economy 7

[boing]

Does anyone have any good advice for me regarding electricity tariffs? We have a new heating system which uses a 300L thermal store heated by electricity, a solar panel, and a wood burner to store water for heating radiators and hot water. In the winter, it makes sense to go economy 7: we can top up the thermal store with night-rate electricity for about 3-4 pence a unit, instead of the usual 10-12 pence for normal rate electricity. But we have to pay a bit extra for the electricity we use in the day - maybe 15-16 pence. This is fine, except that during the summer we probably won't use any electricity during the nighttime - which means we pay the higher day rate to no great advantage...
At this point, I don't even know how much electricity we will use during the year (just moved in). Any ideas anyone? Economy 7 or not Economy 7, that is the question...

 

[didthathurt]

I am no expert on this. However, I did a study, taking daily readings, on a couple of houses I had to try to determine this very issue. On the tariffs then applying, I found it saved money to go E7 because the fridges and freezers ran 24/7 and I used a timer on the washing machine, dishwasher and tumble drier. In neither house did I use an immersion heater.

 

[nozspark]

.....I used a timer on the washing machine, dishwasher and tumble drier......

Just been to a house today to look at a faulty dishwasher, the cables at the bottom of the door get stress damage due to the constant bending. In this case it did not cause a fire - however, I have had this type of damage on my own dishwasher and we had a v-small fire licking up it's front. We are lucky that this hapened when someone was in the house and awake. For this reason alone I would recommend that dishwashers are only used when the home is occupied (but not sleeping)

 

[boing]

@didthathurt... thanks for your reply, your advice gives me a good starting point, at least. I'll go economy 7 for a year and keep records of where the electricity is going. having settled that, my next problem is knowing whether to go for the 'no standing charge' rates or if paying £15 a quarter might be worth it for the slight reduction in daytime rate...
If there is anyone out there works for an electricity company: Why does this have to be so complicated?