How do I work my economy 7 heater

[householder]

I have two economy 7 heaters in my one bed flat which both have different controls. The one in my bedroom has a 'auto setting' dial (1-6) and a heat setting but as there is no manual, am I right to assume the auto setting dial is for how many hours the heating is on for? What I really want to do is programme it to come on earlier in the evening as it doesn't even have a boaster switch like my other one and I end up waking in the morning really hot as it's come on during the night. Someone please help!

[Ethel]

The whole point of your heaters is that they work at night when the Economy 7 cheaper electricity kicks in.

Are these storage heaters - radiators with bricks inside?

They would be horrendously expensive to run during peak electricity hours.

[baileys]

if you have got small slimline heater in an alternative room,chances are that is a regular heater running on normal daytime electical charges.my guess is its one of those

[antiguru]

I�m not an expert but I�ve lived in houses with night storage heaters so I�ll tell you what I know!

I think it�s likely that your heaters are wired in such a way that they only take electricity on in E7 hours (which varies around the country but is usually around midnight to 07.00 or 11.30 to 06.30). During this time the bricks inside take on heat and hold it. They will inevitably let some heat out immediately but night storage heaters are designed to go on letting heat out during the day if you programme them right.

Usually there are two dials: input and output. Input controls how much heat is stored in the heater. Output controls how long it takes to let it out. So if you think about this logically, the more heat you ask it to store (the higher a number you choose on this dial) the hotter it will get. A booster switch just asks the heater to dump its heat quicker.

The description of the labels on your dials doesn�t make much sense to me, but try assuming they are input and output and fiddle with them accordingly. I suspect �auto� is just an input thermostat. If you�re getting a bit hot at night, try turning the input down.

Hope this helps.

[Pete1956]

I think antiguru is spot on. You should be able to identify what each control does by switching each one up in turn in the middle of the day. The control that gives you instant heat output is an output control.

I would expect the output control to drive a small fan. If you turn it up, this drives more air over the hot bricks in order to speed up the removal of the heat which was added overnight. Alternatively, it may control a vent which increases or decreases air flow over the bricks due to natural convection. To keep the place cool overnight, the output control should be set to minimum.

There is a brief description in wikepedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storage_heater