Npower-econ7-huge bill

PNPSUKNET

sounds like you have whats called a faulty time switch, so when the night should kick in the time switch has failed

JimmyTheWig

dollydolittle wrote: »

I'm even trying to work out it if is chepaer to pay for the electricity to run the dishwasher or the gas to heat the water to wash up by hand.

I believe that the cheapest way is to run the dishwasher when full.
Washing up by hard is cheaper then running a half-empty dishwasher.

Terrylw1

Hi Dolly,

Someone pulling a wire out of the back to make that happen, does occur but it's very rare. It'sa more likely to be a fault on the timeswitch really.

The engineer who comes can change the meter to get around that.

However, I have to also 2nd Cardew on that. The reason being that these call centre people are not the ones that will bill your account. When they change you meter, those back office support staff will have to deal with it. Now, they will be able to see what Bernard agreed but these back office guys are the experts not the call centre. If you have an E7 bill, they "may" decide to split your consumption over the dials like someone suggested with the 70/30 split.

Suggest you keep an eye and the if they do this, don't mess about with call centres...go straight to a complaint. Complaints staff will have the plower to decide if they agree with what this Bernard has said. This may involve them writing off what they expecting in earnings on your meter, which is something that call centre staff don't have the power to do as they are not trained to work these things out.

Goood luck with it.

P.S. changign your meter is nothing to do with what I suggested about your tariff, they can still do that if your meter & region support it. This means that you can argue your day consumption and they could bill to those rates up to the meter change. I can tell you know that if your night rates are not moving, when they come to process your meter change on your bill, they will start to look at this again because they know you could have had a fault...and thy may assume that you would be overbilled at day rate only. Be careful!

If you are in the old MEB region (usually your MPAN number on your bill will begin with 14), they you are in luck because old MEBG regions can have this type of meter set up. Also, a lot of customers used to do this because MEB saved money/time on sending out engineers to change your meter because they could just bill you across 2 rates on the 1 rate unit charge. Personally, Bernard may not know this but they do try not to waste money on visits if you are happy to leave it as is. your night rate would still advance though. Ig your nigth rate is not advancing, your timeswitch is faulty and your Supplier will still investigate that.

They can't keep you on E7, it depends on how your fusebox is wired. If you only have a day rate circuit, it can be changed a one rate meter. If your fusebox has a day & night circuit wired to applicances in your house, the meter requires 2 tails from your fusebox.

I would 100% suggest you are to speak to this engineer and ask him. I've just got a suspicion that there could be a problem and if you do have a fusebox with 2 tails & a faulty timeswitch, he won't swap you to a 1 rate because it's a fault and will want to correct it to the as is configuration which would be bad for you...but then Npower can use the billing I suggest if your MPAN is 14 (as long as your Distributor is Eon)

Terrylw1

davidgmmafan wrote: »

Ok its like this. They don't HAVE to change the meter, particularly as only one rate is recording it would be possible to change the tariff to standard without changing the meter.

Yes, they do. E7 meters record on both dials as the day usage switches over to the off peak dial for recording.

If a Supplier sees one dial not moving, they have a faulty timeswitch and are obligated to change it. The Supplier has a iobligation to esnure settlement charges are inline with your type so they will be paying across both dials.

Even if they use the switch to 1 rate charge route, they still submit data on 2 dials into settlement and pay that way, they just change the usage pattern inline with rules.

There are occassions as Cardew suggested where they add, but this is specific to types of meter e.g. BGAS block stepping PP meters.

dollydolittle_2

I have a letter confirming that our new tariff from 8th October will be a standard and not E7 tariff and one confirming the new appt for the engineer to call round.

Is the MPAN number the same as the supply number? That does indeed begin with 14.

I gather from what you say that it wouldn't have been possible for a supplier to just disconnect the night meter bit and connect all the usage to the day rate, so the meter must have a fault of some sort, but what if the engieer says that it's the fault of the people who lived here before us? (We haven't touched the electics since we moved in but there is a modern fuseboard) I suppose they could refuse to rework the bill in that case. All I can do is take a reading just before the meter is changed and then wait and see what they do.

Terrylw1

dollydolittle wrote: »

I have a letter confirming that our new tariff from 8th October will be a standard and not E7 tariff and one confirming the new appt for the engineer to call round.

Is the MPAN number the same as the supply number? That does indeed begin with 14.

I gather from what you say that it wouldn't have been possible for a supplier to just disconnect the night meter bit and connect all the usage to the day rate, so the meter must have a fault of some sort, but what if the engieer says that it's the fault of the people who lived here before us? (We haven't touched the electics since we moved in but there is a modern fuseboard) I suppose they could refuse to rework the bill in that case. All I can do is take a reading just before the meter is changed and then wait and see what they do.

If thats the date the engineer is coming, thats just s standard appointment letter. If he gets there and can't do it, he can refuse due to safety of your premise being set up to E7 when Supplier has booked to a one rate. Hence it's best to be in. Always best when someone can see whats happened.

Always take meter readings in the day of the meter change, engineers frequently lose them of when they try to validate them, they refuse to use them and estimate some! Even though they know an engineer viewed it!

There is a possibility that the night rate was turned off but it would be by an engineer and they are not supposed to do it. Seen it before though in the south of the country a few times. Have you got 2 tails coming from the fusebox to the meter? If so, this shouldn't be case.

