Economy 7 faulty meter?

seppie

Hi,

We have economy 7 because we have an electric Aga that is designed to use it, as it is expensive to run. However, on E7 it should cost no more than £8 to £10 per week.

We have been getting huge bills (£300 per month) for around 2 years now and have been trying, without success to get to the bottom of it with Npower.

In the end, after having 2 different tester meters fitted, we spent a week taking readings @ 7am and 12 midnight, to get an idea of what was going on.

The meter has 2 readings R1 day and R2 night. We found that the R1 day reading was working around the clock and was actually recording more usage at night than it was in the day. The R2 night reading was mainly recording usage at night, with just a little in the day which was probably accounted for by the time clock being out by half an hour. I emailed the readings to npower, but they wouldn't discuss it until they had removed the tester meter. They failed to turn up to remove the meter 4 times!! We are still trying to sort it out, but they keep comparing the tester meter with the original meter and saying they more or less tally. The problem doesn't seem to be the meter, but we have heard it could be due to interference to the signal used to change over. Can anybody help? We are getting to the end of out tether, as we are paying £300 hundred a month, but this isn't paying off the backlog of over a thousand.

Thanks

Buzby

Interference doesn't effect a meter - unless you mean sticking a knitting needle in it. Your check meter is only looking at consumption - however when the timer switches to off peak, the peak supply meter stops recording. If yours does not, then this will be your problem.

Have you noted the consumption between the start and end of the OP switchover? The end of one MUST equate to the start of same meter when the switchover restores the supply.

Richie-from-the-Boro

Assuming you are using a 30A AGA not the 13A unit I'd price your 'oven only' use to be nearer to a 2 hundred units per week at your current night-rate rate tariff of about 5.5p, so about £15pw including VAT etc at current prices, you could double that for a 4 oven. Additionally of course you will have your PartL cylinder full of 55°C water at the cheap rate.

Your R2 meter should read only a fractional amount to do with the slightly variable switchover times of the telemetry during the day period, and on E7 your R1 should read zero for the 7 night hours.

It sounds to me, depending on your meter & tariff type that your 'tails' may be wired wrong .. .. and / or .. .. you are using an old cranky mechanical dial meter with 'one arm bandit' counters. A modern digital meter put simply has two sets of wires come from their meter to your consumer units, the E7 tariff should make all your 17 hours day at full price, and all your 7 hours night at cheap rate. Lets start with what electricity are you using during the day, for example :

- what central heating system do you have
- what water heating do you have
- do you have a tumble drier, etc
- what is your average kWh night & day per annum
- what tariff are you on
- what type of electricity meter do you have

nPower

seppie wrote: »

Hi,

We have economy 7 because we have an electric Aga that is designed to use it, as it is expensive to run. However, on E7 it should cost no more than £8 to £10 per week.

We have been getting huge bills (£300 per month) for around 2 years now and have been trying, without success to get to the bottom of it with Npower.

In the end, after having 2 different tester meters fitted, we spent a week taking readings @ 7am and 12 midnight, to get an idea of what was going on.

The meter has 2 readings R1 day and R2 night. We found that the R1 day reading was working around the clock and was actually recording more usage at night than it was in the day. The R2 night reading was mainly recording usage at night, with just a little in the day which was probably accounted for by the time clock being out by half an hour. I emailed the readings to npower, but they wouldn't discuss it until they had removed the tester meter. They failed to turn up to remove the meter 4 times!! We are still trying to sort it out, but they keep comparing the tester meter with the original meter and saying they more or less tally. The problem doesn't seem to be the meter, but we have heard it could be due to interference to the signal used to change over. Can anybody help? We are getting to the end of out tether, as we are paying £300 hundred a month, but this isn't paying off the backlog of over a thousand.

Thanks

Hi seppie,

If you can send me an email (contact address is on my profile page) with all the details and your account number, I can get this chased up for you?

Many thanks,

Adam

seppie

Hi, The R1 (day) meter appears to be running constantly. I measured both night an day usage. We are on cheap rate from 12 midnight until 7 am and the R1 meter goes up when read in the morning. For example the readings over 2 days for both meters were as follows:

(R1) 7 am 21005 Midnight 21013 7 am 21027 Midnight 21037

(R2) 7 am 34160 Midnight 34165 7 am 34191 Midnight 34192

Thanks for your help

seppie

We use lpg for our heating and hot water, so only use electricity for the aga, which has 2 ovens and the usual, lights, tv etc. We stopped using our tumble dryer a couple of years ago because of the bills. We have timers on our washing machine and dishwasher, so that they come on at night. Our tropical fish are even nocturnal now! They are predicting our cost for a year at £2,615.95 using 20,736 kWh. We can't really work out how they break the cost down the bills are very complicated.

