Meter Reading

ZacharyJohn

Thanks again for all the responses.

To clarify, the underfloor heating is electric (dry, I think is the term) not water / wet, which I'm assuming is more expensive to run and will not be affected by my switching off of the top water heating 'boost' switch.

The underfloor heating itself is controlled by a thermostat in each room (each with its own switch) and a Horstmann central heating programmer. I assumed this programmer overrode all individual thermostats but when I was playing around with it last night and had the programmer turned to OFF, I was still able to turn the heating up and down (a red light on each thermostat shows when the heating is on and not yet at full temp). I am therefore not entirely sure what the programmer does, and in fact whether or not it controls the water as well.

I've got all pictures from each screen of my meter here as well as a picture of the fusebox.

Cheers, guys.

matelodave

It doesn't look like a dual tariff meter - it would have five cables rather than the four. Interestingly you dont appear to have any fuses for your heating, just two for the hot water immersion heaters (marked top & bot). 

Is your heating actually provided by some other source (possibly a district heating system) although theres a possibilty that one of the fuses marked for a ring main might be used but I doubt it as the electriciamt seem to be fairly diligent about segregating and marking the upper and lower immersion heaters.

As you appear to be on a single rate tariff, I'd certainly investigate getting a timeswitch on the lower immersion and then only having it switched on for a couple of hours a day and switching the top one off altogether.

You really need to investigate how your heating is configured and where it gets its heat or power from because that might be something thats going to bite you when you find out.

It might be a good idea to check exactly what each of the ring main circuit breakers control by switching one off a a time and checking to see what stops working.

MWT

That is a SMETS1 smart meter, it is perfectly capable of being used in E7 mode but is certainly not wired to switch an E7 circuit.

The meter replacement label on the wall shows only a single reading which supports the belief that it was not installed to replace an

E7 meter.

Agree on the heating question, it could just be panel heaters plugged into the ring though...

MarkFromCornwall

newbigginboy said:

Hi - A couple of observations about smart meters
1 Why are they so hard to read
2 Why don't the meters hav ea single button press here for your latest meter reading which is backlit & large enough to read
3 If the meters are smart why can't the company just read them? Why do I have to go out into the yard & struggle with mine?

I agree!  Mine drives me nuts.  I've come to the conclusion that they are called smart meters because you have to be smart to read them. 

Reed_Richards

I had a similar meter a few years ago.  As I remember, it cycled through all its readings displaying each one in turn for a few seconds.  In the photographs there is one reading of (I think) 41898 kWh but no other non-zero reading.  If that's true then it's not being used in E7 mode and you are on a single tariff.  

Reed_Richards

ZacharyJohn said:

... a Horstmann central heating programmer. 

A picture of that, please.

milgo

Do you have an IHD for your smart meter?  Can you take the meter reading from that?

Robin9

A 2016 meter now reading approx 42,000 kWh    ie 8,000 a year  .  At 16p  plus standing charges and VAT  = £1500 a year

ZacharyJohn

Hi all,

Thanks very much for the replies.

In terms of the fuses, it does indeed seem to be the two 'ring circuit' fuses that control the heating. Number 6 controls the hallway and the dining room/kitchen, and number 11 controls the two bedrooms and two bathrooms. Interestingly the Horstmann central heating programmer (which as I said, doesn't seem to do anything) is also switched on and off by number 11. 

Picture of the central heating programmer below - this is located directly to the left of the fuse box. Both zones are on OFF at the moment because each thermostat will turn on and off regardless of its status anyway. The U/F heating switch next to it only controls the programmer itself - each room has its own thermostat with its own switch.

I'm not sure what an IHD is and I don't even think what I have is considered a smart meter. I would like one installed but according to SSE this is not an option for me at the moment.

Great observation Robin9, I didn't even clock that. 42,000 less the 2016 reading (12,648) = 29,352. Divided by five years = 5,870.4 per year, which is a hell of a lot better than what I'm currently heading for!

Gerry1

Time to understand how the programmer works !