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Hi

I have an appointment on Friday to change THTC meter to new Smart economy 10.

I'm worried  it may not be the best option for me.I have a very old storage heater in lounge .I'm worried as I usually charge these at night for longer periods than the split economy 10 times.Is it likely they will ever be able to get warm enough to provide enough heat? 

I do intend to purchase a new storage heater at some point but can't  at the moment.

I know economy 7 may be an option but we are normally in alot though the day so Ovo thought economy 10 suited me better.

Any advice is appreciated as very confused in what to do.

Thanks

Hi @Smitho1978 ,

I’d say go for Economy 10 for now so that at least you get the two top-up boosts that’ll help to at least some degree. If you get desperate for heat, you can always enable Boost Mode on the meter to bring the heaters on temporarily during Peak hours - but you would pay Peak rates for doing so.

Otherwise, you’ll probably have to try and balance the controls carefully. Remember that ALL usage on E10 during Off-Peak times runs at the cheaper rate - use that to your advantage!


Thank you for your response.I did think economy 10 sounded quite good but just started to worry the heater wouldn't store enough heat.I have some thinking to do as might delay meter swap until new year.I will be more likely to be able to buy a new storage heater next year.

Thanks again 


If you’re able to, I’d say do the meter swap now - you can always use your other heaters to top-up the heat as they’ll be cheaper to run.


Thanks for your advice,appreciate it


I have an appointment on Friday to change THTC meter to new Smart economy 10. I'm worried  it may not be the best option for me.

 

First, it depends quite a lot on where you live, because both the prices and times for Economy 10 vary from place to place. If - as I suspect - you’re in Northern Scotland (the old Scottish Hydro region, known officially as Region 17 or P, depending on where you look), then this response I wrote for a customer in a similar situation might help:
  

 

One important thing to note is that on a tariff like this, all consumption in the offpeak periods is charged at offpeak rates. That means you could save quite a bit by doing things like cooking, washing, drying and hoovering between 1:30 and 4:30 pm or after 8:30 pm. As I suggested there, it might be better not to be charging the storage heater in the late-evening slot, but to use direct heating of some sort instead to give instant comfort. It would cost just the same and should be more effective. 


Thank you for your response.Yes I'm in the North East of Scotland.It's a good option to perhaps use another form of heat at night.Even though it's ancient my current storage heater has always worked pretty well in heating our flat.I'm just worried it ends up totally useless if it never gets a chance to store enough heat!


Sorry me again! If I was to go for economy 10 and really wasn't finding it worthwhile is a swap to economy 7 easy or will I need another new meter? The longer off peak rate at night when I would charge storage heaters would be good.I am however aware everything else is charged at full rate outside of these hours.I'm so scared I make the wrong decision and feeling alot of pressure to switch sooner than later


It’d be possible with the same meter - a further meter swap wouldn’t be required.


Thank you,that's good to know.Like I said I'm just wary of making wrong decision and having extra expense to change again in future 


I called Ovo just to check rates etc for both economy 10 and 7 and was told once I make my decision I cant swap over?! I must say I didn't find advisor as helpful as previous advisor I spoke to a few weeks ago.


The ultimate decision you make should factor in the long-term. If you’re planning to replace the heaters, E10 might work better because newer heaters require less time to charge and the top-up boost should see you into the evening more easily.


Yeah that's why I'm edging closer to E10 as really do need to replace old heaters at some point.Do you think she's wrong when she told me I wouldn't be able to change my mind once set up? She wasn't too helpful 


That I can check. Leave it with me and I’ll send this to the Forum Backstage.

This may take a day or two, but we’ll aim to get some more info on this.


Thank you so much,appreciate all your help 

 


Just a quickie to keep you in the loop. We’ve been discussing this backstage and we’ve agreed this needs a little more help than what we’ve got directly on the Forum.

Bear with us as we dig deeper still! We’ve got a massive toybox for this, so we just need to dig through it.

We’ll keep you posted!


Thank you for all your help and keeping me updated


Ok, so we just got a response back from the team - and it’s quite literally hot off the press!

At the moment, you’ll need to pick a tariff and commit to it as the option to change it later isn’t available at the moment. OVO wants to focus on getting the initial migration done first and they’ll explore making full flexibility available later.

Once this is available, you’d be able to freely tariff-hop at your leisure - and a meter swap won’t be needed.


Ok that sounds hopeful for the future.Once again thanks for all your help,really appreciate the time you've taken.


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