Question about E7 off peak box

molerat

I can't see that you have mentioned it but have you turned that little box to "ON" ?

As has been asked previously a photo of the wires coming out of your meter and where they go to would be helpful.

jadey2024

QrizB said:

Swipe said:

Sounds like the problem happened when they fitted the smart meter to me. The electrician will be able to confirm that.

I'm thinking this, too (hello again Jaydey!).

Can you post a photo of the smart meter and the wiring around it?

Hi OrizB   The electrician hasn't been out yet. The estate agent have been in touch with him and asked if he could squeeze me in today but it could be tomorrow he turns up. 

jadey2024

molerat said:

I can't see that you have mentioned it but have you turned that little box to "ON" ?

As has been asked previously a photo of the wires coming out of your meter and where they go to would be helpful.

I haven't touched it. I was too scared too lol. But I know it sounds silly and it would probably fix the issue. I did tell the estate agent that could be all it is needing doing. They are sending someone out anyway so will leave it to him. 

jadey2024

Swipe said:

I'd make sure you tell your letting agent to send only an old school electrician who is familiar with storage heaters. You don't want a young lad fresh out of college turning up who's never seen one before or it could take a long while to troubleshoot.

He's an old guy so hopefully he knows what he's doing and that hopefully he is also familiar with high rentention storages too and their wiring. 

jadey2024

Raxiel said:

I wonder, does the control unit have a battery backup?

They could have all had their power supply interrupted at the same time, but different units had different battery conditions so some lasted longer than others.

Purely guesswork on my part, I've no personal experience of storage heaters, although the electric radiators I had back when i was renting behaved that way if you switched them off at the wall.

I've no idea at all. 

jadey2024

What's odd is the panel heaters are effected too despite not actually being night charging heating units. But I'm thinking if it's possible because they have been wired where previous storages were,  they are connected to the E7 system?

Raxiel

I only see one feed coming from the meter, so no separate circuit that's only energised off peak. Instead everything is always* on and off peak / on peak pricing is applied to the whole home usage determined by the time of day.

The controllers on the Storage heaters themselves are responsible for making sure they only charge during the off peak period.

Looks like the separate circuit was merged via those two junction boxes, presumably when the smart meter went in.

*assuming it's not turned off somewhere else down the line, like the consumer unit.

My guess is the 'off peak' box needs to be switched on. If it were just the breaker I'd just say reset it, but the switch must have been manually set, so if it wasn't you that turned it off, it must have been like that for a while. Could anyone else have touched it since the heaters last worked?

jadey2024

Raxiel said:

I only see one feed coming from the meter, so no separate circuit that's only energised off peak. Instead everything is always* on and off peak / on peak pricing is applied to the whole home usage determined by the time of day.

The controllers on the Storage heaters themselves are responsible for making sure they only charge during the off peak period.

Looks like the separate circuit was merged via those two junction boxes, presumably when the smart meter went in.

*assuming it's not turned off somewhere else down the line, like the consumer unit.

My guess is the 'off peak' box needs to be switched on. If it were just the breaker I'd just say reset it, but the switch must have been manually set, so if it wasn't you that turned it off, it must have been like that for a while. Could anyone else have touched it since the heaters last worked?

Only people that would have touched it would have been either eon in August when he installed the meter or in April 2021 when the new storages/panels were installed. Last winter, the storages were working fine and charging for definite. So it's something that has happened since then so leads to Eon. 

Raxiel

jadey2024 said:

Raxiel said:

I only see one feed coming from the meter, so no separate circuit that's only energised off peak. Instead everything is always* on and off peak / on peak pricing is applied to the whole home usage determined by the time of day.

The controllers on the Storage heaters themselves are responsible for making sure they only charge during the off peak period.

Looks like the separate circuit was merged via those two junction boxes, presumably when the smart meter went in.

*assuming it's not turned off somewhere else down the line, like the consumer unit.

My guess is the 'off peak' box needs to be switched on. If it were just the breaker I'd just say reset it, but the switch must have been manually set, so if it wasn't you that turned it off, it must have been like that for a while. Could anyone else have touched it since the heaters last worked?

Only people that would have touched it would have been either eon in August when he installed the meter or in April 2021 when the new storages/panels were installed. Last winter, the storages were working fine and charging for definite. So it's something that has happened since then so leads to Eon. 

So that box probably used to be on the switched circuit for the heaters so they could be controlled by the meter timeswitch, and was left switched off when the meter was fitted and it just didn't matter until now.

Re-reading some of your other posts.

There are 2 night storage heaters, and 2 on demand heaters.

Storage heaters have 2 feeds

The first NSH is showing no signs of life

The second NSH responds to the controls and will heat up with the convector option. - Have you had it heat up overnight yet?

The on demand heaters aren't showing any sign of life either.

Is that right?

I'm thinking:

The old off peak circuit is turned off.

The first NSH just happens to be faulty, (just as well the electrician is coming.)

The second NSH can draw from two different circuits, which is why it responds and can produce some instant heat from the 'all day' circuit. If I'm right it would fail to heat up overnight.

The other heaters are on the off peak circuit and won't work until it's turned on.

I think @[Deleted User] was right in the first reply with the advice to turn on the breaker then the switch, and see what lights up.

But if you don't feel comfortable doing that and want to wait for the electrician, but you don't want another cold night, wait up (or set a timer, if it works this way) until the E7 period starts (usually 0:30 GMT - if you have an IHD with your smart meter it might tell you when the tariff changes?) and activate the convection function on the working NSH, you'll get some heat and it won't cost any more than if everything was working the way it should.

molerat

Are the fuse boxes in the same area as the meter ?

Looks like those cables from the junction box go to each fuse box.  Both fuse boxes will therefore be live all the time so no dedicated off peak circuits.  I suspect the heaters are running off whatever supplies are close to them as the smart heaters don't need a dedicated off peak supply, they can be run by their own timer (which brings its own problems !) Which begs the question how is water heating timed ?