Weirdly high energy Bills- faulty meter?

EssexHebridean

I don’t think you needed to set anything on that control now the immersion is set for the E7 circuit - it should just kick in immediately. It looks like a pretty well insulated tank so once it’s heated up it won’t use much power to retain its level through to the morning so just leaving it to run through the night rate period should work fine. 

Dommyb

QrizB said:

Dommyb said:

Ive attached an image of the consumer unit for you.
The cables you mentioned seem to be going upwards the cupboard, they are labelled as 843 but im not sure what this means. Will attach image too that shows this a bit better.
Our number is 15, and the buildings flats only go up to 20 i think. 

Might need to look at it in more detail tomorrow.

Thanks for this.

What does the right-hand consumer unit serve? That's where I'd expect any E7-only circuits to be (if you have any) including the bottom element of your hot water tank.

Dommyb said:

Hey again, came back home from work to take a look at the water heater in more detail to try figure out how to best set it, I’ll try showing on pictures what we have.
Seems like the landlord did not leave us a booklet on the heater and how to set it up? Maybe a long shot but if anyone has any experience setting this sort of thing up in like with economy 7 it would really help! 

At the minute i set it at AUTO HOT WATER ADVANCE ON UNTIL 8:30. Am i on the right track? Only unsure as i cant seem to find a start time. Is 7 hours about right for heating the water or excessive? The blue light is on but the red light on the bottom switch is not so hopefully its gonna come on at night but with a 9am start time at work tomorrow I doubt i can stay up till 2am to check this🤣

The timer shouldn't control the bottom hot water tank element at all; that one will normally be powered direct from the E7 CU. If this is the case then you should leave the timer for the water turned off unless you need to top up the tank during the day for some reason.
If the bottom red light is lit when you wake up, it's a good sign.

QrizB said:

Dommyb said:

Ive attached an image of the consumer unit for you.
The cables you mentioned seem to be going upwards the cupboard, they are labelled as 843 but im not sure what this means. Will attach image too that shows this a bit better.
Our number is 15, and the buildings flats only go up to 20 i think. 

Might need to look at it in more detail tomorrow.

Thanks for this.

What does the right-hand consumer unit serve? That's where I'd expect any E7-only circuits to be (if you have any) including the bottom element of your hot water tank.

Dommyb said:

Hey again, came back home from work to take a look at the water heater in more detail to try figure out how to best set it, I’ll try showing on pictures what we have.
Seems like the landlord did not leave us a booklet on the heater and how to set it up? Maybe a long shot but if anyone has any experience setting this sort of thing up in like with economy 7 it would really help! 

At the minute i set it at AUTO HOT WATER ADVANCE ON UNTIL 8:30. Am i on the right track? Only unsure as i cant seem to find a start time. Is 7 hours about right for heating the water or excessive? The blue light is on but the red light on the bottom switch is not so hopefully its gonna come on at night but with a 9am start time at work tomorrow I doubt i can stay up till 2am to check this🤣

The timer shouldn't control the bottom hot water tank element at all; that one will normally be powered direct from the E7 CU. If this is the case then you should leave the timer for the water turned off unless you need to top up the tank during the day for some reason.
If the bottom red light is lit when you wake up, it's a good sign.

just to double check- by the right had side do you mean the switches with the orange-red strip underneath them? (Again so sorry if i sound like a noob, we’re both very new to this 🤣) if so then it is as follows:

right (orange)- smoke detector, lighting, water heater, cooker.
left (green) storage heaters, sockets and kitchen sockets.
there is that tiny unit next to the big one but none of the switches have labels that make sense to us.

QrizB

Dommyb said:

just to double check- by the right had side do you mean the switches with the orange-red strip underneath them?

...there is that tiny unit next to the big one but none of the switches have labels that make sense to us.

It's the tiny unit that I'm interested in. My gess is that it's fed by the E7-only cable on your electricity meter and it powers any E7-only circuits, including your lower water heater element (the one you've turned on but the red light hasn't illuminated yet).

Dommyb

QrizB said:

Dommyb said:

just to double check- by the right had side do you mean the switches with the orange-red strip underneath them?

...there is that tiny unit next to the big one but none of the switches have labels that make sense to us.

It's the tiny unit that I'm interested in. My gess is that it's fed by the E7-only cable on your electricity meter and it powers any E7-only circuits, including your lower water heater element (the one you've turned on but the red light hasn't illuminated yet).

Ive attached a picture for you- maybe it will make more sense to you than it does to us!

Gerry1

Chorus: have you done the Meter Sanity Test yet?

theoretica

Dommyb said:

Hey again, came back home from work to take a look at the water heater in more detail to try figure out how to best set it, I’ll try showing on pictures what we have.
Seems like the landlord did not leave us a booklet on the heater and how to set it up? Maybe a long shot but if anyone has any experience setting this sort of thing up in like with economy 7 it would really help! 

