Teleswitch meter is on at the 'wrong'time and no one will take responsbility for it!

gingerrogers

3 years ago I opened my front door to find a man replacing my electricity meter- Since then my storage heaters (I live in a housing assoc house) have been all over the place! they come on at 3am (not 12am), go off at 11am, come on again for an hour, then go off... This has been happening for years.

Needless to say I've contacted British gas, who told me there is nothing wrong with my meter, but if I wanted to find out I'd have to pay them to send someone to check it. The lady i spoke to told me it would definately be over £100 (I'm unemployed, i can't pay). After hearing the heating click off at 11am last week i rang BG again - who told me the meter is the responsibilty of my landlord. So Tai Clywd (housing Assoc) sent out their electrican, who told me I've got a 'telecommiuniciations meter'. I've since found it through the net that it is in fact a Teleswitch meter.

I know that the meter is on when It shouldn't be, that my low tariff for heating is 12pm tll 6am - and my heatings coming on at all different times!!

I don't know what to do - I can't pay BG to come out and look, and its not the responsibilty of my housing association. Has anyone else had this problem and actually sorted it out??

Any advice is greatly appreciated!!

MK55

gingerrogers wrote: »

3 years ago I opened my front door to find a man replacing my electricity meter- Since then my storage heaters (I live in a housing assoc house) have been all over the place! they come on at 3am (not 12am), go off at 11am, come on again for an hour, then go off... This has been happening for years.

Needless to say I've contacted British gas, who told me there is nothing wrong with my meter, but if I wanted to find out I'd have to pay them to send someone to check it. The lady i spoke to told me it would definately be over £100 (I'm unemployed, i can't pay). After hearing the heating click off at 11am last week i rang BG again - who told me the meter is the responsibilty of my landlord. So Tai Clywd (housing Assoc) sent out their electrican, who told me I've got a 'telecommiuniciations meter'. I've since found it through the net that it is in fact a Teleswitch meter.

I know that the meter is on when It shouldn't be, that my low tariff for heating is 12pm tll 6am - and my heatings coming on at all different times!!

I don't know what to do - I can't pay BG to come out and look, and its not the responsibilty of my housing association. Has anyone else had this problem and actually sorted it out??

Any advice is greatly appreciated!!

Hi
Ring your provider tell them you have a faulty time switch. This meter needs exchanging.

This is not a chargeable job, when your provider said it was over £100 they must of thought you wanted your meter testing. You simple need an exchange to a new economy 7 meter as your time bands aren't recording correctly.

Ich_2

A Teleswitch operates from signal transmitted on one of the BBC station (R4 I think) so if it is operating at odd times something must be causing interference. It is also possible that your location may have poor reception which could worsen the problem

spiro

With Teleswtich meters the DNO controls the switching times not your supplier. In some areas the times are dynamic to allow for the weather. Your heating should be on the night curcuit so it will only come on when you are on the cheap rate.

Swipe

Leave it. It is in your interest to do so. You are getting off peak rates at on peak times.

Andy_WSM

Swipe wrote: »

Leave it. It is in your interest to do so. You are getting off peak rates at on peak times.

I agree. The meter will only charge off peak prices when the heating has been switched on by the "faulty" switch, so you're not paying any more and are benefiting from getting heating at a useful time rather than the middle of the night!

grahamc2003

op - are you certain you are on e7 and not another 'cheap' rate tariff, like e10 or numerous others?

Do you have a led in one of the storage heater switches which shows exactly when the circuit is live or not? If not, how do you know when the rates change from one to the other?

If you are on e7 and you get the 'cheap' rate circuits live at odd times, then, as long as you get at least 7 hours of cheap rate, it's your gain. I suppose it can happen, but it must be very unlikely, and I expect the dno would be very interested in a random switching meter, if you choose to tell them.

What i intend to do when i get round to it, is film my switch led for 24 hours (at 1 frame/sec or something) to find out exactly ewhen it comes on and off. Mine often comes on at 00:00, off at 00:15, on at 00:30, then I don't know what until 07:30 when it goes off. Somewhere at night I bet it goes to peak rate for 15 minutes (just so it sometimes catches my washing machine on and charges me peak rate instead of nigh rate).