Economy 7

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ericbrad

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We have an Economy 7 supply which I thought meant that you had 7 consecutive hours of off peak electricity during the night.
I have just discovered that our supply switches to off peak at 10.30pm and then back to normal rate at 7.30am.
This means that for 2 hours during the night the supply is running at normal rate, which means that our immersion heater and anything else we use at night could be using full price electricity for those 2 hours.
Are there any regulations regarding off peak supply times?
 
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10:30 - 07:30 = 9 hours.. that's 2 more off peak than you thought you had..

so when are these "2 hours during the night the supply is running at normal rate" that you're talking about?
 
I had an interrupted nights sleep a couple of days ago when I kept coming down to check. I had temporarily disconnected a storage heater and fitted a 13 amp socket with a table lamp plugged into it.
Sure enough, at 10.30pm the lamp came on. At 11.15pm I went to bed, with the lamp still on.
At 1.15am the lamp was off
At 2am the lamp was off
At 3am, 4am, 5am, and 6am the lamp was on.
So for part of the period between 11.16pm and 2.59am the supply had switched from low rate to normal rate.
The supply is controlled by a radio teleswitch which is not adjustable in the way that a time clock is. The timing of the off peak period being determined by a radio signal.
I know that the storage heaters will only operate when the supply is on low rate, but things like immersion heaters on timers could be using normal rate electricity for part of the night. I have got round this by re-setting our immersion heater timer to come on after 3am.
The point is that we could have wasted a lot of money over the years we have lived here. And how many other people with Economy 7 are affected because they have never checked the on and off times of the low rate period?
 
generally, immersions on eco7 are dual element types.
one element is on the off peak supply and comes on when the heaters do, and the second element is a "boost" element to top up the heat if you use all the water heate during off peak..

I'm not an expert at eco7, but i would think that they put it on at 10:30 to put some heat into the rooms for bedtime?

does it not specify on your bill at what time the "off peak" times are?
 
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If your immersion is on a timer, it is wired in wrongly.

E7 does provide 7 hours of low rate power, but not always at the same times, or in a single period. The teleswitch can be remotely programmed to operate at certain times, but it can also be switched on/off at any time, usually depending on loading and power availability.

Therefore just because it was off at 2am one day, doesn't mean it is like that every day.
That is also why you should never rely on the switch for isolation - although unlikely, it could switch on in the daytime when not expected.
 
flameport said:
If your immersion is on a timer, it is wired in wrongly.
Click to expand...

Not necessarily...

The immersion cylinder could have a single element and be supplied off the 24hr meter via a "Horstman" type time clock, or any other timeclock for that matter...

This allows the customer to heat the water at any time of day, or just in the E7 period (if you want it at cheap rate)..... the only problem is that you have to set the times that it operates
 
Thanks for your reply, but our immersion heater is not wired wrongly.
It is on an Economy7 Water Heater controller which is specifically designed for Economy 7 systems.
The heater can be set to switch on or off at any time between midnight and 8.30 am.
It`s a bit odd that I can set it to coincide with the low rate period when that low rate period can be switched on and off to suit the electricity supplier.
 
You probably haven't wasted any money, since the tank should only take a couple of hours to heat up, so by the time the 2am switch off occurs, the tank of water should be fully heated anyway.
 
It is a Horstman type controller as Nozspark says, so trying to set it to the times that the E7 period operates must be a bit hit and miss if that period can be varied as Flameport says.
Whatever happens, I will be paying for part of the water heating costs on full price electricity.
 
My E7 is 22:30-00:30 then 02:30-07:30 all year no change summer/winter I live in a former NORWEB area,
 
hi
the times were programmed in to run teleswitches in the 80s to calm complaints about flat occupants putting the washer etc on at 12.30 am
the new fangled system was 7 hours spread over 9.....
10.30-12.30(washer time)
2.30-7.30 (heat time)
by the way, ex norweb :eek:

best wishes
alan
 
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