would be better financially with an economy-7 Tarriff. As all provider support these and more importantly, nearly all tarriffs support E7 metering.

Cardew

Mynewt wrote: »

Economy 10 is a comfort and conveniance tarriff not an economy tarriff (despite its name). Its deisnged to be able to offer heating at any point of the day more or less regardless of cost. There are a few providers offering E10 support so it is possible to support, but it the majority of cases consumers would be better financially with an economy-7 Tarriff. As all provider support these and more importantly, nearly all tarriffs support E7 metering.

How does E10 "offer heating at any point of the day more or less regardless of cost"?

It is an economy tariff! It gives 10 hours of cheaper electricity.

It is designed primarily for storage heaters to enable them to charge up overnight, and receive a 'boost' in the afternoon(or whenever the daytime cheap electricity is supplied) Ditto for Immersion heaters.

What reasons have you for claiming "but it the majority of cases consumers would be better financially with an economy-7 Tarriff(sic)"?

Premier_2

Billy_Bunter wrote: »

We now have an economy 10 metre from Scottish & Southern and find it useful. It cost us nothing to switch from NPower and the new metre was fitted within 3 months with no problems.

We use it to run an electric heating system, Kalirel, and are very happy.

Thanks for sharing but...

This thread is almost 2 years old,

and as such I would hope any previous posters seeking help & advice have now sorted themselves out a long time ago