Saving Money

Fast heat up times means there is little energy wasted and, when teamed with Ducasa's advanced controllers, comfort levels can be maintained at the touch of a button. This will allow your heating to run at its optimum level and when combined with the use of modern cost-effective electricity tariffs can play a big part in achieving an economic electric heating solution for your home and a lower carbon footprint.

Economy7 is a long-established tariff offering seven hours of cheap rate electricity over night but with more expensive peak-time electricity. It is ideal for night storage heaters, but such heaters do have drawbacks - namely they discharge heat during the day whether you like it or not and many need to be adjusted for the expected temperature of the next day which is inconvenient. Often they discharge most of their heat during the day and although they may have a boost facility for the evening this is usually a convector heater which will run on expensive peak rate electricity.

Economy10 is similar to Economy7 but offers ten hours of cheap rate electricity - usually five hours overnight and five hours during the day.

20/20 is a new tariff which give a 20% discount at night and during weekends.

Standard tariffs are also available at reduced rates depending on your usage, how you pay and whether you choose to pay a standing charge.

Picking the right tariff for your lifestyle is essential to achieve substantial savings.
For instance, a professional person working all day and returning home early evening may benefit from Economy10 or 20/20, however a person working at home all day would be advised to look at a standard tariff.

The off-peak cheap electricity times for Economy10 tariffs may vary from supplier to supplier, however it is usually from midnight to 5am, 1pm to 4pm and 8pm to 10pm.
Initially, warming a room during the 'reduced rate' times and then maintaining the comfort temperature can make substantial savings compared to warming the room during 'standard rate' times.

Programmed Heating Example Using Economy 10
Morning - comes on from 4am-5am to increase the temperature of your home using off-peak, cheap electricity. Switches to set-back temperature for 1 hour (reducing energy use) then switches to comfort temperature from 6am - 8am. This will use peak-period electricity but as the temperature of the home has already been raised (from 4am-5am) and maintained (from 5am-6am), less peak-period electricity will be used resulting in a financial saving to the user.

Afternoon - comes on from 3pm - 4pm (off-peak) to increase the temperature of your home using off-peak, cheap electricity. Switches to set back temperature from 4pm-6pm (reducing energy use) and then back to comfort temperature from 6pm-11pm. Energy use from 8pm-10pm would use off-peak, cheap electricity.

Remember: The Ducasa remote allows rooms to be programmed independently, therefore there is no need to heat your bedrooms while you are using your living room and vice versa, unlike traditional gas or oil central heating.

Check out the following links for details of tariffs:

EDF price lists

Scottish Power

N Power