Economy 7 and storage heaters?

[Doug71]

Sorry if this is a really dumb question but if you changed your electric from economy 7 to a single rate tariff would your storage heaters be on all day?

We have a small commercial rental property (hairdressers) and the tenant has just been moaning about how high the electric bill is. They have recently changed supplier and I think had a smart meter fitted. When they asked the supplier why the bill was so high they were told it was the heaters. They only have one storage heater turned on but it is one of the bigger ones. I just went in to take a look and was surprised how hot the heater felt at 9pm in the evening.

So I'm basically wondering could the tenant have ended up on a single rate tariff and if so would the storage heater be on 24/7 or are they wired so they could only come on when it's night time rate regardless?

 

[woodieallen]

My initial thought, Doug, was that smart meters didn't support Economy 7 but a quick Google suggests that they do. Whether the supplier your tenant chose supports that I have no way of knowing but certainly it is down to your tenant and their supplier to sort out.

Also Economy 7 heaters are, I thought, usually on a separate circuit. I think that the heaters themselves have a time switch but could be wrong.

 

[Old.bodger]

You need an electrician to see how it has been wired, both options are possible. The nsh should be on a stand alone consumer unit. And the smart meter should be a five wire type. The heater circuit only live at approx midnight to 7am. But it is possible this has been compromised either in the fixed wiring or in the change to a smart meter ( possibly a 3 wire type).

 

[Mickeymousem10]

Doug, as a retired electrical engineer who worked in the electricity supply industry I would advise that the old pre electronic E7 meters required a seperate mechanical time switch to operate the 7 hour cheap rate which would have been supplied with the meter by the Regional Electricity Company. The storage heaters in this case would have been connected directly to the time switch normally via a seperate fuse board.
Later electronic E7 meters had an inbuilt time switch which the storage heater fuse board would be connected to directly.
I would suggest that in the circumstances that you have described, the tenant has replaced the E7 meter with a single rate smart meter and it would appear that the storage heaters have been directly connected to a 24/7 supply. This would definitely account for the heaters being as hot as you suggested at 9:00p.m. and the high bills experienced.
Apologies for the lengthy explanation but I hope it helps you.

 

[Spectric]

Normally with electric storage heaters they will be on there own distribution board and on a timer so as they heat up overnight on cheap rate electricity. The older meters had two readings and just changed over at the set time so the usage was then shown on the other readings so you had to give both readings to be billed. Newer meters probably do it differently. You do not want them on constant as that totaly defeats the objective of storing heat using cheaper electricity over night and using the stored energy during the day. You really need an electrician to take a look and then maybe need to involve the electricity supplier regards economy 7.

 

[Doug71]

Thank you for all the replies, very helpful.

Luckily I do have an electrician coming in a couple of days to look at some other stuff so will add this to his list and hopefully he will be able to tell me what's going on

 

[Phil Pascoe]

My meter was changed about 4 -5 years ago and the fitter told me I couldn't have a smart meter as I had E7, which seemed illogical as one of the reasons for their rollout obviously is to impose variable tariffs. Things have probably moved on now.
I have an issue with Octopus as I went off E7 to a "standard variable" tariff (because it appeared beneficial and it was a few quid cheaper) which despite my querying the need for night and day readings they didn't tell me that basically it's exactly the same - so I paid through the nose for daytime use for a month unnecessarily. Octopus, despite its pride in its customer services is actually garbage.
I had the E7 consumer unit connected back with the main unit to save rewiring stuff.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Anyone with night storage heaters wants their bumps read.

 

[Aeolus]

E7 meters control 2 domestic circuits - one is on all the time and one is switched on at the start of the low-rate period and switched off at the end. The switch is controlled by the electricity network. If you/your tenants changed to a non E7 rate, then I believe that both circuits would be on all the time. An alternative cause could be if the new smart meter was wired incorrectly with both domestic circuits connected to the 'day-rate' supply.

Another possibility (which happened to me) was that my electricity supplier had confused the two circuits and was charging the day rate for the low-rate period and visa versa. Happily they changed this and recalculated my bills when I pointed it out to them

 

[Suffolk Brian]

Sorry if this is a really dumb question but if you changed your electric from economy 7 to a single rate tariff would your storage heaters be on all day?

We have a small commercial rental property (hairdressers) and the tenant has just been moaning about how high the electric bill is. They have recently changed supplier and I think had a smart meter fitted. When they asked the supplier why the bill was so high they were told it was the heaters. They only have one storage heater turned on but it is one of the bigger ones. I just went in to take a look and was surprised how hot the heater felt at 9pm in the evening.

So I'm basically wondering could the tenant have ended up on a single rate tariff and if so would the storage heater be on 24/7 or are they wired so they could only come on when it's night time rate regardless?

They were usually wired through a time switch to only use of peak electricity. Didn’t know you could get a dual rate time switch?