electricity meters with different day/night tariffs

chrisz

Anyone who has an electricity meter that automatically switches between day and night rates (such as Economy7) should ensure that their meter timer is in sync with the actual times that night rates apply. Otherwise like myself you may find the meter has switched on appliances such as storage heaters or the immerson heater an hour or more before the night rate start and for that hour or more you will be charged day rate electricity

Every time you are subject to a power cut this could put your meters timer out of sync. If you find this has happened you shoud contact you supplier and ask them to arrange for an engineer to call to adjust the timer.

Please bear in mind -none of the suppliers will ever make you aware that this can happen if there is a power failure.

JohnnyM_2

Until recently I had an electricity meter where the timer was 5 hours out. I realised this after overpaying electric for 2 years thinking I was using night time electricity through the night!!!

Anyway, Scottish Power arranged for a new meter to be installed. The old meter timer was powered by a quartz timer which in time becomes unreliable. The new timer (I was told by the engineer) is powered by the electricity with a back up battery (rechargable? not sure, cant remember) in the event of a power cut.

So if you have timer issues, just call your supplier and they arrange a new meter.


Incidentally, I asked for some money back on my overpayment and they got me to read my meters after a couple of weeks saying that they would use that usage to recalculate the bills. Anyway, my usage was 11% (day) and 89% (night). So they applied 30% (Day) and 70% (night) to the recalculation! When I asked why, they said they just apply the national average!!! What was the point of taking meter readings after 2 weeks if you are going to skank me at the end of it??? I have had no joy in getting any extra back off them and am unlikely to either. So I think I will be moving suppliers.

dunloadin

What your saying is not strictly true, if you have a power cut the clock/meter has a battery back up to keep the times it has been set to.

Multi rate meters can't supply power to the storage heaters untill the clock switches the supply on, at that point the meter will click over to begin recording the low rate. It is possible for a clock to gain or loose time, but if they do the low rate and heating will still switch on and off simultaniousley. If the clock stops working you'll be either stuck in low rate (heaters on) or normal (no heating).

The only time the heating will be energised and recorded at full rate is if you have a key meter and some idiot sends the wrong tariff to the key....it happens. If a single rate tarrif gets mistakenly sent to someone with storage heaters the elements will be on 24/7....pretty quick to spot as you'll be feeding money into the meter like theres no tomorrow!

180turbo

We had our electric meter changed last week as it was an old one, but the clock is an hour out of sync (slow).
I thought the clocks on the meter's all got updated automatically when the clocks change?
Can anyone confirm this?
Or do we have to get the meter man out again to reset the clock?

espresso

180turbo wrote: »

We had our electric meter changed last week as it was an old one, but the clock is an hour out of sync (slow).
I thought the clocks on the meter's all got updated automatically when the clocks change?
Can anyone confirm this?
Or do we have to get the meter man out again to reset the clock?

They do not adjust all timeswitches to take account of BST, therefore your cheap rate hours will vary due to this.

JohnnyM_2

180turbo wrote: »

We had our electric meter changed last week as it was an old one, but the clock is an hour out of sync (slow).
I thought the clocks on the meter's all got updated automatically when the clocks change?
Can anyone confirm this?
Or do we have to get the meter man out again to reset the clock?

When I had my meter changed a couple of weeks ago I noticed the clock was an hour slow too. I asked the engineer who fitted it and he said they all are and it is fine.

SteveFoxUK

My meter is 3 hours fast - its great as I dont get home till late so all my evening electric is on economy 7. I called the power company ages ago to own up to this and have also mentioned it to a meter reader too but nothing was done. As far as im concerned, its their problem now - I dont see any further moral or financial liability as Ive made a reasonable effort to bring it to their attention. Anyone have a different view to this?