Economy 7, do you use it?

[Pulsedriver]

In our house we have Economy 7 but to be honest, most electricity is being used in the day, so we are paying more to use it for nothing.
I have read that it often can be TWICE the price of normal units in the daytime, on an Economy 7 deal!

It seems like if Economy 7 was such a good deal, everyone would use it, but instead there is tariffs without it...

What do you use?

 

[Jez]

Eco7 only really makes sense in houses with a lot of electronic storage heaters which you would obviously fill over night.

How is your houses heated?

 

[Pulsedriver]

A boiler downstairs, it's not a combi boiler, as apparantly they wouldnt work properly in this house (not sure on that but hey thats what electrician said!) It's about 18 years old though!

We have a emertion heater tank thing upstairs which we pretty much have to turn on if more than 1 person has a shower within 30 mins of another etc! Also the water runs out after about 10 mins in the shower

Apparantly (electrician again) said the shower uses lots of water as its powerful... Not sure I believe the fact we have zero hot water in the house after a 10 minute shower! Power or not!

 

[Jez]

So you have a gas/oil fired water based radiator heating system?

If so, not worth it, lose the eco 7 system.

 

[BigBrisy]

i'm scratching my head to why an electrician would say a combi bolier would not work in your house?

I have a combi boiler and am currently on a price fixed duel fuel account, being ex energy supplier employee i reckon this is about the best you can get but thats for having both gas nad electricity right enough.

The thing with the shower too? i'm guessing its an electric shower so how does it not heat the water up itself? or is it just a plain mixer shower.

 

[Jonny69]

I had economy 7 in my first flat. It cost me an absolute fortune to run the place. Here's why:

• The electric heating was on ALL night filling up storage heaters. This used up more energy than my current gas heating which clicks on for a few hours in the morning and evening. During the day the storage heaters were going cold keeping an empty flat warm, then by the evening weren't warm enough so they had to be swtched back on to convection at great expense.
  
• Having a light on or other appliance somewhere in the flat during the morning or evening suddenly cost over double what it normally did so having the computer on noticeably ran up the bill.
  
• The hot water would be cold by the evening and the immersion heater would need to go on. This is expensive enough at the best of times but daytime leccy rate on Economy 7 is much much higher.
  
• Electric hob and oven used daytime Economy 7 rate, cooking suddenly became very expensive too.

I'm sure in offices it's completely cost effective but I found it didn't work in a residential situation.

 

[freebooter]

We have eco7 in the flat I have been renting. Your bill should show how much is used in each category so you should be able to work out whether it is a good idea or not. Strangely we seem to use quite a bit in the eco7 period but I haven't a clue how. Does anyone know what time period the eco 7 covers?

 

[a1ex2001]

A boiler downstairs, it's not a combi boiler, as apparantly they wouldnt work properly in this house (not sure on that but hey thats what electrician said!) It's about 18 years old though!

We have a emertion heater tank thing upstairs which we pretty much have to turn on if more than 1 person has a shower within 30 mins of another etc! Also the water runs out after about 10 mins in the shower

Apparantly (electrician again) said the shower uses lots of water as its powerful... Not sure I believe the fact we have zero hot water in the house after a 10 minute shower! Power or not!

Not sure what you electrician is saying about a combi, it's probably more appropriate for a gas/central heatin engineer to comment. there are circumstances where a combi cannot be easily used and a power shower is one of these, if you want a power shower (pumped) you have to have a hot water tank which generally means not a standard combi.

If you run out of hot water after 10 mins in the power shower it sounds to me like either your tank isn't big enough or the water isn't hot enough. to the guy who said surely the shower heats it, if it is a power shower it uses a pump to suck water out of the tank at higher than mains pressure so an electric shower can't heat it fast enough hence the use of pre-heated water.

 

[platypus]

I thought electricity overnight was always cheaper anyway?

