Economy 7 timer switch advice

hilaryfur

Can anyone advise where the timer switch for Economy 7 might be located? I've had no heating for 3 days and am having a nightmare with British Gas (my electricity supplier) trying to trouble shoot; spending frustrating hours on the phone being passed from pillar to post. All 4 storage heaters suddenly have failed to heat, out of the blue. I became a British Gas customer on 20 Nov when my previous provider was bought out by British Gas, and the switch appeared seamless until 3 days ago.
A  British Gas engineer replaced the meter yesterday, despite my insisting that the meter was not the problem - he assured me the heating would come on last night, but it did not. It has been suggested that the switch that switches over to the E7 night rate might be faulty. Can anyone advise whether this switch would be part of the meter (in which case that is not the problem as the meter has been changed) or whether the switch is likely to be a separate unit? I have 2 separate fuse boxes, one for all the heating and one for everything else, lights, sockets, etc.
Also, if it is a faulty time switch, would this be my responsibility to fix or the responsibility of the electricity supplier?

Gerry1

The meter should show you the rate that applies at any time.  If there's a separate E7 timeswitch it should be close to the meter and it's not your responsibility (although some people have their own local timeswitches for immersion heaters fed from a 24h supply).

Photos of the meter and consumer unit, please.  Have you checked that nothing has tripped / no fuses blown?

matelodave

OK, you need to go and have a look at your meter and see what wiring there is between it and your fuse boards and whether there is a separate unit between your meter and the off-peak board- or take a piccy of it and the wiring between it and your fuse boards and put it on here so we can see.

There are several ways to provide E7 supplies, either with an external time switch or a radio teleswitch or more tan likely in your case either with a five port smart meter or one with a separate contactor which is activated by an auxiliary contact from the meter. it's quite possible that the meter has either been incorrectly installed or incorrectly configured to offer an E7 supply.

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hilaryfur

I'm trying to upload a photo. I have checked nothing has tripped, but haven't checked the fuses.

hilaryfur

The E7 fuse box is the smaller one on the bottom right

hilaryfur

A couple more images

matelodave

The wiring looks OK if it's an E7 meter. The separate cable marked L,L,L should be the switched supply to the off-peak fuse board. All you can do is check that the meter switches over at around midnight to the off-peak rate and back again at around 7am. If thats not happening then the meter has not been configured for of-peak operation.

Others with a similar meter may be able to help you work out how to check the peak and off peak readings (I suspect just by pressing the blue button) If you cant see an off-peak reading then its probably not configured for off peak operation and wont switch the internal contactor to energise the off-peak fuse board

Gerry1

If you hear a clunk at the start of the cheap rate period and the '100A' indicator lights up then you know that the meter is operating correctly, so you'd need to check that the E7 consumer unit hasn't tripped.

Storky1911

Just to confirm that @Gerry1 is right. We have the exact same meter and at the start of the cheap rate period you can hear a loud "click", the 100A indicator then lights up. At the end of the cheap rate period the opposite happens: you hear a loud "click" and then the 100A indicator is unlit.

matelodave

Storky1911 said:

Just to confirm that @Gerry1 is right. We have the exact same meter and at the start of the cheap rate period you can hear a loud "click", the 100A indicator then lights up. At the end of the cheap rate period the opposite happens: you hear a loud "click" and then the 100A indicator is unlit.

Hi storky - if yours is configured for E7 can you tell us what displays you get to read the two registers and how to obtain them
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When I had an off peak meter ten years ago I could cycle through the readings by just pressing the button - as far as I can remember it displayed either the time, a rate 1, rate 2 and a combined total. 
 I'm guessing that this meter does something similar as there aren't a lot of controls on the front of it to do much else

What does the meter change labels say - does it suggest that the new meter is a dual rate )it looks like it got R1 and R2 at the bottom, but does that refer to the old meter rather than the new one. It's too blurred to make it all out

Gerry1

@matelodave It's the same type of meter as in the photo I posted.  Must be two rate because it's 5-terminal, has the blue Cycle Display button and the light for when the 100 Amp relay has livened up the off peak 5th terminal.

If the 100A light never comes on then it's a meter problem for BG to resolve, if it does come on but the heaters don't warm up then the fault is downstream, so the OP needs to check their consumer unit, wiring and heaters.