Are electricity price plans with free units Saturday or Sunday a gimmick?
- Thread starter Up Rovers
- Start date
Bord Gais restrict usage to 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and 100 units per month.
Electric Ireland Home Dual+ weekender shows
Benefits
- Free electricity on Saturdays or Sundays between 08:00 - 23:00
It's dangerous to use washing machines or tumble dryers overnight or when out of the house. At the milder end there is a risk of flooding so you could wake up 8 hours later to destroyed floors and furniture. At the more serious end they can catch fire. I would not risk that to save time or money.
Yes I was heading out one day and put the washing machine on in the hopes of avoiding the noisy old machine. Immediately smoke started to come out of the machine so that definitely taught me a lesson.
Wish I had continued buying lotto tickets for the last few decades, clearly have had incredible luck.
for curiosity's sake - why do you imagine ESB has night rate meters?
dont think much of that!
Don't think its a case of imagining
Daughter's rented apartment had storage heaters and separate night meter. Don't think its necessary to have separate meter for Smart customers as that meter caters for different time zones.
NoRegretsCoyote
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There is non-zero fire risk - I run washing machine and tumbledryer overnight but never when out of the house.
I also remove lint from tumbledryer after every cycle but am not sure everyone is so diligent.
You have read some of the money saving tips on this site haven't you?
In cases of faulty appliances, washing machines and tumble dryers cause 1/3 of fires. More than cookers, fridges, dishwashers, ovens, and irons combined.
Even if there is a statistically low risk of a fire, the absolute worst time for one to break is at night when you're asleep as you're far more vulnerable to smoke inhalation, it's less likely the fire will be spotted by neighbours, etc.
The next worst time is when the house is empty, again delayed response so fire has more time to cause damage. Anyone who has experienced a house fire will tell you how quickly they can spread. It is shocking.
The ESB offers night rate meters for commercial reasons, but that's got nothing to do with basic fire safety principles and common sense. No-one is saying don't use electricity overnight.
Happy to waste a few euro and a few minutes of my time rather than lose my life and my home.
It's very easy to install a smoke detector near the washing machine and tumble dryer.
If you want to go one step further you can get a smoke detector with a built in relay.
This can be set up to disconnect the electricity supply if the smoke alarm activates.
Many washing machines have a H20 reset. If the machine takes longer than a set time to fill it will cut out until reset. This is a flood protection.
If you want to go one step further you can get a smoke detector with a built in relay.
This can be set up to disconnect the electricity supply if the smoke alarm activates.
Many washing machines have a H20 reset. If the machine takes longer than a set time to fill it will cut out until reset. This is a flood protection.
I don't have Irish data but I expect they would be similar?
Ovens are higher on that list because they are talking about all fires involving appliances. That would include if I left the chicken on 300C for 8 hours which is human error rather than an oven problem.
Washing machines and dryers are the biggest culprits when it comes to faulty appliances, i.e. they malfunction on their own rather than causing trouble due to misuse or neglect. There's a summary here: https://www.techadvisor.com/article...most-likely-to-cause-a-fire-in-your-home.html
Indeed. Trying to force users to adapt to the vagaries of intermittent renewable energy sources is a sign of failure, not progress.
NoRegretsCoyote
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About 1,300 fires involving washing machines and driers according to those statistics.
Conservatively assume 30m of both appliances in the UK with 100 cycles per annum.
So 1,300 fires per 3 billion usages of one reported fire per 23m cycles. It's not zero but it's still incredibly low.
Who is forcing anyone to adapt? I didn't realise anyone was putting a gun to people's heads making them sign up for a time of use tariff.
They make sense for some who choose to shift usage to off-peak periods, but it's nonsense to suggest anyone is being forced here.
We generally get UK spec models so it's very likely.
I think it's also good to point out that this thread was about a Bord Gais offer of free electricity on the weekends
When I was deciding to move to the smart meter there were three price plans on offer with BG smart meters
One was an EV plan which offered a cheaper day and night rate with an even cheaper EV rate but had a slightly dearer peak rate but more importantly had a more expensive standing charge €140 which at the time felt would work against me
The other two plans were a smart meter plan and a smart meter plan with free time and where you would think the plan with the free time would have the dearer rates of the two it was the opposite
So for me it was obvious which plan I was going to go for, the one that could/would allow me to save some money on my electricity bill
We've had a night rate/storage heating rate for donkey's. It's disingenuous to suggest this is as a result of the adoption of renewables rather than a supply and demand exercise.