 

[BigBrisy]

http://www.scottishpower.co.uk/pricing_pdfs/general.pdf

Some info near the bottom of the leaflet for eco7...looks like the night rate on eco 7 runs between 12am and 8am hopefully this of some help folks although prices n stuff will vary between suppliers.

The shower thing is kinda confusing me though, we had elec only in our old house before we got gas in, we had a power shower which was only connected to the mavity fed cold water header tanks in the loft but this shower heated the water up for us too so even if you had emptied the ridiculous size hot water tank we had inour cupboard you were still ok for having a shower...confused????

 

[Jonny69]

Does anyone know what time period the eco 7 covers?

It was midnight to 7am when I had it.

On the subject of combi boilers. The flat I was in, like a lot of new builds from that time, didn't actually have gas plumbed in and the electric tank is right in the middle of the property. To put a gas combi in even if there was a gas supply would mean the plumbing would all have to move to situate the boiler somewhere where it could vent. In the flat we were in it would also have meant losing a chunk of the already tiny kitchen to house the boiler. I just think the cost of that and the disruption just works out prohibitive in most situations.

 

[a1ex2001]

[
The shower thing is kinda confusing me though, we had elec only in our old house before we got gas in, we had a power shower which was only connected to the mavity fed cold water header tanks in the loft but this shower heated the water up for us too so even if you had emptied the ridiculous size hot water tank we had inour cupboard you were still ok for having a shower...confused????

I've never encountered a pumped power shower that worked like that, not saying they don't exist but the heating power required to warm the volume of water in time would be imense.

 

[Jonny69]

Yup, you can get 8KW power showers

 

[Pulsedriver]

Hey folks,
The shower is powered by a pump which is electric, the pump says on it;

"2.5 BAR Twin ended pump made by AQUALISA"

I think the guy was saying that because of that shower, if we had a combi boiler it would take all the hot water when someone used the shower, so all the radiators in the house etc wouldn't heat up well. He seemed to think the boiler type we had (condensor I think its called) was best for the situation? (4 people in house).

By the looks of it, as someone has pointed out, it must be using the water straight from the tank, which we can't get a bigger one as theres no room for it, but surely there is another way, I mean, it's 2007 im sure people can have a shower without worrying about using all the water up, sure could have a 5 min shower, but do you REALLY have to do that to keep the water warm?!

 

[BigBrisy]

the guy gave you bad advice by the sounds of it, the combi boiler would have been fine for heating and shower, they are both different systems, hence the whole 'combi' bit of it, the only time it can be dodgy is if your having a shower and someone turns a hot tap on in the house somewhere. I wouldnt be surprised if he was feeding you lies just so that he would get some work out of you. I'd have a look about to see the showers that are available, could be a solution to that side of your problem anyway.

 

[a1ex2001]

Yup, you can get 8KW power showers

I stand corected that must have one hell of a cable feeding it!

EDIT Just been looking on the net and it seems even up to 10kw they are not power showers as they have no pump they still run of the standing main.

the guy gave you bad advice by the sounds of it, the combi boiler would have been fine for heating and shower, they are both different systems, hence the whole 'combi' bit of it, the only time it can be dodgy is if your having a shower and someone turns a hot tap on in the house somewhere. I wouldnt be surprised if he was feeding you lies just so that he would get some work out of you. I'd have a look about to see the showers that are available, could be a solution to that side of your problem anyway.

The guy didn't give him bad advice, a new shower would have been required, you can't put that pump straight onto a hot water pipe out of a combi boiler it will never supply enough hot water(and may not work at all) to have a combi you would have to have one of these crazy 8Kw power showers on the cold feed or a hot water tank.

this thread seems to have been totally de-railed! on the eco-7 thing i'd like to see them introduce a sensibly priced alternative to encourage people to run dish washers and washing machines over night I'd be well up for that but the current deal is useless unless you have storage heaters.

 

[Jez]

I thought electricity overnight was always cheaper anyway?

Think about the way you are billed on a normal system, the meter counts KWH. It doesnt record when they were used, it records total usage over long periods of time, they then read the meter every so often and structure your bills round that.