Faulty Economy 7 timer

[JohnW2]

Although we hardly use the storage heaters, having E7 still saves a little bit. But the point is that new meters providing the OP's switching requirements are clearly still available, and the supplier is just being lazy in pretending they aren't.

Maybe. Such meters clearly still exist, as witness the couple of links to manufacturers that were posted. However, that does not, in itself mean that they are currently 'readily available'. Supply problems arise. As you will be aware, there are currently some serious 'availability' issues related to certain hormone-based medicines, but they certainly still 'exist'.

The days of tariffs such as E7 are presumably numbered, and the attractiveness of them has already diminished. Following a period of many years in which the financial advantage of E7 (for some) had remained essentially unchanged, a couple of years ago most suppliers moved their 'night' rate to much closer to the 'day rate', presumably as a consequence of changing patterns of demand during the day/night. As the below illustrates, in my case, that resulted in the saving resulting from E7 (without storage heaters - but I'm unusual in my pattern of electricity usage!) reduced from £250-£350 per year to only about £100-£150 per year. Last April, I partially reversed that by finding one of the few suppliers that was still offering reasonably attractive E7 rates, but my saving is still less than it was a couple of years ago ....

We can only guess about what is going to happen with electricity tariffs in the future. If the planned explosion of electrical vehicles happens, with vast amounts of night-time charging, the present situation could reverse, with the lower electricity demand (hence potentially cheaper electricity) being during the day, rather than the night - and, if it doesn't quite reverse, the major difference between day and night could largely disappear. Furthermore, as I have already mentioned, if the 'smart meter' system ever gets going properly, we'll then presumably eventually see multiple changes, potentially dynamically (hence possibly unprdictably), in electricity prices during the 24 hours, so goodness knows how either humans or technology would then decide when to 'power up' on the likes of storage heaters!

Over time replacement units usually no longer reset simply by turning on the electricity supply, so we have to rely on their own internal timers. That is annoying because power cuts usually of only a few seconds are commonplace, but cause modern appliances to lose their settings.

Yes, that change has been a pain. It is allegedly a 'safety feature', so that appliances don't spring into life, maybe when unattended, when power is restored after a power cut - but that seems to be a fairly lame explanation/excuse, given that many of the appliances have built-in timers specifically designed to allow them to come on 'when unattended'!

Kind Regards, John

 

[JohnW2]

I've just come to realise that this is probably fairly inefficient, as the water and storage heaters could probably be fully charged in two hours, rather than repeated heating/cooling cycles over seven hours.

Both water heating and the storage heaters have thermostats to deal with that - they will only use as much electricity as is needed to achieve the required temperature (of water or 'bricks').

This is the point I made previously, but which you indicated was irrelevant, because the heaters had thermostats. See post #15.

You're right. I didn't read, or taken in, what you had written well enough - my apologies. So, yes, although I'd forgotten/hadn't realised exactly what you wrote, my friend's experience I've just described confirms that what you said was dead right. ... For what it's worth, I currently do exactly that with my immersion heater. Depending on how much hot water has been used, it takes between 30 mins and 2.5 hours to heat up at night. I used to naively have it coming on just after the start of the cheap electricity period, thereby giving it anything up to 6 hours to lose/waste heat (and hence need to be topped up). I now have it coming on about 4 hours after the start of the cheap period, thereby avoiding a few hours of unnecessary 'cycling on and off'.

Apologies again for having mis-read what you initially thought. I read it too quickly and thought that your concerns (which people often voice) were that the storage heaters would be using electricity continuously for the 7 hours of off-peak E7 electricity!

Anyway, now that we are on the same page (i.e. I'm on the same page as you!), the following illustrates what used to happen with my immersion heater before I delayed its 'switch-on' until a few hours after the start of 'cheap electricity' - the timeswitch then 'switching on' the immersion for the full 7 hours of cheap E7 (i.e. the same as would happen using a '5-terminal meter' which did the switching) ...

Kind Regards, John

 

[John D v2.0]

Of course, if it were even a half-modern (i.e. electronic) meter, it would not have an external timeswitch, so that issue wouldn't arise. I last had a meter and timeswitch like yours about 25 years ago.

Not quite correct, Interestingly we have a modern style small white plastic meter with the flashing red led and lcd display, and it's switched by a much older looking time switch which loses time every so often.
I doubt this house was ever on storage heaters, it's had coal fireplaces and gas heating as far as i can tell.

 

[JohnW2]

Not quite correct, Interestingly we have a modern style small white plastic meter with the flashing red led and lcd display, and it's switched by a much older looking time switch which loses time every so often.

