Economy7 Meter Problem

ProDave

Posts like this, and they are not that rare, show the electricty supply industry has broken down.

It used to be standard and normal to have an E7 supply and it just worked, and if it didn't your DNO would come and fix it.

Now we have all these small companies we have a culture of not understanding anything technical and a "not our fault gov sort it out yourself" attitude.

My advice is switch back to the supplier that is owned by your DNO so it will be one of the big 6.  Switch back as an E7 customer and if it then still does not work, report the fault and you have a better chance of getting it fixed.

Don't bamboozle them with too much information, all you need to report is "The E7 supply is not turning on at night"

DapperMark

QrizB said:

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?

I've sent numerous emails, with info, video, photographs etc. after I got your response. They just don't understand, or don't seem to have the knowledge.. I've tried explaining that the 5th terminal is live, and that no electrician has done anything to it, but they seem adamant. Here's the last email received.. by the way, I haven't ever suggested replacing the meter..

Hi Mark,

We’re sending this email to let you know that we’ve reviewed your complaint and we’d like to offer you our final position on it.

I'm afraid phoning us up again will not change the fact that to consider exchanging the meter or getting an engineer out form our side, we need an electricians report showing that the fault you're describing is being caused by the meter itself.

An electrician should be able to diagnose the cause of issue you've described, where your storage heaters need to be manually turned on and off. 

As we've explained, we've checked the messages we've sent to the meter to set the timings and can see that all went through fine. I want to reiterate that there is no issue with the software. 

We've also exchanged your meter once before and the same issue persists indicating the issue is not with our equipment. 

It is very likely to be something internal at your property and potentially even the storage heaters themselves. If there is an issue with the meter we will of course take the relevant steps to fix it but we require an electricians report of the issue before this happens. 

If the electrician finds the meter is the cause, we'll reimburse the cost of the call out and complete any remedial work for free. 

If you are still unhappy with our proposed solution to your case, you may use this email to escalate your complaint with Ombudsman Services: Energy for them to decide the next steps.

Here’s how you can get in contact with the Ombudsman:

DapperMark

This is after 3 or so more emails trying to explain..

Hi Chris,

I’ll give it one more go before starting to phone up again.

Power is flowing through to the 5th terminal. If it wasn’t I wouldn’t be able to switch the heating on. I’ve mentioned that this was switched on permanently back in Dec 2018, because moving to Bulb switched it off permanently.

What is an electrician going to provide, other than, yes the 5th terminal has power?

What exactly are you asking an electrician to investigate. No one has said? If I get an electrician here what do I tell them?

Regards, Mark

coffeehound

DapperMark, you are certain that it was Bulb who did something to make the contactor always on, and not your electrician who made a change to the wiring?

DapperMark

I got the same Electrician back round and he said that he didn't. I remember being there and he never opened anything up or anything. He was just on the phone to them.

The logic as I see it is that the 5th terminal controls the heating element of the storage heater, not the blower, that is on a different circuit. The 5th terminal heating element circuit doesn't even go through the fuse box, it has a separate isolation switch below where the Meter is.. see previous photos. If the meter controls the 5th terminal, and Bulb say they they have programmed it correctly, why is it always on? I can't get my head round this tbh

DapperMark

Do you think he could have done something within these 2 boxes? I'm doubting myself now..

QrizB

Power comes from youir main incoming supply (the orange cable) through the DNO fuse (the grey rectangular fitting with "L N 002" written on it) then comes out as live (brown), neutral (blue) and earth (green/yellow). you can forget about earth.

Live and neutral (brown and blue) go to your meter. They come out as blue and brown and go to the isolator (the four-pole switch). Inside the meter there is also a contactor (switch) that is controled by the meter clock. This switch connects the incoming live to the "other" live (brown) terminal on the meter (the 5th terminal); this is the one slightly in front of the others and with three cable ties around it. Power on that live (brown) cable is meant to be switched by the E7 settings. That brown cable goes to the far-right position on the isolator.

From the isolator, the neutral (blue) cable goes to the upper of your orange boxes. All that does is split the neutral connection so you it can then connect on from there to both main and E7 consumer units. if there was a problem there, things wouldn't get power.

The intended-to-be permanent live (in the middle, now grey) will go to your main consumer unit and supply power to all your 24-hr circuits.

The E7 switched live goes to your lower orange box. This looks to be a manual switch that your electrician has added to allow you to switch your E7 circuits on and off. From that switch the cable will go to your E7 consumer unit. A manual switch can't create power if there's no power there to start with.

The supply to the switch (lower orange box) is controlled by the smart meter and should switch on and off with the E7 times. There is no way for your electrician to affect that. From what you've said, it isn't and the only control you have over your E7 circuits is by operating that switch.

coffeehound

It sounds like you'll need to go ahead and commission an electrician's report then (or Prodave's suggestion if that route works).  From your earlier post, the meter is not making a 'clunk' sound when it should be switching on and off, so along with Qriz's analysis, you have high confidence that it is the meter that is at fault so should get the reimbursement from Bulb

QrizB

OK, here's something for you to try.

Can you take a photo of the display on your smart meter and share it here? The display should show whether the meter itself thinks the E7 terminal is live, or not.

I don't know how your model of meter displays it but we should be able to work it out.

MWT

QrizB said:

OK, here's something for you to try.

Can you take a photo of the display on your smart meter and share it here? The display should show whether the meter itself thinks the E7 terminal is live, or not.

I don't know how your model of meter displays it but we should be able to work it out.

Checking if R2 is incrementing would seem like a good idea as well...