How Much Cheaper Is Eco 7?

hst43029

Scottish Power (Manweb) offer 4 off peak tariffs. Economy 7. Twin Heat A, Twin Heat B and Option 14. E7 is 7 hours off peak 0030-0730 GMT. THA is 7 off peak hours 0330-0730 and 1330-1630 GMT, THB is 7 off peak hours 0030-0430 and 1330-1630 GMT and Option 14 is 14 off peak hours the times which I cannot remember. THA is a very popular but little advertised tariff because if you have storage heaters they get warm for the morning and get a boost in the afternoon, but more importantly you get 3 hours cheap electric in the afternoon to do the cooking/put the washing on etc, etc.

123xyz

Even with the night time storage heaters we inherited when moving into our current home, we had a hard job to make E7 good value. I had timer delay switches for washing machine etc., but still found the higher day time price counter productive

geraint83

hst43029 wrote:

Scottish Power (Manweb) offer 4 off peak tariffs. Economy 7. Twin Heat A, Twin Heat B and Option 14. E7 is 7 hours off peak 0030-0730 GMT. THA is 7 off peak hours 0330-0730 and 1330-1630 GMT, THB is 7 off peak hours 0030-0430 and 1330-1630 GMT and Option 14 is 14 off peak hours the times which I cannot remember. THA is a very popular but little advertised tariff because if you have storage heaters they get warm for the morning and get a boost in the afternoon, but more importantly you get 3 hours cheap electric in the afternoon to do the cooking/put the washing on etc, etc.

On our bill the tariff is called "Economy 7" but I presume that it's the same as the Option 14 that you mentioned because we get 14 hours off peak between 2100-0800 and 1300-1600 GMT. Are the prices the same no matter which version of tariff you're on?

poundhappy

I was under the impression that economy 7 only affected certain plug sockets / switches. I have economy 7 storage heating, and when I bought my flat was told that the only economy 7 supply switches were the 2 storage heaters and the hot water supply, so although the switches are always on the on position, they are only fed juice from the electric company between the night time hours. If I need extra hot water in the day, I need to turn on the other switch for 24hr electricity supply.

As far as I'm aware, I don't get cheap rates for any other appliances or convector heaters during the night.

Xbigman

The night storage heaters are probably on a separate circuit but they can be turned on manually during the day (sometimes called a 'boost'). Check your meter and it will have one dial and two readings. All electricity used during the night is at the economy 7 rate if your meter has this arrangement.
Regards



X

ladyrow

Hi

I don't know exact statistics, but since we changed back to a standard meter our monthly bills have gone down from £40 to £32.

It does coincide with us getting rid of the dishwasher, but with a young family we found that we always had washing on the go and couldn't really do things at night, we also didn't have storage heaters.

I think it probably is good if you definitley set everything to timers and have things working through the night, but for us we didn't have enough things to use then.

Hope this helps and doesn't confuse even more....

LAdyrow

cdownton

Hi
I looked at Economy 7 for my flat. It seems to depend greatly on the electricity area you are in - in London Eastern there's quite a difference between the day rate for standard and E7 tariffs.

What I did was used uswitch to compare the two tariffs, taking the average values it uses for 'i don't have any figures to hand' - it showed that I might be £10 a year better off on E7 but then you're losing all the convenience of using your appliances when you want them.

I was advised by London Energy that the cut-off is 20% usage at night but then Ecotricity said it was more like 60%.

I have storage heaters but a very insulated home. I think the only way it's worth it is if you have storage heaters and a poorly insulated home - then you can save a lot of money. Depending on your meter it can be quite a hassle switching over too - some boards even charge for it.

Incidentally, there's no separate circuit for E7 - it's just a case of you have two meter figures - one counting during the day, the other counting during the night.

All the best/

russellgreeno

A few years back, my partners parents (who we lived with) had Storage heaters installed and were switched to Eco 7.

The idea is great, let the heaters charge up when the electricity is cheap. The downside was, that, as OAPs they hardly ventured from the house all day, and therefore were burning lots of electricity during they day at THREE times the cost of the nighttime electricitly.

If you are out at work all day with no need for many applianes on while you are out, then it is great, but being marketed for OAP's isn't quite fair.

ltlmiles5

russellgreeno wrote:

A few years back, my partners parents (who we lived with) had Storage heaters installed and were switched to Eco 7.

The idea is great, let the heaters charge up when the electricity is cheap. The downside was, that, as OAPs they hardly ventured from the house all day, and therefore were burning lots of electricity during they day at THREE times the cost of the nighttime electricitly.


I think the whole point of storage heating is that it comes on at night (some automatically) during the cheap rate, and turn off in the daytime. So the heaters shouldn't have been on in the daytime.

I have got two storage heaters in my house. Haven't got a manual for them as they were installed by the previous owner. I did contact Creda online, but got a manual for a more recent model sent to me instead, and am not sure if they apply to mine. Mine are supposed to be automatic, but am not sure if they are working properly.

I switch them on using the switch on the wall, and it heats up, and I can feel the heat coming out of it after a few minutes, even though it's daytime. Shouldn't it come on only during off-peak hours? I am confused as I would have thought I can control it to charge up during the night, and turn it on using the dial, in the daytime. It has two dials. One says 'Room Temperature', the other 'Input'.

And when I switch it off using the switch on the wall, even turn both dials to 0, it still stays warm for hours and hours. And when I turn the dials up to when I acutally want the heat, there's none left!!!!.

Can someone please help? My husband and I haven't got a clue how this thing, which is supposed to save us money, actually works!

whosforachat

My bills always show 182 units at a high cost (even when an actual reading is taken), and all the rest at a low cost. How can they tell from your meter reading what you used when? Are they just guessing at 182 units?