Swapping from single rate to dual rate (economy) 7 meter

doningtonphil

Hello


We bought a house with economy seven dual rate meter. It is what we need as it is all electric so need to heat water. Anyway, our electrician remove the timeclock in error so we were just on a single rate. I phoned Scottish Gas to come and reinstall the connections but the guy said he couldn't reinstall dual rate meter as there was only 1 cable going from the meter to the consumer unit.


I told him that is the way it has always been but he was adamant you need two cables going from the meter to the consumer unit (both going in to the same holes in the consumer unit) 1 for the electricity to use during the day and the other cable for the night electricity to use?!?!?!


Is that right? He said he normally works on the gas side of the business and doesn't do much of the electrical work. Unfortuantely he left me with the impression he doesn't really know what he is doing They are booked for 3rd Feb to come back and install a dual rate meter.


Surely there is just a switch inside the meter that tells the meter which rate to display, the electricity still flows up the same cable to the consumer unit. Or does it needs 2 cables, one for night one for day.


PS we do not have any night storage heaters circuits or anything, this is purely to feed the entire consumer unit so that whatever we use overnight will be at a cheaper rate.


Hope you can help


Phil

matelodave

My meter was a dual rate meter that they came and reprogrammed to make it a single rate one.

It's just got the feed to the consumer unit (one Live and one Neutral) and did (when it was in dual rate mode) just switch the registers from day to night and back again at the appropriate times.

It had three readings, total, rate 1 & rate 2. It's now just got a single reading.

ChumpusRex

You don't need 2 sets of meter tails and 2 consumer units (or a dual feed consumer unit). However, that is the normal way of connecting E7. One set of tails is "always on", and the other set is "off-peak only".

The meter will record all energy used at the prevailing rate. However, the "off peak" tails will only be energised when the off-peak rate is active.

It is acceptable to install a single consumer unit connected to the "always on" tails with no connection to the "off-peak only" tails. However, you will have to install timers on things like immersion heaters and night storage heaters. As the installation of timers is a bit more flexible and simplifies wiring, a lot of electricians prefer wiring E7 in this way; at the same time, as it makes meter reprogramming easier (no need to disconnect a 2nd consumer unit if switching back to a single-rate tariff) a lot of electricity suppliers prefer this method as well.

stator

How sure are you that you will use most of your energy at night? Without storage heaters I'm sceptical. But the advice above about connections is good.

Richie-from-the-Boro

doningtonphil wrote: »

Hello


We bought a house with economy seven dual rate meter. It is what we need as it is all electric so need to heat water. Anyway, our electrician remove the timeclock in error so we were just on a single rate. I phoned Scottish Gas to come and reinstall the connections but the guy said he couldn't reinstall dual rate meter as there was only 1 cable going from the meter to the consumer unit.


I told him that is the way it has always been but he was adamant you need two cables going from the meter to the consumer unit (both going in to the same holes in the consumer unit) 1 for the electricity to use during the day and the other cable for the night electricity to use?!?!?!


Is that right? He said he normally works on the gas side of the business and doesn't do much of the electrical work. Unfortunately he left me with the impression he doesn't really know what he is doing They are booked for 3rd Feb to come back and install a dual rate meter.


Surely there is just a switch inside the meter that tells the meter which rate to display, the electricity still flows up the same cable to the consumer unit. Or does it needs 2 cables, one for night one for day.


PS we do not have any night storage heaters circuits or anything, this is purely to feed the entire consumer unit so that whatever we use overnight will be at a cheaper rate.


Hope you can help


Phil

To break even you will need to be heating your day-time house with a wood burner or equivalent, then the % core / night rate water will work in your favour particularly if you are 'bath' not shower people.

doningtonphil

thanks for your feedback. We will be using multifuel stove to heat the house during day. When we had the dual rate we were breaking even over the course of the year and that includes using oil filled radiators which were on all day to heat the house before our stove was installed (Dec-Mar).


Our immersion heater is on a 'local' timer to allow flexibility so we have no need for an 'master control' for off peak items. Therefore what has been suggested about one live & neutral sounds like the way we want to go.


The only downside is that the old E7 timeclock was set to off peak from 00:15-09:30 (or 23:15-08:30)!!!!! I suppose the new one will only offer 7 hours which may affect our 'break-even' rate