Dimplex Quantum storage heaters- Expensive to run?

Hi @Sleepysusie , the storage heaters are designed to run on  an economy tariff (E7 or E10) which means that they charge up overnight on lower cost electricity and give this back to the property during the day.

From what you’ve said, presumably you are not on economy 7 (or 10)?

No l just have radiators. and gas coal like fire when needed. so l don’t know how much they are to run. and their is only 2 of us as well.

@Sleepysusie

There are some interesting tariff specifically for quantum storage heaters rather than using E7 or E10.

If you haven't got a Dimplex Hub you would need to get one

For example the night rate on this tariff is only 9.9p between 12.30 and 7.30.

https://www.britishgas.co.uk/energy/gas-and-electricity/dimplex-quantum-tariff.html

https://www.dimplex.co.uk/british-gas-dimplex-quantum-tariff

This may work out dramatically cheaper for you and the rates are fixed for piece of mind.

Also make sure your storage heaters are properly setup to charge at night. 

Alternatively if you aren't going to use your quantum heaters you are likely to be better off just going on a single rate tariff

Thank you but I am asking if anyone has these heaters, which you don’t. So I don’t understand your comment. 

Hello

Your situation raises all sorts of complex questions and I remember 40 years ago being in a similar position when I was very hard up, living on my own in an old terraced house which was heated by off peak old fashioned storage heaters. They cost a fortune to store their energy at night and mostly let it out during the day when I was out at work. I think they cost about 50p each night, which was a lot then.

Your post reminded me of a BBC radio 4 program called (the best thing since) Sliced Bread which went into some detail about the best, most efficient form of portable heating, which may help you with some ideas. The link to the program on BBC Sounds is here.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001dxtx?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

I'd also purchase a plug in power monitor for about £10 which will tell you exactly what any plug in heater costs to run. No good for your storage heaters as I suspect that they will be hard wired but it will help you monitor your panel heaters or anything else you buy. I find fan heaters best for quick heat as long as they have a thermostat. But I also have a couple of air to air heat pumps which uses 1kw of electricity to give you 5kw of heat will only do one open area and costs about £1500 to £2000 to install.

Good luck, stay warm, if you can.

My solution to staying warm all those years ago was to spend my last £5 on a saw, and pinch some fallen  wood from a local woodland which I burt in an old fireplace.

Tony

 

Thank you Tony, excellent response. In 1982, my husband ( sadly now passed ) also got a saw, went to the local woods to collect wood and we burned in the fireplace. As you say, the old style storage heaters saved heat during 7 hours overnight, churned out the heat all day, got home from work and it was cold all evening. Bills sky high to run them. I’ve still got access to gas, but I rent, so no point in me spending thousands to get gas central heating back. I’m 65, I’d never recoup the outlay. I reckon best thing is to sod off to warmer climes all winter…that’ll save money LOL.

It may not apply, but I’ll just throw it in there….

a friend of mine lives in a similar kind of property as you, and also has storage heaters. He is also faced with disproportionately large heating bills. One day he noticed that the heaters were on during the day and getting warmer. The next time I was over there we discussed it and I checked his electricity meter: the timer was about 10 hours out, so we guessed his so-called “Economy”7 was actually charging his heaters at the full rate with only his fridge operating at the low rate overnight. As as say, just a thought but maybe worth checking what the various timings are.

Mike

Good point @Hundon19 

This is a good place to check peak vs off peak usage in 30min slots to see what is going on

https://account.ovoenergy.com/usage?datePeriod=daily&unit=kwh&fuel=electricity

I am on economy 10…..

We really need to know a bit more about your electrical arrangements to be able to make sensible suggestions. The vital points are:

• Do you have a smart meter? If so, could you post a photo of it, so we can see its make and model and how it’s wired into the house?
• You say you’re on an Economy 10 tariff. I may be wrong, but all those we’ve heard about on this type of tariff are ex-SSE customers. Were you with SSE previously?
  We’ve heard some sad tales of customers in this situation who found - like Hundon’s friend a few posts up - that the timings were all wrong.

Last, a couple of words about whether electric heaters can be cheap to run. You may have heard that some are more efficient than others. This isn’t quite right, because the beauty of electric heating is that it’s 100% efficient: every jot of electricity you pay for is converted into heat. Gas heating is less so; a modern boiler may convert 90% of the energy in the gas into heat, with most of the other 10% going up the chimney to keep the sparrows warm. An old boiler may be as low as 75% efficient. Oil-fired boilers are usually somewhere in between.

There’s also the question of how effective electric heating is. This is partly subjective, but storage heaters have a reputation for not being very effective. They store up energy during the night when it’s hopefully cheaper, then release it during the day. In all too many cases, though, the stored heat has been released by late afternoon, meaning that there’s none left to keep you warm during the evening when you probably most need it. For those out at work all day, this is far from effective heating. Economy 10 tariffs try to work around this by allowing for ‘boost’ periods at lower prices in the early afternoon and late evening. 

Strategically-located radiators or fan heaters may be more effective at keeping you warm - as you’ve discovered - even though the electricity they use may cost more per unit. Another very effective way of keeping warm is to wrap yourself in an electric blanket. This probably costs less than your heated towel rail to run (e.g. 1 or 2p per hour), yet you can curl up on the sofa of an evening in comfort. OVO have been giving these away to needy customers.

OVO give these away to needy customers 

So, as the local authority fitted these Dimplex Quantum Heaters, should they pay for the Dimplex Hub? I’ve struggled for three years in this house to get a proper and reasonable answer to why they are so expensive to run. Gas was ripped out in favour of these heaters. Just one costs £100 per month, plus my everyday electric usage. This hub costs well over £100 to purchase. Council fitted them surely they should provide the hub to go with them?
 

