Electricity cheaper at night ??????????

[jezzemx]

I have just finished reading an article about a woman who is trying to cut back because of the Credit crunch. She claims she only puts her washing machine on at night "when electricity is cheaper" Is it really cheaper at night? Is this a myth or am I being stupid for being the only human being on this planet who didn't know this interesting fact?
If it is the case I am going to Mumsnet after 6pm everynight from now on and not switch my PC in the morning!!!!!

Message withdrawn

AAHHH Didn't know that DOH

Isn't it cheaper after midnight?

economy seven gives a cheap rate between midnight and 7am (unless you live in my house where you get a PITA 11-midnight then 1am-7am for some reason ).

If you don't have economy seven you have the same rate 24hrs a day.

yes if you have Economy 7 it's cheaper overnight

The time it switches to the cheaper rate changes from summer to winter (when the clocks change), so for us in winter it's midnight - 7am, but in summer its 1am-8am. You do need to have the economy 7 tariff though - ours is about 4x cheaper at night.

thats weird. We've had economy 7 in two homes and it hasn't changed between summer and winter - although the times at which we were on low rate was different.

It must be different for different areas I guess.

Dumb question....but.....how do you know if you have economy seven and how do you get it if you haven't already??

Check your electricity bill. If there are two rates on it (low and high or day and night) then you have Economy 7. Also we hear it 'click' over to cheap rate in our house.

Not sure how you get it as it came with both our houses. Have a word with your electricity supplier. You'll need a different meter that gives two rates - not sure how much that would cost - the night rate is a fair bit cheaper though - the day rate is the same as normal rate if you don't have economy 7. It's quite useful for us as I'm up so much in the night with the DCs I can do three washing loads in one night.

• that reads as though I have two houses, it's hard enough keeping one tidy let alone two (although maybe I could put all the DCs in the other one and get some peace )

We investigated moving to economy 7 and were told that it would only make sence if we had night storage heaters. Apparently the day rate on economy 7 is higher than the one we are on now so we have to use a high proportion of our electricity at night to make it work out cheaper on average.

Thats why our house had Economy 7 - it had night storage heating. When we moved over to different heating I phoned to get us back on the normal rate but decided not to change because the Econmy 7 day rate was the same as the normal rate. Seems it is different for different companies but worth an investigation I guess.

We don't have storage heaters. By running dishwasher/washing machine and sometimes bread maker overnight we use about 30% of our electricity at night. As it's so much cheaper at night I reckon even if there is a bit of a premium on the daytime rate it probably does cost in, but then as we have an econ 7 meter and would presumably have to pay to change it we're fairly well stuck with it.

I suspect the type of meter you have affects whether it adjusts itself automatically for BST/GMT or not.

We don't have storage heaters. By running dishwasher/washing machine and sometimes bread maker overnight we use about 30% of our electricity at night. As it's so much cheaper at night I reckon even if there is a bit of a premium on the daytime rate it probably does cost in, but then as we have an econ 7 meter and would presumably have to pay to change it we're fairly well stuck with it.

I suspect the type of meter you have affects whether it adjusts itself automatically for BST/GMT or not.

oops

snorkle - I've been told you can keep the economy 7 meter and change back to normal rate without much fuss if you wanted to.

Thanks for that Mousey - I'll have to investigate other tariffs now I suppose.

Aaah!! I must have it then as i do have different rates on my bill, i need a timer thing to go on my washing machine as not always up at midnight to put loads on.