British Gas meter charging 1 night rate / off peak unit every 24hrs - but nothing is switch on?

pammer

Hi Everyone,

I recently moved into a property, currently supplied by British Gas, with a dual rate (day and night) meter. The only appliances wired into the night rate are storage heaters, but this circuit is currently switched off at the fuse board / consumer unit, so I'm 100% confident that no night rate elec is being used.

However, every night the night / off peak meter reading increases by exactly one unit charge. I am struggling to get this resolved by British Gas, they've replaced my original standard meter with a smart one, which I thought had fixed the problem, but after 6 days of showing zero I started to incur the one unit charge again.

Has anyone else experienced anything like this? I pay the usual daily standing charge in addition to the units I use, but could it be another type of standing charge? 

My previous property had separate day and night meters (not a combined like this one) and if nothing on the night circuit was switched on the meter didn't budge. I'm at a total loss!

P x

pochase

The night rate should not be charged only for the power circuit for the storage heaters, but for all energy used a tthe E7 rates. I am almost sure you have for example a fridge freezer.

I am a bit surprised that BG is able to do E7 on a smart meters, for avery long time they were not able to do so.

Gerry1

Check whether your smart meter has four fat wires connected to it or five.

If it's only four you'll probably find that your storage heaters either won't work at all, or may be live the whole time and cost a fortune to run at cripplingly expensive daytime E7 rates.

CSI_Yorkshire

pammer said:

 The only appliances wired into the night rate are storage heaters, but this circuit is currently switched off at the fuse board / consumer unit, so I'm 100% confident that no night rate elec is being used.

But that's not true.

The storage heaters are the only appliances wired in to run only at the night rate, but everything else is wired in to run 24/7.

This stops you using storage heaters on the day rate, but it doesn't stop you using other things on the night rate.

What did you think happens if you turned a light on in the middle of the night?  Or a fridge is still on like pochase suggests?  That's electricity being used at the night rate.

If your old meters never changed overnight when you didn't use the heaters, this suggests that either it wasn't day/night (like E7) but was heat/not-heat (like the scottish 3-rate tariffs), that you just didn't notice the change, or that it was wired wrong and you were paying peak rates for some things all night.

pammer

pochase said:

The night rate should not be charged only for the power circuit for the storage heaters, but for all energy used a tthe E7 rates. I am almost sure you have for example a fridge freezer.

I am a bit surprised that BG is able to do E7 on a smart meters, for avery long time they were not able to do so.

The night rate circuit has its own consumer unit, which is switched off, so even if another appliance was plugged into the circuit it wouldn't work.

(BG are just starting to install E7 meters)

Gerry1 said:

Check whether your smart meter has four fat wires connected to it or five.

If it's only four you'll probably find that your storage heaters either won't work at all, or may be live the whole time and cost a fortune to run at cripplingly expensive daytime E7 rates.

There are four fat wires going from the meter into the house. Two wires go into the main consumer unit, and two go into the storage heater consumer unit.

Gerry1

Have a look at your bill.  If you're on Economy 7 then ALL electricity used during the overnight period will be recorded and charged at the cheap rate regardless of which circuits are involved.

Lights, TV, cooker, fridge, freezer will all clock up cheap rate units overnight.

Do you have old style Box of Bricks NSHs with Input / Output knobs, or modern High Heat Retention NSHs such as Dimplex Quantum?

QrizB

pammer said:

pochase said:

The night rate should not be charged only for the power circuit for the storage heaters, but for all energy used a tthe E7 rates. I am almost sure you have for example a fridge freezer.

I am a bit surprised that BG is able to do E7 on a smart meters, for avery long time they were not able to do so.

The night rate circuit has its own consumer unit, which is switched off, so even if another appliance was plugged into the circuit it wouldn't work.

That is the switched E7 consumer unit.

Everything connected to the other consumer unit will also be metered at E7 rates during E7 hours. The difference is that the other consumer unit continues to be powered outside of E7 hours.

pammer

Right, I now understand my confusion. In my old house (with a VERY old wiring system) I had two completely separate meters. One was called 'Standard", the other 'Off-Peak". Everything, except the storage heaters, was wired into the 'Standard', so regardless of the time, day or night, everything was charged at a standard rate. The 'Off-Peak' meter, which was wired into the storage heaters, only worked between 12-7am, so if I didn't switch on the night storage heaters. it didn't use any units. It was almost like have two separate electricity supplies.

With this dual meter, basically everything is wired in together, and whatever is used during the day is at one rate, the night at another, (and the storage heaters have their own circuit so I don't try to charge them during the day, and by default will only charge at night). Got it !!!

So this dual meter is better at money saving, as I now have the option to use any appliance at night when it's cheaper.

Hopefully I've got this right ?!?

Gerry1

Yes, you can use the tumble dryer, immersion heater etc at night when it's cheaper, but make sure you're absolutely certain when it's cheap rate.  Look at the meter on the wall, don't rely on published times or what a call centre agent tells you.

But you could have a massive problem if your storage heaters are charging up at daytime rates, ditto the immersion heater.

With a four terminal meter there's nothing to tell the NSHs and immersion heater(s) when to switch on, unless they have local timers which are accurately programmed to mimic the meter's cheap rate times (which could be 'split shift').

pammer

Gerry1 said:

Yes, you can use the tumble dryer, immersion heater etc at night when it's cheaper, but make sure you're absolutely certain when it's cheap rate.  Look at the meter on the wall, don't rely on published times or what a call centre agent tells you.

But you could have a massive problem if your storage heaters are charging up at daytime rates, ditto the immersion heater.

With a four terminal meter there's nothing to tell the NSHs and immersion heater(s) when to switch on, unless they have local timers which are accurately programmed to mimic the meter's cheap rate times (which could be 'split shift').

That's good to know about the storage heaters as they deffo don't have any timer (the immersion has just had a programmable timer fitted), in our old house the system they were on was only live during the cheap rate hours, so I didn't have to think/worry about it.

(I'm really not a fan of NSH, if you've got ultra new slimline programmable ones they're probably wonderful, if you've got something the size of a small car hanging on your wall, not so great. Hopefully the EPC rating people will realise nobody wants them and stop bashing new elec heaters - sorry, rant over).

Gerry1

Looks like you have at least one big problem.  If the old style NSHs aren't connected to a supply then you'll freeze in the winter.  If they're connected to a 24h circuit then they'll charge at peak E7 rate which is even more expensive than single rate.

Assuming the NSHs have been left switched off at the wall outlet and are cold, try turning the Input control to maximum and switch one on around noon.  If it starts to feel warm before it gets dark then you have a problem.

You may also have a problem with the immersion heater if it's not been accurately programmed to mimic your meter's ACTUAL cheap rate times rather than the SUPPOSED times.