How does economy 7 heating work?

Question

I don't know how the dial timer works. There's a 'hour boost' that doesn't seem to do anything. Does it use a lot of electricity. How can I save that?

Answer 1

Hi there, sorry to break it to you but economy 7, is the sad banjo playing freak cousin of central heating! Hopefully you have a newish heater as anything over ten years old seems to be purely decorative! Invest in hotwater bottles and thermal everything anyway. Right that's the unhelpful bitter rant out of the way...... :)
Now the helpful bit:
economy 7 heating works by storeing heat up in bricks (yes bricks it's that sophisticated!) over night when electricity is alledgedly cheaper and then releasing this throughout the day. Which tends to mean you can dance naked in your flat at 3am but are freezing at 4pm the next day!
So you're heater will not produce any heat until it has had a night to store it-up.
All heaters apparently have a thermostat to sense how cold it is in the room and store heat accordingly. Ignore this idea it's blatant lies!
What you should have on the heater is an INPUT dial and an OUTPUT dial.
the INPUT dial controls how much electricity the heater takes and stores in the bricks so if it's not that cold set it about two-thirds of the way (no 4 I think )and if it's cold set it to maximum usually 6.
The OUTPUT dial determines how much heat is released and when, in an older heater this is again essentially decorative, But i put it on late afternoon/evening boost which seems to work a bit and is sensible if you are out at work all day. Sadly there is none of that new-fangled magic of central heating ie. turning the heating-up if it's a cold day or down if it isn't.
with Economy 7 if you have had the overnight heat storage setting to max as it was a cold day that day, you are stuck with the max heat output the next day even if it unexpectedly warm. Which is very annoying with our crazy British weather.
My advice is depending on how old the heater is (you can search for it on the net ,generally the slimmer and whiter it is the younger it is) set it to the maximum input as soon as it turns colder and leave it at that till it warms up, as it's better to be too warm than too cold!
I would also invest in a halogen heater as an addition and back-up for when it gets really cold. They provide instant heat and are the cheapest plug-in electric heater to run. The good news money wise is that Economy7 are cheaper to run than normal plug in heater as they use electricity at night when it is cheaper.
The bad news is that if you are on an Economy 7 electricity tariff your day unit price for electricity is massive. About 16p per unit day and 3p perunit at night usually. What I do is do all the stuff I can at night. I set the hotwater tank to fill-up, have atimer on the washing machine so it does a wash at 2amish etc...
That said if you have a smallish place and are out most of the day it shouldn't be an issue. If you work form home it's a pain.
Good luck!
Any probs get in touch
JXXX

Answer 2

Economy 7 Heating

Answer 3

How Does Economy 7 Work

Answer 4

Economy 7 works by having a cheaper tarrif for a 7 hours period. The 7 hours can be anytime between 11pm and 8am, ie the off peak period.

You basically pay a little more for your general electricity but pay considerably less for the economy 7 period.

To benefit you need to be using over 20% of your power during the timed period.

Economy 7 in it's own right uses no power at all, it's simply a way of getting power cheaper, great if you use storage heaters and charge them up at night.

The hours boost you speak of is likely to be a switch that you can set to give the heaters a "boost" if they start cooling down in the evening, but that could well be expensive if you use it often

Answer 5

My mother has this and she has two dials on each of her radiators. One dial opens up the radiator so that it gives off heat more quickly (you use this during the day to warm-up your room when its very cold).The other dial controls the amount of time the radiator is on at night charging up with heat and affects your heating bill. It is more expensive to run than gas the key is to keep the timer control set just right for your house so that there is no wasted heat. I suggest you try it out with the control set low and increase the setting as it gets colder.

Answer 6

your timer is already factory set you don't need to adjust times,it works by heating your storage heaters though out the night normally between 1am and 7am, this gives you a cheaper rate of electricity which saves you a fair bit of money. your boost hour is normally just used for hot water as this would,nt give enough time to heat up your storage heaters but i could be wrong, otherwise you will need an electrician to check out your timer to make sure it is working ok

Answer 7

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
How does economy 7 heating work?
I don't know how the dial timer works. There's a 'hour boost' that doesn't seem to do anything. Does it use a lot of electricity. How can I save that?

Answer 8

Many storage radiators have controls that you can adjust so that heat is retained until you need it in the evening. If yours are the old fashioned ones that don't, it might be cheaper to replace them with the controllable modern ones than ripping out the whole system and starting again.

Answer 9

Allegedly, its cheaper to do your laundry and other stuff after 7 pm. I have found that its cheaper to keep the water on as it costs loads to heat it from cold. Personally, i think this whole gas and electricity is a major rip off............... that would explain why these companies have the money to have call centers which are totally useless anyway. I am going out to buy thermal stuff (even for my snakes!!) then I am going to barricade all the doors and windows and hibernate over winter........................

Answer 10

Electric heating should'nt be allowed to be sold. Its bad for the environment, bad for your pocket, and is'nt very efficient. It dries out the air, and a home heated by electricity always has a peculiar atmosphere about it. Get proper central heating installed and do yourself a favour.