Fair enough - I stand corrected - but I've certainly not personally seen or heard of an electronic dual-rate meter that requires an external time switch. In my case, when we got our first electronic meter, which was 20-25 years ago, the first thing they did was to rip out the electro-mechanical timeclock/switch.

I doubt this house was ever on storage heaters, it's had coal fireplaces and gas heating as far as i can tell.

I wonder why it ever had a dual-rate tariff, then?

Kind Regards, John

 

[John D v2.0]

Fair enough - I stand corrected - but I've certainly not personally seen or heard of an electronic dual-rate meter that requires an external time switch

Maybe it doesn't require it, I'm not sure. I did spend a while trying to tell the energy supplier the times were wrong but they hadn't got a clue what i was on about, so i focused on getting them to install an isolator, which was also extremely difficult.
This is the setup, I've blocked the bar code just in case

 

[JohnW2]

Maybe it doesn't require it, I'm not sure. I did spend a while trying to tell the energy supplier the times were wrong but they hadn't got a clue what i was on about, so i focused on getting them to install an isolator, which was also extremely difficult.

That sounds about par for the course! Try speaking to the person who answers the phone about 3-phase issues

Kind Regards, Trying

 

[clifford1]

I wonder why it ever had a dual-rate tariff, then?

There are other devices that consume electricity that can be programmed to come on at night, not just storage heaters. Or perhaps the owner worked unconventional shifts? Or had a dirty job, or perhaps a large young family?
As has been stated, there used to be a bigger price differential between the two rates.

 

[crystal ball]

When I was working for "the board" it offered a package of Horseman timer, lagging jacket & tariff change, no heaters involved, used to get half a day for those, nice

 

[JohnW2]

There are other devices that consume electricity that can be programmed to come on at night, not just storage heaters. Or perhaps the owner worked unconventional shifts? Or had a dirty job, or perhaps a large young family?

Indeed so - and manually as well as programatically. As I illustrated in post #51 above, by shopping around suppliers I am even today still managing to achieve an annual saving of £200-£250 by having E7 without storage heaters. However, I'm achieving that by having a very atypical lifestyle and I very much doubt that such a tariff would now be financially advantageous for the great majority of people who do not have storage heaters (or EV charging, as below).

[** in more recent times, EV charging has been added to the equation - at least until the government find a way to tax it specifically!. However, that would obviously not have been something that would have been around when John's predecessors started having a dual tariff) ]

As has been stated, there used to be a bigger price differential between the two rates.

Yes, it was me that 'stated' that. With the vast majority of suppliers, I would now be saving only £100 or so per year (if anything), as compared with the £250-£350 a couple of years ago - I was just lucky to eventually find a supplier last year who still offered something closer to the traditional E7 rates.

For many years, one only had to use 30-35% of one's electricity at cheap rate for E7 to be financially advantages. With most suppliers, that is now well over 40%.

Kind Regards, John

 

[ajohn]

Haven't read all of the posts but we had economy 7 when we moved in around 30 years ago. 2 phases for 2 spinsters who used to live here for separate bills so not flats and one was wired differently to the other.

So one used a separate small CU driven via a time switch. Due to performance they had added a mid day heater top up. It isn't clear how they did this on one circuit and it turned out that one heater was powered all day. It didn't give off much heat unless it's vent was opened. Another on E7 did that automatically, Just mentioned as it seems some strange things were done. We even had a visit from the MEB explaining all of this. We switched to gas anyway. The circuits were older than 30 years ago but it appears E7 can at times provide power when it wouldn't be expected and be working as it's supposed to.

Dealing with suppliers can be a pain. I had some with Npower. Sorted by complaining which passed me to the right department. Took a while for the lady on the end to sort thing out but she did. They are all supposed to have a complaints procedure and if that doesn't work out I suspect there will be an ombudsman facility. Sexist name so may be a person not a man now or they haven't got round to that aspect - so far.

 

[typonaut]

The latest on this little saga, Bulb now say:

“Oh, we probably can do something about it if the heating totally fails and you're vulnerable.”

“You can switch suppliers, EDF and EON can sort this out for you.”

“Otherwise you can wait some indeterminate time until we sort our lives out. At which point we’ll unilaterally make an adjustment to your bill by way of correction.”

“Please get back to us within 14 days if these suggestions are unsuitable.”

I always love the “if you are not happy you can go somewhere else solution”. My view on that is, generally, why would I expect to get any better treatment elsewhere?

I expect that if I complain to the ombudsman now they will just say that I haven't gone through the complete complaints procedure with Bulb (Bulb have only just raised it as a complaint, and have not responded in addressing a "complaint"), but I'm going to do so anyway.