Unfortunately, they won’t. Cheaping out is their priority, so they will quite literally go for the cheapest possible options to initially purchase and skip out on any add-ons they don’t consider important for a basic installation. The running costs to and actual needs/requirements of the customer/tenant/resident are 99.999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of the time considered to be totally out of scope for their procurement processes.

Bromford is notorious for it...

Quantum heaters are supposed to be much better at heating than the old storage heaters from 20+ years ago as they are more controllable and have less heat leakage during the day.

It does sound like they are running at peak times though. I was paying almost £400 a month last winter for 3 less efficient storage heaters and that was when I was on OVO’s extremely high tariff.  Do you have a smart meter? If so, it sounds like it has been wired incorrectly. If you go on Money Saving Expert forum there’s a lot about Quantums and Econ7/10 which should help. 

It’s unlikely to have been incorrectly wired if the Smart Meter directly replaced another one - the wiring would have been directly matched up on a 1:1 basis.

Not at all - there have been many mess ups with Eco 7/10 and smart meters, particularly by British Gas. Here’s just one example (not BG) https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6438042/smart-meters-economy-7

Assuming the OP didn’t have Eco 10/7 3 (?) years ago, when the Quantums were installed, as they had gas central heating, it is possible that the meter is wired to peak times only. 

I live in a council house that has Dimplex Quantum storage heaters. The make up of the household means we need more heat than most (I am disabled).

I am currently on a tariff called Simpler Energy (which I believe is total heating total control) but under a different name.

Is there any cheaper tariffs I should consider? Do Ovo do any tariffs specifically for these heaters?

Could you please answer these questions, with regard to 2 different circumstances:-

1) I do not have a smart metre

2) my options if I ever get a smart metre!

Please note, in order for me to get a smart metre, I need the council to do some work 1st and I have been trying to get that work done all year-so please do not advise me to get a smart metre installed… I am working on it… I had the property inspector out again a few days ago… He has come up with a different plan but we will see

Thanks

If your Quantums (Quanta?) are modern ones (say, less than 10 or 15 years old), Economy 7 is a much better deal for you than the Standard Variable Tariff called Simpler Energy by OVO. It may be that you are in fact on an Economy 7 tariff - it depends on what type of meter(s) you have. You mentioned THTC (Total Heat Total Control), which sounds as if you have more than one meter - is this the case? Are you in Northern Scotland (North of a rough line from Dumbarton to Dundee), where THTC is common?

It’s unusual for work to be necessary prior to installing a smart meter, apart from perhaps a bit of rewiring if there is presently a two-meter system.  It would help a lot to see a close-up photo of your meter(s) and any associated equipment, as well as an overview of the backboard it’s mounted on or the cupboard or box it’s in so we can see all the cables. 

A smart meter would give you access to tariffs like Economy 10, which also work well with older storage heaters, allowing for some cheaper electricity for a few hours during the day and evening. We can’t really say much else without knowing a bit more about your system.

I said I am on total heating total control because that is what I am on. Yes I live in Scotland, the old hydroelectric area.

I was hoping you could just take my word for it but here goes… The piece of equipment that the electric guys wanted to replace with the smart metre is too near the consumer boxes (old name fuse boxes). They said they could not install the smart metre until I asked the council to move the consumer boxes up to create more room. Nine months later I am still trying to get it done.

Sorry, I must have misunderstood - you said it was under a different name ... 

THTC usually involves having two meters, but I suppose they could be combined in one unit. There are several different flavours of THTC, but a common factor is a feed specifically for heating equipment that is at a lower price all day. That is also possible with a special type of smart meter, but it may not be necessary.

Here are the tariffs compared:
  

Does the top one look familiar? You’ll notice that the price for charging the Quantums for seven hours overnight would be considerably less than on the THTC heating tariff - perhaps £1 a night for each 1.5 kW model. 

You can see all of OVO’s tariffs on this page: Our prices | OVO Energy. The prices shown are all ex VAT.
 

I see. Was it an OVO engineer who said the consumer units would have to be moved, or was it one of their sub-contractors, do you know?

A smart meter usually has the communications hub mounted on top, so its overall height is quite a bit more than that of many older ones. It is possible to gain a little bit of headroom by mounting the communications hub off to the side or perhaps even above the consumer units - the photos you’re going to share will help us understand the situation. It would be an idea to include a ruler or something of known size in the photo of the backboard so we can get an idea of the scale. 

​@Wheels496 welcome to the OVO Forum!

Once we know your meter set-up we can help more with this. We’ll need to know whether you just have the one meter with peak and off peak (day / night) readings on it, or whether you have two separate electricity meters.

As you’ve mentioned you’re disabled I’d highly recommend signing up to the Priority Services Register. This is a free service with a number of available benefits. If you sign up, you’ll be contacted by the Network Operator to alert you of incoming outages where possible, and they’ll look to get your property back on supply with priority if there’s a powercut in your area.

You can find more information and sign up here: https://www.ovoenergy.com/register-for-priority-services.

We’ve also got some info on the Forum:

We look forward to hearing back from you.

I am already on the priority services register and have been for many years.

As I mentioned in my original message, I am effectively still on total heating total control and therefore have 2 metres.

Thanks

​@Wheels496 in that case we’re currently unable to offer you any other tariffs with your current set up.

If the necessary work can be done to get the heating meter removed, and get everything fed through one smart meter, then we’d be able to offer you other plans. Unfortunately this all rests on the work being done, and I understand from what you’ve said that there is a delay with this.

Keep us updated as to how you get on with the property inspector.