Off peak electricity price increase

tiff_rocks

What an absolute joke NPower really are... I have just received 3 letters from them, all dated 11 September 2020...two of which are identical and inform me my complaint has been reopened...the 3rd informs me it has been resolved. 
I guess now I'm in a position to go to the Ombudsman. Give me strength!

Deeplyunhappy

We too received the dreaded letter from NPower - We have a RH2 meter (Restricted Hours 2)  but instead of storage heaters, we have an underfloor storage system. (an concrete ramp) This was put in when the bungalow was first builted in the late 60's. Is there anyone out there with this same system?

MrSaverM

I have the npower setup as described complete with one very old meter and the old timer box plus a separate 24hr meter. There is a 3 phase supply to the house, two of which are to the heaters and one to the 24hr meter.
My heating is via two Electrair warm air heaters which were running on the old npower DD9-11 Off-Peak tariff.
Hot water is via a bottom of the tank immersion heater also linked to the off-peak meter.
I decided to investigate using smart switches to be able to control the on/off times for the heaters and also the immersion heater. My goal was to be able to take advantage of Octopus smart tariffs, either Agile or Go.  To work as needed, these require smart switches so that you can turn the heater and immersion charging when the tariff has cheap rates. You would then use IFTTT (look it up!) plus Alexa or Google Home to control your smart switches.
The first part is now complete, but I am glad I had a good electrician. The old timer clock and switches in the heater cupboard have been replaced by a dual socket, two standard 13a plugs and two cheap (£15 each or less) BG 13a smart adaptor plugs. One controls the heat charging on/off, the other controls the fan (not strictly necessary, but nice to have). I could also have gone with BG smart sockets, but if it was to go wrong, it would be harder to swap.  NB Other smart adaptors are available!
Warning - If you have this done, make sure the electrician knows what they are doing as for safety the plug which plugs into the smart adaptor for heat charging control needs to be correctly wired to a circuit that goes through an overheat contactor in the heater unit. With the correct wiring, the smart adaptor now turns on the heat charging via the existing relay (contactor) in the heater unit. (NB It cannot do it directly as the current is way too high).
I can voice control the smart plugs via Alexa or set timers via an App or Alexa or link to IFTTT.
Once the immersion smart plugs are in place (just waiting for a heavy duty relay), all will be good to go and I can look at swapping to Octopus with their smart meter which will link to IFTTT. For their Agile tariff, you need to be able to link to IFTTT and automatically turn the heaters on or off depending on the current price. 
You could do all this with non smart timers, but you would not save much at all as it would still require wiring and it would entail far more bother.
Hope this helps someone, but do not attempt this if smart home control daunts you, it is not hard if you have a bit of computer know-how but if you don't.....try buying just one BG adaptor and working with it say with a table lamp to see how you get on.
PS I do not have any link at all to BG and as I said, other makes are available. I chose BG as they were relatively cheap, did not require their own hub (they link directly to your router) and work with IFTTT and Alexa. Other makes also have these attributes.

Talldave

@MrSaverM I would add my vote for devices that don't require an additional hub. I had to add a hub just to get remote temperature sensors talking to a programmable thermostat on our heating system.  It's the weak point of the system - any time it gets chilly it's always because the hub is "offline", and even after a reboot it takes an age to start working again.

MrSaverM

Talldave said:

@MrSaverM I would add my vote for devices that don't require an additional hub. I had to add a hub just to get remote temperature sensors talking to a programmable thermostat on our heating system.  It's the weak point of the system - any time it gets chilly it's always because the hub is "offline", and even after a reboot it takes an age to start working again.

Hi, Yes, and the hub potentially then ties you to sensors that only work with that hub, although of course you can add direct wi-fi sensors independently (if they exist0. Hub breaks and all your connections to it will fail and although the same will happen if your router breaks it will be more obvious and ex hub it is one less thing to go wrong. I have just ordered a Sonoff TH16 plus wired sensor DS18B20 remote thermostat sensor via ebay, about £14. This is for my immersion and will also switch, but needs mains to work. It is 16A and should be OK for 3kw, but I will probably use it via a relay.

Talldave

MrSaverM said:

Talldave said:

@MrSaverM I would add my vote for devices that don't require an additional hub. I had to add a hub just to get remote temperature sensors talking to a programmable thermostat on our heating system.  It's the weak point of the system - any time it gets chilly it's always because the hub is "offline", and even after a reboot it takes an age to start working again.

Hi, Yes, and the hub potentially then ties you to sensors that only work with that hub, although of course you can add direct wi-fi sensors independently (if they exist0. Hub breaks and all your connections to it will fail and although the same will happen if your router breaks it will be more obvious and ex hub it is one less thing to go wrong. I have just ordered a Sonoff TH16 plus wired sensor DS18B20 remote thermostat sensor via ebay, about £14. This is for my immersion and will also switch, but needs mains to work. It is 16A and should be OK for 3kw, but I will probably use it via a relay.

Of course the reason you end up needing a proprietary hub is that if you want 6-9 months battery life on a sensor then it isn't going to be using wi-fi.  However, in the case of the Heatmiser stuff I'm using, it's frustrating that they designed the thermostat with the necessary wireless interface to talk to the hub, and the wireless sensors can also talk to the hub, but the thermostat cannot talk direct to the sensor(s), even though it's fully capable of accepting their readings and (in the case of my setup) averaging between two sensors when in "remote only" mode.

MrSaverM

Talldave said:

MrSaverM said:

Talldave said:

@MrSaverM I would add my vote for devices that don't require an additional hub. I had to add a hub just to get remote temperature sensors talking to a programmable thermostat on our heating system.  It's the weak point of the system - any time it gets chilly it's always because the hub is "offline", and even after a reboot it takes an age to start working again.

Hi, Yes, and the hub potentially then ties you to sensors that only work with that hub, although of course you can add direct wi-fi sensors independently (if they exist0. Hub breaks and all your connections to it will fail and although the same will happen if your router breaks it will be more obvious and ex hub it is one less thing to go wrong. I have just ordered a Sonoff TH16 plus wired sensor DS18B20 remote thermostat sensor via ebay, about £14. This is for my immersion and will also switch, but needs mains to work. It is 16A and should be OK for 3kw, but I will probably use it via a relay.

Of course the reason you end up needing a proprietary hub is that if you want 6-9 months battery life on a sensor then it isn't going to be using wi-fi.  However, in the case of the Heatmiser stuff I'm using, it's frustrating that they designed the thermostat with the necessary wireless interface to talk to the hub, and the wireless sensors can also talk to the hub, but the thermostat cannot talk direct to the sensor(s), even though it's fully capable of accepting their readings and (in the case of my setup) averaging between two sensors when in "remote only" mode.

Hi, Yes, it is very frustrating! The market is still in its infancy, so hopefully things like this will be sorted and there will be more choice soon.