Economy7 Meter Problem

DapperMark

Hi, I'm hoping someone can help.
I only have Electric, no Gas, and the flat is heated by one extremely large storage heater, it has 2 thermostats (one to control the heater itself, and another room thermostat that controls the blower), there is NO timer. When I moved in the property in 2018 the heater was controlled by the Electric Meter, when Economy7 was activated via the meter the  switched on, and when Economy7 ended, it switched off. You could always tell this because there was a distinctive sound.

We switched to Toto and the meter still controlled the heating (no probems), but then we switched to Bulb, and that's when the problems started.

About 2 days (December 2019) after the switch date, the heater wouldn't work. Had to get an Electrician out and he couldn't find anything wrong, so after numerous hours on the phone to Bulb they eventually did something to the meter so that it was on daytime electricity and I had to physically flick a switch to switch it on and off.. not ideal but I had some heating. This was a SMETS1 meter.

After many, many calls Bulb said you need a new SMETS2 meter, so recently after many cancellations a new meter was installed. But still the same problem.

The problem I have is that there's an isolation box for the Economy7 and that's linked to the meter, and its live all the time. If I switch the isolation box off, the heating won't work. I have tried explaining this, and to be fair a guy called Chris at Bulb has been great, but I'm pulling what little hair I have out with this.

Can anyone help? Am I dreaming that this all used to work fine?

QrizB

Welcome to the forum.

I would ask for a photo of your meter and related wiring but I suspect you're too new to be allowed to post photos.

From your description, you have a four-terminal smart meter (your smart meter has four thick wires) plus a separate box that contains an E7 contactor, connected to the smart meter by a thinner wire. This thinner wire carries the signal that switches your E7 contactor on and off, and that signal is controlled by the smart meter.

Does this description match your meter and its wiring? If not, can you tell me how it differs?

For some reason, it seems as though Bulb have set your smart meter to have that control signal set to "always on", so your E7 circuits are always live. Bulb need to send settings to the smart meter so the meter knows your E7 times and the meter can switch the contactor on and off correctly.

MWT

QrizB said:

From your description, you have a four-terminal smart meter (your smart meter has four thick wires) plus a separate box that contains an E7 contactor, connected to the smart meter by a thinner wire. This thinner wire carries the signal that switches your E7 contactor on and off, and that signal is controlled by the smart meter.

Does this description match your meter and its wiring? If not, can you tell me how it differs?

I suspect it may actually be worse than that, it sounds like the electrician installed a manual switch on the E7 circuit connected to the normal live output from the meter, without using an ALCS...

I sure hope not...

coffeehound

@DapperMark can post a link to a picture hosted on the web by leaving a couple of spaces in the URL.  Someone can then repost it wihout spaces

DapperMark

QrixB, you are correct about the wiring. MWT, the Electrician only looked at the meter and checked that electricity was flowing while he was the phone to Bulb. They did something there and then to allow me to manually switch the heating on. Before they did that I couldn't switch it on at all.

Hopefully this pic will post..

You can just about see the thin wire going in to the "E7 Contactor" (thanks for the description) box

DapperMark

This photo is a higher resolution..

DapperMark

coffeehound said:

@DapperMark can post a link to a picture hosted on the web by leaving a couple of spaces in the URL.  Someone can then repost it wihout spaces

I'm hoping I have managed to do it.. thank you for the tip

QrizB

Thanks for the photos. They show a five-terminal smart meter; the "extra" brown wire is (or should be) the switched E7 supply. There should be no requirement for an external E7 contactor at all.

Incoming main fuse top-left of photo -> smart meter top-centre -> four-pole (one unused) isolation switch centre -> fuse boxes -> appliances.

You definitely need to get back onto Bulb and explain that your smart meter isn't switching your E7 supply correctly, and that it's always live. Ask to speak to their smart meter team (I assume they have one).

DapperMark

QrizB said:

Thanks for the photos. They show a five-terminal smart meter; the "extra" brown wire is (or should be) the switched E7 supply. There should be no requirement for an external E7 contactor at all.

Incoming main fuse top-left of photo -> smart meter top-centre -> four-pole (one unused) isolation switch centre -> fuse boxes -> appliances.

You definitely need to get back onto Bulb and explain that your smart meter isn't switching your E7 supply correctly, and that it's always live. Ask to speak to their smart meter team (I assume they have one).

Thank you so much.. 2 years I've had problems with this, and getting up at 01:30 to switch the heating on, and again at 06:30 to switch it off might be a thing of the past.

DapperMark

Unfortunately I have been told by Bulb now that I MUST get an Electricians Report. I can't understand this however I can't explain it any better to them. I said, what is the Electrician going to say, that the 5th terminal is permanently live? Which we already know it is, because I can switch the storage heaters on and off at any time of day.

I have told them about this thread, and about this OVO thread here: https://forum.ovoenergy.com/smart-meters-136/have-storage-heaters-underfloor-heating-or-other-5th-terminal-appliances-now-you-can-get-a-smets2-smart-meter-diy-tutorial-series-8545

Which states..  unlike SMETS1 the 5th terminals behaviour is not dictated by the tariff set up on the meter, but instead through an auxiliary specific service request called ECAUL (Control Auxiliary Load). The ECAUL process consists of two service requests (6.14.1 & 6.14.2) that allows us to set up the on/off schedule for the 5th terminal of the meter. The on/off times will reflect switch times of your tariff.  The ECAUL will be sent to the meter once it is set up (commissioned).

So now more expense.

QrizB

DapperMark said:

Unfortunately I have been told by Bulb now that I MUST get an Electricians Report.

Can you just remind us where you are in the process - you have recorded a formal complaint with Bulb? And their response is that you need an electrician's report?

Do you have this from Bulb in writing?

Once you've got the report, what have Bulb said they will do with it?