Thanks

Richie-from-the-Boro

Get in touch with Adam from nPower, ask him for your :

- 2013-14 [CAC] Calculated Average Consumption, and ;
- 2012-13 breakdown of day / night spilt by kWh

I'm interested in (1) what type of electricity meter you have and (2) how your system inside the dwelling is wired. A normal dwelling with the water and heating supplied by electricity would have a 70/30% split, yours, I would expect to have a 30/70% split. Your AGA should have cost you ± £800pa, that means that unless you have a variety of convector's and fan heaters switched on all over the house in winter months £1800pa is going out in iPhones / TV and other low use as your water & heating costs are LPG, I agree it just makes no sense at all.

Photograph these two [non-test] meters, and put a link or picture here.

seppie

Hi Richie,

We have been told by Npower that our split is roughly 50/50. On our last summary it said we had used 4949 kWh night and 4951 kWh in the day. The night rate charged @ 5.110p and the day rate split with the first 422 @ 24.870p and the next 4529 @ 17.900p. The meter is quite new, as the first one didn't work properly so was replaced. What is odd is the tester meter which was identical to our meter, takes similar readings, with the day meter working around the clock too. This is why we think it must be something going wrong before the meter. The test meter was removed on Saturday, so we are back to just our original new meter.

Sorry i can't put a picture in, I've tried to copy and paste but i'm obviously doing something wrong! It says it's a multi rate watt hour meter if that is any use.

Thanks

Richie-from-the-Boro

seppie wrote: »

Hi Richie,

We have been told by Npower that our split is roughly 50/50. On our last summary it said we had used 4949 kWh night and 4951 kWh in the day. The night rate charged @ 5.110p and the day rate split with the first 422 @ 24.870p and the next 4529 @ 17.900p. The meter is quite new, as the first one didn't work properly so was replaced. What is odd is the tester meter which was identical to our meter, takes similar readings, with the day meter working around the clock too. This is why we think it must be something going wrong before the meter. The test meter was removed on Saturday, so we are back to just our original new meter.

Sorry i can't put a picture in, I've tried to copy and paste but i'm obviously doing something wrong! It says it's a multi rate watt hour meter if that is any use.

Thanks

I just can't see it, a 50/50 split when :

- all water and space heating is LPG
- there are 2555 night [7x365] 5.1p night rate hours available per year
- three meals a day use average per annum should draw less than 250kWpw, that's £15pw VAT Inc

Something your side of their meter is using a lot of electricity at more than twice the annual average, or something their side of the meter is recording a daytime usage it should not even be possible to deliver.

There's nothing your side of their meter that can draw sufficient day time electricity - unless your AGA is wired wrongly through your consumer unit and pulling 30A during the day, for much of the day, and immediately exhausting it through the 1/2" vent.

My suggestion, desperate stakes, you can pick up an electric cooker from ebay for a tenner by searching for auction & nearest first. People will pay you to take it away. Record your figures every day for a week, get a ten quid cooker and wire it in, completely detach and pull the RCD on the AGA for a week, record your new figures with the AGA isolated.

If I was in your position I'd buy a hob and take the AGA out of the equation for a week and see what happens to the day & night figures. I'd also check my CU's and make sure that AGA is not drawing a lot of day electricity.

Seppie anything coloured blue you are supposed to click on, does your meter look like this ?

seppie

Hi Richie, it's similar to the white digital meters, but not exactly the same. It has a blue square with a circular spot in the centre on the left hand side. We are on a 3 phase system.

We have spoken to the Aga man in the past, we have it serviced and he says it would be glowing red if it was using that much electricity. We asked him if it could be wired wrong and he said not. There is a light that illuminates on the display when it is working, that says Econ 7. That comes on and goes off at the correct times.

I have emailed Adam, but he hasn't responded yet.

Thanks for all your help with this

Richie-from-the-Boro

seppie wrote: »

Hi Richie, it's similar to the white digital meters, but not exactly the same. It has a blue square with a circular spot in the centre on the left hand side. We are on a 3 phase system.

We have spoken to the Aga man in the past, we have it serviced and he says it would be glowing red if it was using that much electricity. We asked him if it could be wired wrong and he said not. There is a light that illuminates on the display when it is working, that says Econ 7. That comes on and goes off at the correct times.

I have emailed Adam, but he hasn't responded yet.

Thanks for all your help with this

That sounds like an Ampy 5192F all AMPY's have a blue square with a raised button, the single phase is almost identical but the button is on the RHS. Why are you using 3 phase in a domestic dwelling, what do you need a 200A supply for ? ?

NOTE : If its blue writing - you click on it !