On 02 Dec 2006 10:31:21 GMT, Andrew Gabriel wrote:

The tariff you refer to is called Economy 7. Not sure if it is still
available to new users The units might be cheap for the 7 hours over
night but they are really expensive during the daytime. In this way
the tariff only makes sense if nearly all of your consumption is at
night.

Not quite true. Yes, the day units are more expensive than normal
domestic tarrif ones and so is the standing charge but you don't need to
have "nearly all of your consumption" at night.

I haven't updated my spread sheet that does the number chrunching for me
but with:

Standing
Charge Peak Off Peak
E7 12.97 6.46 2.46
Domestic 9.39 5.94

To save Standing Charge 1.46 units per night.
To save Peak Rate 0.21 Off Peak units per Peak unit used.

Which works out at about of 1/4 of your consumption required in the off
peak period. Though it varies on consumption of course:

7 peak, 3 off peak, 10 total/day
12 peak, 4 off peak, 16 total/day
16 peak 5 off peak, 21 total/day

All break even or better over the domestic tarrif.

Modern (anything in last 30+ years) european washing machines
don't actually use much power per wash either.

But the dryer does... B-)

BTW, Maplin had their plug-in power meter on special offer when
I was in there last weekend. You could use this to work out
exactly how much a wash costs you, but I suspect it's in the
pence range.

Agreed doing some basic research into actual power used is a good idea.
The couple(ish) units to save the standing charge increase may well be
used by normal consumption by TV, lights, computers, fridge/freezers etc
in the 7 hour off peak period.

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail