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Can I switch to Economy 7?
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I've searched both the main site and the forums and haven't found any discussion of this, so thought I'd ask here.
About 15 years ago, in my last house, I had an electric shower fitted by Norweb. When they did this, they replaced my meter with a dual rate meter and put me on the Economy 7 tariff. My house heating at the time was gas central heating, so there was no advantage for heating. Obviously, I took advantage of off-peak electricity, used a timer on my washing machine/tumble dryer (it was a combined unit and actually had a start timer built into the controls) and I only did any washing/drying in off-peak periods and, occasionally, also set a timer to cook stews, etc, overnight so the oven wasn't using peak rate electricity.
In my current house (oil-fired central heating), I have a standard single rate meter, so there's no advantage to running anything electrical at any particular time. However, in the past couple of years, we have had underfloor electric heating fitted in both our bathrooms and the master bedroom, so an off-peak rate might make a significant saving.
Firstly, is it possible to request a change to/from a dual rate meter? My current supplier is British Gas. Does it depend on the supplier? Would I have to pay a charge for the swap? One of my neighbours is on a dual-rate meter and doesn't have storage heaters or anything else that might warrant an off-peak rate; it was just in the house when they bought it.
Secondly, assuming the meter/tariff can be changed, in general, would I expect to save money? If so, why doesn't everyone do it?
To try and put some figures on this, I worked out that, at my current rates excluding VAT, a 1Kw appliance run for 24 hours/day would cost £3.04 on Tier 1 or £1.58 on Tier 2. British Gas' Two Rate tariff would make these £2.97 and £1.61 (assuming a 7-hour 'night' from 12am to 7am) so a more detailed calculation is needed!
As a second calculation, I worked out that running my tumble dryer on max heat (2.9Kw) for 2 hours costs 73p on Tier 1 and 38p on Tier 2; on the Two Rate scheme, this becomes 97p and 50p during the day, but only 11p at night! So I'd pay more to run it during the day, but save significantly running it at night. Obviously, a calculation for the washing machine is almost impossible due to the complexities of various programmes, water temperature, etc.
Of course, what I really need to do is start recording meter readings by time of day (at least at the typical switchover times, 12midnight & 7am?), do washing/drying etc at night as if I had a off-peak rate, and then work out what the cost would be for both standard and dual-rate charging, as my usage may be different from someone else's. However, there's obviously no point doing all this if it's not possible to request a change at the end of it.
Derek.
P.S. I did a comparison on energyhelpline.com with the 'Economy 7' box unticked and ticked (using typical usage estimates for my house) and it reckoned I'd save about £70 per year.
About 15 years ago, in my last house, I had an electric shower fitted by Norweb. When they did this, they replaced my meter with a dual rate meter and put me on the Economy 7 tariff. My house heating at the time was gas central heating, so there was no advantage for heating. Obviously, I took advantage of off-peak electricity, used a timer on my washing machine/tumble dryer (it was a combined unit and actually had a start timer built into the controls) and I only did any washing/drying in off-peak periods and, occasionally, also set a timer to cook stews, etc, overnight so the oven wasn't using peak rate electricity.
In my current house (oil-fired central heating), I have a standard single rate meter, so there's no advantage to running anything electrical at any particular time. However, in the past couple of years, we have had underfloor electric heating fitted in both our bathrooms and the master bedroom, so an off-peak rate might make a significant saving.
Firstly, is it possible to request a change to/from a dual rate meter? My current supplier is British Gas. Does it depend on the supplier? Would I have to pay a charge for the swap? One of my neighbours is on a dual-rate meter and doesn't have storage heaters or anything else that might warrant an off-peak rate; it was just in the house when they bought it.
Secondly, assuming the meter/tariff can be changed, in general, would I expect to save money? If so, why doesn't everyone do it?
To try and put some figures on this, I worked out that, at my current rates excluding VAT, a 1Kw appliance run for 24 hours/day would cost £3.04 on Tier 1 or £1.58 on Tier 2. British Gas' Two Rate tariff would make these £2.97 and £1.61 (assuming a 7-hour 'night' from 12am to 7am) so a more detailed calculation is needed!
As a second calculation, I worked out that running my tumble dryer on max heat (2.9Kw) for 2 hours costs 73p on Tier 1 and 38p on Tier 2; on the Two Rate scheme, this becomes 97p and 50p during the day, but only 11p at night! So I'd pay more to run it during the day, but save significantly running it at night. Obviously, a calculation for the washing machine is almost impossible due to the complexities of various programmes, water temperature, etc.
Of course, what I really need to do is start recording meter readings by time of day (at least at the typical switchover times, 12midnight & 7am?), do washing/drying etc at night as if I had a off-peak rate, and then work out what the cost would be for both standard and dual-rate charging, as my usage may be different from someone else's. However, there's obviously no point doing all this if it's not possible to request a change at the end of it.
Derek.
P.S. I did a comparison on energyhelpline.com with the 'Economy 7' box unticked and ticked (using typical usage estimates for my house) and it reckoned I'd save about £70 per year.
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Comments
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Firstly you can opt for Economy 7. You will have to check with different suppliers if they charge for the new meter; and how much that will cost.
Not clear about your electric underfloor heating being relevant to this discussion, unless it is some form of storage heating. If not why would you want it on in the early hours of the morning.
With oil fired CH I guess it would be cheaper to heat your water via the immersion heater at E7 rates than use the CH boiler.
There have been a number of threads about the 'break even' point for using E7. This seems to vary between 0% and 40% useage at night depending on what part of the country you live in and what supplier you use. British Gas do have not particularly attractive E7 rates and other suppliers are better.
I am with BG in the Midlands and last time I checked it was a 30% break even point for me so I changed from E7 to 'normal' tariff.
Personally I found it inconvienient to try to use enough electricity to justify E7, but others have said that it isn't so for them. I also found that I was putting on the dishwasher when not full to take advantage of E7 - a false economy. Others have complained about the noise washing machine and dishwashers can make in the middle of the night.0 -
The underfloor heating works by switching on for a couple of hours in the morning, 5:30 to 8am, and evening, 8-10pm. It warms the floor tiles (yes, we have a tiled bedroom) which then stay warm for some time. So it is a bit like storage heating.
You mention there have been other threads. I searched for "Economy 7" and didn't find any discussions. I'll try the abbreviation E7.
I think I'll have to just keep records for a few weeks to work out usage. We often switch on the washing machine, dryer and dishwasher just before going to bed anyway. Noise isn't a problem.
Thanks.0 -
starnamer wrote:The underfloor heating works by switching on for a couple of hours in the morning, 5:30 to 8am, and evening, 8-10pm. It warms the floor tiles (yes, we have a tiled bedroom) which then stay warm for some time. So it is a bit like storage heating.
You mention there have been other threads. I searched for "Economy 7" and didn't find any discussions. I'll try the abbreviation E7.
I think I'll have to just keep records for a few weeks to work out usage. We often switch on the washing machine, dryer and dishwasher just before going to bed anyway. Noise isn't a problem.
Thanks.
Try a search for Economy Seven as well.
You can of course get very cheap timers for your appliances to switch on in the early hours if they don't have a delay facility.
Your 'storage heating' will of course be mainly using daytime rates.0
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