Adding more Economy 7 sockets

[Avocet]

Hi all. We have a day and a night meter. There are 2 consumer units in the house, one for the day and one for the night. The night one only has three circuit breakers in it - each of which feeds one storage heater. There are what look like two blanking plates next to the three circuit breakers, I therefore guess the consumer unit could handle a couple of extra circuit breakers?

I want to run the dishwasher and tumble dryer at night on cheaper electricity. Can I just ask an electrician to run a couple of additional cables from the spare circuit breakers on the consumer units and put a 13A socket on the end of each of them? Is that legal? Also, can I just load the dishwasher, switch it on, and then leave it so that it comes on as soon as the night consumer unit goes live? Will the startup current damage anything? (I guess not if it can handle 3 storage heaters)!

 

[winston1]

Obviously you can ask an electrician to do this and it can be done. I thought with economy 7 the whole house switched to a cheaper rate at night. Storage heaters are on a separate timed CU for convenience so you don't accidentally turn them on in the day period. If this is the case it would be cheaper and easier to get plug in time switches for your machines.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I want to run the dishwasher and tumble dryer at night on cheaper electricity.

Do you have ones which can be programmed and set to start even though they have no electrical supply at the time?

 

[bernardgreen]

Are they machines which are considered safe to operate un-attended at night. Meaning near zero risk of them catching fire.

Tumble dryers with clogged up lint filters are one of the common causes of house fires.

 

[EFLImpudence]

Are there DWs supplied with timers for delayed start - like WMs and, of course, ovens?

Doesn't mean it is a good idea, though.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Are there DWs supplied with timers for delayed start - like WMs and, of course, ovens?

Yes there are.

The question is though do they work, i.e. can you set a delayed start time, if they are not powered?

The answer is probably "no".

The same problem applies to the use of plug-in timers - they don't work until they are plugged into a socket which has power.

 

[winston1]

Are there DWs supplied with timers for delayed start - like WMs and, of course, ovens?

Yes there are.

The question is though do they work, i.e. can you set a delayed start time, if they are not powered?

The answer is probably "no".

The same problem applies to the use of plug-in timers - they don't work until they are plugged into a socket which has power.

Who was suggesting plugging them into sockets without power? I'm sure all the OPs sockets have power.

 

[EFLImpudence]

The question is though do they work, i.e. can you set a delayed start time, if they are not powered?

Oh no, obviously not.

However, I was more questioning Bernard's thinking that it may be dangerous if the method was employed.

 

[EFLImpudence]

Who was suggesting plugging them into sockets without power? I'm sure all the OPs sockets have power.

OP wanted them on the E7 circuits.

 

[JohnW2]

I thought with economy 7 the whole house switched to a cheaper rate at night...

Both systems exist (or, at least, did in the past). I certainly have an E7 setup such as you describe. However, some do (at least, did) have two separate single-tariff meters, one of which supplies (only during off-peak times) only the storage heaters - indeed, I inherited such a system (but rapidly got rid of it!) in my house, many moons ago.

Kind Regards, John

 

[Risteard]

Who was suggesting plugging them into sockets without power? I'm sure all the OPs sockets have power.

OP wanted them on the E7 circuits.

True, but the suggestion was that plug-in timers could be used instead of, and not in concert with, the other idea.

 

[winston1]

Who was suggesting plugging them into sockets without power? I'm sure all the OPs sockets have power.

OP wanted them on the E7 circuits.

Indeed but my suggestion of plug in timers was to save the expense of extending the E7 circuits and therefore to obviously use the timers on a normal 24 hour socket.

 

[JohnW2]

Indeed but my suggestion of plug in timers was to save the expense of extending the E7 circuits and therefore to obviously use the timers on a normal 24 hour socket.

Yes - but if the OP did have 'split E7' such as I described above, he would not get cheap electricity out of those plug-in timers if he plugged them into a 'normal 24h socket'.

Kind Regards, John

 

[westie101]

perhaps the OP needs to post a picture of his meter board so we can see if he has a D56 or similar or E7 metering.

Whilst technically the idea of an off-peak only socket has some merit, it is certainly not common and could cause confusion if the property is sold in the future.

 

[AndyPRK]

The key questions for me, which have been raised already are:

1) Can the machines be correctly programmed and start themselves automatically when power is applied to them several hours later ?


2) Do the machines have a delayed start feature? How long is it? What time do you goto bed. Is the delay long enough between you going to bed and cheap rate starting? This is the obvious answer to me because (assuming the whole house is switched to cheap rate)

a) cheap method - doesn't require anything doing.
b) safe (no plug in timers) and easy to use method (use machines controls)