Underfloor heating Problem?

[Jasper]

Hi All

I wonder if someone could help me. I recently moved into a new house which has an ESWA underfloor and ceiling heating system which we were told was very economic to run and is supposed to run on off peak electricty via a storage heater on an economy 7 tariff. So imagine the surprise when the electricty bill for the last quarter was £900, with 9000 units of day rate units and 6000 of night rate units used in a 97 day period. The only items on for any time during a day are 2 fridge/freezers, 1 TV, 2 computers and about 6 light bulbs, with normal usage on washing machines, dishwasher etc. Is this the normal sort of costs with this system or is there something wrong?

The other thing is even though the heating timers are set to go off at

11:00pm all the floors are still being heated at say 4:00am in the morning is this how its suppose to work, I always assumed that when you set the timers to turn off the heating then thats it no power is supplied.

Many thanks

Jasper

[Colin Wilson]

Economy7 supplies cheap rate electric *overnight* not through the day...

The timers shouldn`t shouldn`t really be switching OFF at 11pm, they should be switching ON...

The timers / load switching devices are probably your own equipment, not that of the electric board, so you might also want to check out whether they`re switching on and off as they should - if they`re not working right you might have to consider getting an electrician in.

[Rod Hewitt]

Colin Wilson wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Some time ago I rented a house from a friend. She had always wondered why her electricity bills were so high. I checked the immersion heater - and it had been wired inversely - it switched on in the morning and off at night. All I had to do was push the selectors across the other way. She had lived there for several years - and I daren't think how much it had cost her.

Rod

[The Natural Philosopher]

That sounds about right for electric underfloor. Even on night rate.

Mmm. They SHOULD be on night rate, on at 11pm and off at 8 a.m.

[Owain]

"Jasper" wrote | I wonder if someone could help me. I recently moved into a new house | which has an ESWA underfloor and ceiling heating system which we were | told was very economic to run

If not a newly-built house, did you ask the previous owners to supply copies of the utility bills to substantiate their claim of economy?

| and is supposed to run on off peak | electricty via a storage heater on an economy 7 tariff. So imagine ^^^ like ?

| the surprise when the electricty bill for the last quarter was £900, | with 9000 units of day rate units and 6000 of night rate units used | in a 97 day period.

Ouch. Day rate units are *quite a bit* more expensive than night rate units.

15,000 / 97 = how the F* are you using 150 kWh a day anyway?

Owain

[The Natural Philosopher]

Its very easy with electric heating. 10 hours a night, at 15kW - thats say 5 electric storage rads.

Averaged out its about 6.25Kw. Now my house was calculated ( and its bigger, but well insulated) to have an *average* demand at or around freezing of up to 10KW.

If you think of just two 3KW convection heaters permanently on, to heat a whole house....