Timer for economy 7 storage heater

[opps]

As per the title...

A mate of mine lives in a property that has wired storage heaters. He occasionally forgets to turn of the heater at silly o'clock in the morning before he then moves on to the higher rate tariff.

He asked if it is possible to pay to have a timer fitted so that it will only run on economy 7 rather than the higher tariff.

I told him that I have no idea and mentioned that I would defer to you guys for advice.

 

[crystal ball]

Normally the E7 timeswitch operates the heaters, how are they wired? from a separate fusebox or just plugged in to standard sockets

 

[JohnW2]

Normally the E7 timeswitch operates the heaters, how are they wired? from a separate fusebox or just plugged in to standard sockets

Isn't that a fairly 'old-fashioned' approach, isn't it, with its origins in the days when only the storage heaters were supplied with cheap rate electricity? These days, E7 nearly always switches the entire installation over to cheap-metered electricity during the cheap hours, and the meters don't necessarily have an inbuilt contactor to provide an E7-switched output for the heaters. In such cases, some user-provided timeswitch (and probably contactor) would be required.

Kind Regards, John

 

[AndyPRK]

The 30A version of this could do 3 heaters , but out of stock

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Lowenerg...hash=item3a7e22d28e:m:mlV4_MEZQt-6V_E3bOFEM_A

 

[crystal ball]

Isn't that a fairly 'old-fashioned' approach, isn't it, with its origins in the days when only the storage heaters were supplied with cheap rate electricity? These days, E7 nearly always switches the entire installation over to cheap-metered electricity during the cheap hours, and the meters don't necessarily have an inbuilt contactor to provide an E7-switched output for the heaters. In such cases, some user-provided timeswitch (and probably contactor) would be required.

Kind Regards, John

I think you are talking about some really old off peak systems, E7 has been around for donkeys and has always switched the full installation to off peak, and a contactor either internally (most common) or externally mainly on three phase, I cannot comment on the smart meter era, it would be interesting to see some pics

 

[JohnW2]

I think you are talking about some really old off peak systems, E7 has been around for donkeys and has always switched the full installation to off peak, and a contactor either internally (most common) or externally mainly on three phase...

I can't tell you when it was installed, but the E7 (and it was E7) system I inherited a little over 30 years ago was such as I described.

Kind Regards, John

 

[crystal ball]

Maybe different area boards still used the old style tariffs, I worked at NORWEB through 80s to early 90s and the only tariff changes I did on domestic were to E7, I think there were some commercial variations, my in laws still have the tariff you describe going back to the 70s though

 

[JohnW2]

Maybe different area boards still used the old style tariffs, I worked at NORWEB through 80s to early 90s and the only tariff changes I did on domestic were to E7, I think there were some commercial variations, my in laws still have the tariff you describe going back to the 70s though

I suspect that what I inherited (in 1987, with what was then East Midlands Electricity Board) may well have been just a (quite possibly 'overlooked') 'wiring leftover' of their historical practices with E7 tariffs.....

.... When I discovered that I had inherited this 'storage-heater-only' E7 setup, I immediately asked them to change it to 'whole installation E7' (not the least because I intended to get rid of the storage heaters), at least as a temporary measure. That they did, at no cost to me, and without any change in the E7 charges - i.e. I continued to have the same off-peak price for whole-installation usage as had previously applied to just the storage heaters.

Mind you, it was a very messy metering set-up, which was rationalised (at my request and, again, without any charge to me) just a few months later. It is a 3-phase supply with, as above, 'dual rate' metering. That could have been done (and was after the subsequent rationalisation) with just one 3-phase dual-rate meter, but I actually had 6 single-rate/single-phase meters - three (one per phase) fed via a time-switch-controlled contactor (hence just during cheap E7 hours) for the dedicated storage heater circuits and the other three (again, one per phase) fed 24/7 for all the other circuits!

Kind Regards, John

 

[opps]

Normally the E7 timeswitch operates the heaters, how are they wired? from a separate fusebox or just plugged in to standard sockets

Sorry, I have no idea. I haven't seen the heater. AFAIK it is connected via a spur.

 

[crystal ball]

We really need more info to be able to help, i.e. pics of the fuse boards & meter set up