At the minute i set it at AUTO HOT WATER ADVANCE ON UNTIL 8:30. Am i on the right track? Only unsure as i cant seem to find a start time. Is 7 hours about right for heating the water or excessive? The blue light is on but the red light on the bottom switch is not so hopefully its gonna come on at night but with a 9am start time at work tomorrow I doubt i can stay up till 2am to check this🤣

The boost button should turn the water or heaters on for a fixed period, maybe an hour.

The advance button works once you have set on/off times to advance into the next programme unit - good if you want it to come on a bit early and the off at the normal time.

When the light is on, I would expect the heat/water to be on too, and when heating off on that controller I would not expect you to be able to turn the heaters on - which makes me a bit doubtful about if/how it is working.

This is not the exact model, but may help you work out how it should work.

Dommyb

Gerry1 said:

Chorus: have you done the Meter Sanity Test yet?

Just did it now.
flashed like crazy when we switched everything energy consuming on, and watched for a few mins when we switched consumer off- no flashes. All seems to be good. Also- thanks to switching off that cursed top water heater our daily reading is 16kwh today, instead of 25-30! Big difference! 

Looks like we (hopefully!) have it all figured out now. Thank you everyone for being patient and the advice, you helped solve a 3 week long stress in 1 day!

Gerry1

I'm surprised to see that sort of timer in an all-electric flat: it's essentially a central heating timer used to control a gas central heating boiler, and it probably wouldn't have a beefy enough relay to switch the current needed for the panel heaters, although there may be a separate contactor.

Did the flat ever have gas, or do other flats have gas, especially any owner occupied ones?  Perhaps yours once had GCH but the landlord took it out to avoid the hassles with gas safety inspections?

If not, I wonder whether the immersion heaters have only a single 24h supply circuit and it's an over-the-top timer used just to switch the lower heater to that it 'shadows' the E7 times switched by the meter.

I'd be inclined to set the hot water to OFF and see whether the neon light on the lower switch still comes on.  If it doesn't, then you would need to find out the meter's EXACT switching times and make sure the immersion timer is shadowing it accurately, otherwise if there's a variance the hot water may sometimes be heated at the expensive day rate.

You could then do a similar check with the 'central heating' (left) side of the timer to see whether it's controlling the panel heaters.  If it is then you need to make sure it's not turning them on at inappropriate times.

Dommyb

Gerry1 said:

I'm surprised to see that sort of timer in an all-electric flat: it's essentially a central heating timer used to control a gas central heating boiler, and it probably wouldn't have a beefy enough relay to switch the current needed for the panel heaters, although there may be a separate contactor.

Did the flat ever have gas, or do other flats have gas, especially any owner occupied ones?  Perhaps yours once had GCH but the landlord took it out to avoid the hassles with gas safety inspections?

If not, I wonder whether the immersion heaters have only a single 24h supply circuit and it's an over-the-top timer used just to switch the lower heater to that it 'shadows' the E7 times switched by the meter.

I'd be inclined to set the hot water to OFF and see whether the neon light on the lower switch still comes on.  If it doesn't, then you would need to find out the meter's EXACT switching times and make sure the immersion timer is shadowing it accurately, otherwise if there's a variance the hot water may sometimes be heated at the expensive day rate.

You could then do a similar check with the 'central heating' (left) side of the timer to see whether it's controlling the panel heaters.  If it is then you need to make sure it's not turning them on at inappropriate times.

I see what you mean, from what i noticed, I’m quite confident the e7 night rate ends at 9am for us, and begins at 2am, will just need to figure out how to use the timer.
Annoyingly we mostly shower in the evening but as you mentioned before, the tank is big and well insulated so should be fine.
Ill look at it when i get up tomorrow and the light should be on if the e7 works automatically as mentioned before.

Dont think the other flats have gas and not sure if ours ever did. Its a pretty new build from approx 2006, not sure if that’s any indication but i know a lot of properties are moving towards electric only especially in newer ones

QrizB

Dommyb said:

QrizB said:

Dommyb said:

just to double check- by the right had side do you mean the switches with the orange-red strip underneath them?

...there is that tiny unit next to the big one but none of the switches have labels that make sense to us.

It's the tiny unit that I'm interested in. My gess is that it's fed by the E7-only cable on your electricity meter and it powers any E7-only circuits, including your lower water heater element (the one you've turned on but the red light hasn't illuminated yet).

Ive attached a picture for you- maybe it will make more sense to you than it does to us!

Thank you, that's perfect.

The E7 consumer unit (for that it what it almost certainly is) has a dual-pole 40A switch (the two linked red ones) and one 16A MCB. The MCB will be connected to the lower immersion heater in your hot water tank.

If you want to prove this for yourself, start early enough that the red light on the lower immersion is lit. Switch off the MCB or the dual-pole switch and the red light will go out. Switch it back on and the red light will light again.