Economy 7 High daytime usage bill and non moving meter

worlestone

Some background, we moved in almost 4 months ago, to a 4 bed 1980's detached house, electricity only, no gas in the village.  We have 5 NSH's downstairs which have been charging on half way on dial currently and 4 panel heaters upstair which are on a timer and thermostat at @ 17 degrees. Hot water is via an immersion tank which we generally switch on for a couple of hours early in the morning before the E7 period stops

We had a bill from Octopus yesterday after submitting a meter reading, when submitting the bill there was a warning that we had usually high daytime use and to check the figures - which I did, all appeared OK.  However our daytime usage over the 26 days was 766 kWh (@15.49p) = £118.65 and night time 1245 kWh (9.24p) = £115.04, a huge bill, the previous bill was about half that, though the NSH's had been on less.  A bit confused why the high bill, but we do have builders in for the last month, lots of cups of tea, plus I put the panel heaters on for 5 hours each evening - so this might be the reason for the high daytime usage.

However, I have just done another meter reading and found that the low (night time) usage has not changed since yesterday, despite charging all the NSHs.  I'll check again tomorrow in case of some aberration.  The question is why has the low rate meter not moved? Is there a possibility that our usage has been switched to 100% daytime/non E7? In previous month our usage was 90% night time.  

I cannot call Octopus at the moment as it's out of hours, but will call in the morning, but thought I'd check here in case I was missing something?

Thanks for reading this long post

Gerry1

Photos of the meter, please.  It may have more than two registers, so perhaps you are looking at the wrong one?

Does the red light marked '800 Imp/kWh' (or similar) flash during the cheap rate period(s)?

worlestone

Here we go, the second photo

MWT

Is there a time-switch clock attached to that meter?

Old-fashioned rotary dial with on/off markers around it perhaps?

worlestone

This is the timer

MWT

... and the odds are that is your problem.

Was that photo taken around 8am ?

Even if the clock is keeping time correctly they can fail to switch over to the low or high rate on occasions...

MWT

The tabs as they are positioned should result in midnight - 7am low rate but they may not always be switching.

If possible watch at midnight and see if the meter shows you are on the low rate

worlestone

Ahh, well I do know that the clock has slipped by @ 2 hours 15 mins, so currently is on low rate between 02:15 and 09:15, not 00:30 and 07:30

Gerry1

The timeswitch seems to be at least 40 years old...

worlestone

Gerry1 said:

The timeswitch seems to be at least 40 years old...

Yes, like everything else in the house, nothing has changed since it was built in 1981... nothing!

MWT

I had a clock like that, mine was running at 60% of normal speed and would randomly miss turning the low rate on or off whenever it felt like it...

Finally got it fixed when I moved to Octopus and had a smart meter installed.