New Storage Heater Installed - Electrician tells me it doesn't need to run on E7.

smith1932

Just looking for some advice. We recently had a new storage heater installed (Stiebel-Eltron SHS 3000 HHR) On the wall before was a flat panel electric heater. Currently it's been in for over a week but doesn't charge just overnight, At the moment it keeps charging both during the day and night and is using a lot of energy. When the Electrician installed it he assured me because it was a newer model it would know when to switch on and off to charge... But that is not the case, he has wired it into the wall but had not connected it to a separate circuit or to the E7 Meter. Wondering what I can do about this as it's costing a lot to run. Thanks.

Richie-from-the-Boro

Do you already NSHeaters, are you currently on an E7 tariff ?
Or
Have you replaced a Panel heater on 13a socket demand day rate with a NSH 13a on demand day rate ?

NOTE: if you put any NSH on a 13a socket, its not supposed to work that way. It, If it's wired to 13a it will indeed work 24/7.

Robin9

From the Stibel web site -  "However, the SHS storage heater can also be installed as a freestanding heater."  So your electrician is right  but it's bad advice .

Get your electrician back and wire to the off peak circuit

tacpot12

The heater doesn't need to run on E7, but YOU need it to run on E7. 

dogshome

How old is your house?   -  In earlier days the E7 supply had a an entirely separate meter that was 'Hard Wired' to the S/Rads and Immersion tank ( No plug sockets that the consumer could use for other things )

The modern set-up has a single meter that switches from Day to Night rate, and to set the heaters/ hot water to only come on at Night, Time Switches have to be installed on each heater or a dedicated circuit for them

matelodave

Your heater needs two supplies - a timed E7 supply to store the overnight off-peak energy and a 24/7 supply for the fan, controller and auxiliary heater although I guess it might be possible to use a single supply and then configure the heater controller to only charge during the off-peak period - possibly by the installer using the contractor access facility. You nedd to get your electrician back to sort it out
https://www.stiebel-eltron.co.uk/content/dam/ste/cdbassets/current/bedienungs-_u_installationsanleitungen/SHF_2000-7000___SHS_1200-4800___SHL_3500-5000__8225d680-7a8e-4d6d-bba7-1e05abdb7d6c.pdf

Gerry1

It's designed to that it can operate with one 24h supply, but it needs to be programmed correctly.   If you don't have an E7 circuit that's switched by the meter, start by finding out your E7 cheap rate times.  Don't rely on the internet, dial 105 to find out and make a final check by watching the meter switch over at the start and end.

Referring to Page 19 of Matelodave's manual, these parameters MUST be set correctly if there's only a 24h circuit:-

• P15 set to 3 so that the heater 'shadows' the meter's cheap rate times;
• P19 changed to the cheap rate start time (unless it's midnight); and
  
• P20 changed from 8 to 7, otherwise the charging period will continue for an hour in the morning at the expensive day rate.

Note that there's a BIG problem if you're in South East England where the cheap rate times are 2230 - 0030 and 0230 - 0730.  Presumably Germany doesn't have split timings: the heater can only be set to start at a certain time and charge for X hours.  If you're in the South East, the heater needs a 24h supply for the fan AND an E7 switched supply for the bricks, unless you can persuade UK Power Networks to give you an uninterrupted seven hours.

If you're confident, Page 20 explains how to change these parameters.  But if you've paid an installer to do the job you may wish to call them back and finish the job !

smith1932

Does anyone know where I stand in terms of the landlord having to pay for that? Obviously he's done his part and provided heating but now if the Electrician says he can do it, Will I be charged? 

Gerry1

I'd argue that the electrician hasn't finished the job because the heater is not yet fit for purpose.  But I'd do myself and have it all finished by lunchtime today !

The big problem will be if you have split E7 times, the DNO refuses to change them and the landlord is unwilling to install new E7 circuits to each heater.

matelodave

AS Gerry says, it's a five minute job to programme in the charge time unless you've got split E7 times. Look at the instructions - its easy to do yourself but should really have been done by the electrician when he commissioned the heater.

Gerry1

smith1932 said: Woken up this morning and the heater has charged itself to 100% using £5.50 worth of Electric 😮

Something's not right there.  Even if the electrician left the heater's clock hopelessly adrift and it charged at 3kW for 8 hours all at the day rate, those 24kWh cost 22.92p each.  You must be on a dreadful tariff !  But what makes you think the heater burned through £5.50?