Thanks for the ping, @Blastoise186 …
… and hello again @miaowlicious 👋
Good to see your folks eventually got their shiny new smart meter installed with a bit of help from @Lukepeniket_OVO.
Now, the choice of heating equipment. Panel heaters like the one you’ve got your eye on (Dimplex PLX125E) are quite the most expensive form of space heating you could opt for. It could be, of course, that cost is no object and you’re looking for comfort at any price. If that were the case, I doubt you’d have selected the Economy 10 plan you say is now in place. As it is, this plan gives you two hours of cheaper rate electricity 20:00-22:00 GMT, probably fine for the radiator you were using to warm up the bedroom.
One thing about smart meters is that you can see just when most energy is being used. You wrote “When we did the sums earlier in the year (looking at a years worth of back bills) there wasn’t much difference in the costing for fixed rate vs E7/10“. Old bills from the days of RTS with its 24-hour heating circuit at lower rates won’t help you discover how much was actually used for heating during the daytime - and it’s always heating that is the biggest consumer of electricity. You also wrote “We would then of course switch to a fixed rate tariff.” By ‘fixed rate’, I think you mean ‘single rate’, i.e. no difference between peak and offpeak rates. I’m not sure how simple that would be to achieve with the meter currently in place.
OVO only publish their current rates, so even though the ones for the next quarter (October-December 2025) were settled weeks ago, we have to wait until next month to be able to see them. We can make some educated guesses, though, so I reckon that the Economy 10 offpeak rate will go up to perhaps 22.85p/kWh, while the ‘Anytime’ single-rate will rise to about 26.48p/kWh. You’d have to be pretty sure of your calculations for that 16% difference not to hurt.
As regards the water heater, the Horstmann controller in your picture is pretty rudimentary. When it’s on the ‘Timed’ setting, power will be delivered to the lower immersion heater element during all of the offpeak hours managed by the meter. Its thermostat will see to it not wasting too much energy by switching the element off when the water’s up to temperature. Only if the tank runs out of hot water would the boost function be needed outside of offpeak hours.
Last, the faulty storage heater. You didn’t say just how it failed. Before deciding to replace it, it might be worthwhile getting an electrician familiar with storage heaters to have a look at it. There’s not much to go wrong, but connections inside can fail over time, and thermostats can also get stuck in the off position. It could be something quite simple and quick to remedy. A conscientious electrician will tell you whether the whole thing needs replacing or not.
