Old 3 meter setup RHT heatwise EON nightmare

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

Jibber123 wrote: »

I've jus spent 4 hours on the phone trying to get my mums electric supplier sorted. She received a letter a couple of weeks ago saying her tariff would have to change as her tariff was no longer supported. She has been battling with EON for over a year with this as they keep telling her she has to have her meter changed to support the new style of tariffs, and when an engineer comes out they can't do it because the way the house is wired up and it all goes quite for a few months. They are then back on the case, and try again and it goes round and round. The last letter stated as she hadn't had the new meter fitted her annual bill would go up from £1100 a year to £3800, which is just ridiculous. I've got nowhere with EON they just keep telling me she has to have a new meter which they can't fit. The basic problem seems to be she has and old legacy meter that was called heatwise or RHT and was renamed by EON to Economy 10 I think in 2005, she also has a second standard meter with a dual tariff on peak and economy 7. The house only has electric, no gas, so has 10 large storage heaters plus a large 80 gallon hot water tank with 2 immersion heaters, although she only uses the top one most of the time as she's on her own. The 10 storage heaters and 1 of the immersion heaters are feed directly from the RHT Economy 10 meter via a separate consumer unit, and come on for 3 hours in the afternoon 1-4pm and then at night 11pm to 6am (10 hours hence economy 10). The rest of the house, lights, sockets, a couple of convector heaters and towel rails in the bathroom and toilet and the other immersion heater are all connected to the 2nd dual tariff meter, via a 2nd consumer unit, which changes across to cheap rate at midnight till 7am (7 hours hence economy 7). EON have basically said she will have to go on to full price 16.18p/Kwh for all 3 meters where as she currently has 3 tariffs 8.93p, 16.18p and 7.01p /kwh. they have also said they will charge her 65p per day standing charge per meter which is nearly £500 a year. she currently pays £60 standing charge for both meters.
We looked at chaging to gas / oil about 15 years ago but unfortunately the cost of getting gas to the property or and oil tank installed and then getting wet central heating fitted is just huge at around £20,000.
We've also had a couple of independent electricians to look at options and they have all pretty much said the same thing, the storage heaters she has are designed to work with the afternoon boost of economy 10 and will more than likely be cold by 5pm without it so she will be forced to use full price electric and convectors to heat the house in the evenings when you need it most. The quotes to change the storage heaters to more modern ones that will hold heat for longer were in the order of £12,000!

The problem with keeping the old storage heaters is they don't have build in timers they rely on the meter's timer turning the supply on and off. The new meter they want to fit does not have a build in time clock so the existing heaters would be on all the time using full price electricity. Or alternatively she would have to remember to turn all the heaters on and off manually every day at the correct time, and she would not be able to leave the heaters on low if she went away for a few days. The electricians all said there is nothing currently on the market capable of switching the 100A load from the 10 existing storage heaters.

I understand the setup is not the most efficient especially as she is in a big house on her own, but why should she now be forced to pay 3 nearly 4 times as much for her heating because EON decide to change something.

I've managed to find SSE still take customers with these kind of setup but they only have a small department who understand the complex setup and are snowed under at the moment.

I am going to contact OFGEM but when i last spoke to them back in the summer they wer not very helpful and they basically told me it was an instruction from the government to energy suppliers to replace all the old legacy meter setup so that everyone can compare and change suppliers every year, and she would have to update her electrical systems to accommodate the new meters.

As a pensioner in her late 70's she just want's things to stay the same, she's prepared for her bills to go up a bit each year but to ask her to suddenly find an extra £3500 a year just for electric is, in her words "totally unacceptable".

I don't know what else to do to help her, has anyone else had any issues with these old legacy meters she can't be the only house left in the UK with them?

Jibber123 wrote: »

Just to update you after nearly 4 hours on the phone with EON I've finally got put through to the "Simpler metering team" formally call the "Legacy metering team" up to September 2019 and before that the "Complex metering team" before May 2019. How on earth your suppose to keep up with this and know what to ask for or who to speak to, when the company your dealing with doesn't even know what their department is called because it's changed names so many times?

Anyway they have agreed to send and engineer out to swap her 2 meters for a single Economy 10 meter that will do the whole house including the storage heaters. I'm sceptical but i'll give them the benefit of the doubt. If on the day they say again they can't fit the meter. I will ask them to confirm in writing why they can't fit it. I can use this as evidence with OFGEM that she has been forced onto a higher tariff with no alternatives. Resulting in a unacceptable increase of over 200% in her annual bill and that she can't switch suppliers because EON can't change the meter. Hopefully this will mean she can go back to her old tariff of they will put her on a better tariff that only results in a more moderate annual increase of say 10%

Hello Jibber123 and I'm sorry your mum has had to battle to sort out her metering. You're now in the right area.

As you know, we're phasing out old meters like your mum's Restricted Hour Tariff (RHT) as we can no longer support them. Our Simpler Metering team are responsible for looking after customers with these set ups.

As you can see in the link thorganby has posted (and the links in that thread), I've posted quite extensively about various types of legacy metering and what we're doing in these situations.

Sorry again this has been a long, drawn out affair Jibber123 and for the frustration caused.

Malc