It is more likely a fault. However, if you have a faulty timeswitch it just means all your consumption goes on 1 dial rather than 2. So, your Supplier still pays the local distributor and they can still bill you. With a customer using night heating on elec, this means they get grossly overcharged and heating can end up on through the day periods and burn elec. In your case, you have had a rewire so you need to focus on making sure your Supplier knows this. When they investigate a timeswitch fault, they would be looking towards spreading your consumption over E7 rates because they know one day rate only you would get overbilled and complain (remember E7 day rates are higher than standard day rates to balance the night rate low charges). Your situation would be different to this if you have no off peak heating and you would probably be better off on the day rate as you said. If you want this, they will be happy and you are paying to an acceptable rate for the elec.

It's just a less common scenario.

The MPAN is the long number on your bill, the other is the Suppply number which tells the distributor what you are really using in terms of type of payment method, your timeswitch settings etc.

So, 14 is the old MPAN prefix for MEB's region. This should mean you will be with Eon, who took over the old MEB distribution region. This is a not a foolproof way of knowning this because with the open market you can go to anywhere now and your MPAN reflects which distribution company dealt with your house build but this only opened up in the last 5 years so may not affect you.

Whilst you are checking your bills, in that shorter supply number above it you will see some groups of numbers. If the 2 digit one is 02, your Supplier has you as E7. If 01, they have you as a day rate only. If they converted you to 2 rates on 1 rate charge, they should have updated this to 01 but don't hinge on that as they may have not done it for some reason.

dollydolittle_2

We've got a red cable and a black cable going in to the meter and a red cable and a black cable coming out and going to a smallish black box. From this black box there are two cables going to the fuseboard. One is blue and one brown. There's quite a lot going on in a small space, so I might have missed something, e.g. there are also green and yellow striped cables coming out and going to another even smaller black box - but this is just earthing, isn't it, so I don't suppose it's relevant. And, yes, the two digit number is 02.

Thank you again for being so helpful.

davidgmmafan

Terrylw1 wrote: »

Yes, they do. E7 meters record on both dials as the day usage switches over to the off peak dial for recording.

If a Supplier sees one dial not moving, they have a faulty timeswitch and are obligated to change it. The Supplier has a iobligation to esnure settlement charges are inline with your type so they will be paying across both dials.

Even if they use the switch to 1 rate charge route, they still submit data on 2 dials into settlement and pay that way, they just change the usage pattern inline with rules.

There are occassions as Cardew suggested where they add, but this is specific to types of meter e.g. BGAS block stepping PP meters.

They can change the tariff without changing the meter, but I always advise people against this as it can lead to confusion later.

If all the consumption is being billed at the day rate due to a stopped meter or a faulty time switch replacing the time switch or replacing the meter with another E7 meter is not the answer. They may as well just change it to a single rate meter now.

The billing system will allow a person to change the tariff without booking a meter exchange, but its not a good idea.

Terrylw1

davidgmmafan wrote: »

They can change the tariff without changing the meter, but I always advise people against this as it can lead to confusion later.

If all the consumption is being billed at the day rate due to a stopped meter or a faulty time switch replacing the time switch or replacing the meter with another E7 meter is not the answer. They may as well just change it to a single rate meter now.

The billing system will allow a person to change the tariff without booking a meter exchange, but its not a good idea.

The industry allows for 2 rate recording, 1 rate charge. If it's not a good idea, it's because of poor management inside Suppliers processes. It's easy to spot and bill correctly. It onlt goes wrong because Suppliers have not done their job. These meters have been around since 1997 and the data that governs how these work is sent to them monthly and has been for years. It's not that hard. Although I understand why you recommend the meter change since it can't keep happening. If the customer can push the meter change, it will protect them in the future...but they still shouldn't have to worry about this when 1 rate 2 dial is very common.

If the meter is stopped or has a faulty timeswitch, replacing the faulty meter/timeswitch prevents recording on no dials or just one dial. It just means in the case of a customer who only really wants a day rate, they could end up worse off due to the timeswitch re-assessment a Supplier would do. They still have to replace it and are obligated due to the settlement they pay to the Distributor.

Terrylw1

davidgmmafan wrote: »

They can change the tariff without changing the meter, but I always advise people against this as it can lead to confusion later.

If all the consumption is being billed at the day rate due to a stopped meter or a faulty time switch replacing the time switch or replacing the meter with another E7 meter is not the answer. They may as well just change it to a single rate meter now.

The billing system will allow a person to change the tariff without booking a meter exchange, but its not a good idea.

The industry allows for 2 rate recording, 1 rate charge. If it's not a good idea, it's because of poor management inside Suppliers processes. It's easy to spot and bill correctly. It only goes wrong because Suppliers have not done their job. These meters have been around since 1997 and the data that governs how these work is sent to them monthly and has been for years. It's not that hard. Although I understand why you recommend the meter change since it can't keep happening. If the customer can push the meter change, it will protect them in the future...but they still shouldn't have to worry about this when 1 rate 2 dial is very common.

If the meter is stopped or has a faulty timeswitch, replacing the faulty meter/timeswitch prevents recording on no dials or just one dial. It just means in the case of a customer who only really wants a day rate, they could end up worse off due to the timeswitch re-assessment a Supplier would do. They still have to replace it and are obligated due to the settlement they pay to the Distributor.