OVO Estimated Bill Woes

Gerry1

ArbitraryRandom said:

... it might be worth checking your aunt isn't using the instant heat/boost functions frequently/that the timer is set to the correct hours (old storage heaters can have a mechanical timer which can 'drift', meaning they can come on/turn off outside of the low use hours).

Seems a bit unlikely?  Old 'Box of Bricks' NSHs usually have only an E7 supply switched by the meter so they don't need an internal timer.  They just had simple input and output knobs (see video below).

Modern HHR NSHs such as Dimplex Quantum have electronic controls which can be configured to allow them to run from a single 24h supply but great care has to be taken that they are shadowing the meter's actual E7 times not the supposed times.

ArbitraryRandom said:

I remember seeing a thread on here last winter talking about the settings to balance the input and output (how much heat is stored and when it's released so it's not cold in the evenings) so if you want some advice about that I'm sure there's people here who can help if you can tell us the model/make.

https://youtu.be/UeB3Xf_qKvA

ArbitraryRandom

Gerry1 said:

ArbitraryRandom said:

... it might be worth checking your aunt isn't using the instant heat/boost functions frequently/that the timer is set to the correct hours (old storage heaters can have a mechanical timer which can 'drift', meaning they can come on/turn off outside of the low use hours).

Seems a bit unlikely?  Old 'Box of Bricks' NSHs usually have only an E7 supply switched by the meter so they don't need an internal timer.  They just had simple input and output knobs (see video below).

Modern HHR NSHs such as Dimplex Quantum have electronic controls which can be configured to allow them to run from a single 24h supply but great care has to be taken that they are shadowing the meter's actual E7 times not the supposed times.

Worth checking though. The obvious things that come to mind are
- the NSH is charging itself at the wrong time (or the meter is confused),
EDIT: - the day and night readings on the meter could have been transposed?
- the user is manually turning it on at the wrong time,
- or they're not using the NSH and are using plug in supplementary heating thinking it's cheaper...

My suggestion is at least a diplomatic way of checking 'if somethings wrong with the settings'  

Jonboy_1984

And don’t forget to check any hot water tank is setup to use the lower tariff for its main heating (unless she has stopped bathing and only uses a very small amount for washing up and flannel washing when it was looking more marginal at the rates last winter, not sure what the split is now as moved from that property)

Gromit07

Thank you all for your ideas and answers!

We've (I hope!) finalised things with OVO, Paid the debt and even got £100 in credit/knocked off the bill because of the mess they made initially; which is nice. We've now switched over to a single rate tariff with Octopus, due to, as suspected the storage heaters not being used in a way that benefits from the off-peak rates. A roughly direct quote being: "Oh the timers on them never worked. The electrician who set them up was a bit dodgy, but whenever I press the heat button they heat so that's what I always do". 

In future we're planning to pay Octopus by card as its a nice upgrade from mailing a cheque, but still keeps control of how much payments are and when payments are taken in our hands. Apparently doing it this way is about £5 a month more expensive than Direct Debit, which we may switch to at a later date but for now is fine.

Once the dust has settled down after the switch to Octopus we're also going to get a smart meter fitted too, which will hopefully stop this situation from repeating itself.

Again, thank you for all the discussion around this topic. It's been very valuable to me, and hopefully might be to others in the future too! I wish you all a warm, and cheaply heated winter haha!

ArbitraryRandom

Gromit07 said:

Thank you all for your ideas and answers!

We've (I hope!) finalised things with OVO, Paid the debt and even got £100 in credit/knocked off the bill because of the mess they made initially; which is nice. We've now switched over to a single rate tariff with Octopus, due to, as suspected the storage heaters not being used in a way that benefits from the off-peak rates. A roughly direct quote being: "Oh the timers on them never worked. The electrician who set them up was a bit dodgy, but whenever I press the heat button they heat so that's what I always do". 

In future we're planning to pay Octopus by card as its a nice upgrade from mailing a cheque, but still keeps control of how much payments are and when payments are taken in our hands. Apparently doing it this way is about £5 a month more expensive than Direct Debit, which we may switch to at a later date but for now is fine.

Once the dust has settled down after the switch to Octopus we're also going to get a smart meter fitted too, which will hopefully stop this situation from repeating itself.

Again, thank you for all the discussion around this topic. It's been very valuable to me, and hopefully might be to others in the future too! I wish you all a warm, and cheaply heated winter haha!

One last suggestion if I may... 

If you're switching to paying monthly by card - i.e. you give a reading, get a bill, then pay it - would you consider variable direct debit? 

Functionally it's the same in that you give a reading and get a bill each month, so you pay for exactly what you used a few days later; the main differences being that they take the money from your account without you having to make the payment and you get the direct debit discount. 

I wouldn't recommend it to everyone (you need to be aware and confident you can cover large winter bills), but if your aunt already pays on receipt of bill then I can't see a downside  

QrizB

Gromit07 said:

 A roughly direct quote being: "Oh the timers on them never worked. The electrician who set them up was a bit dodgy, but whenever I press the heat button they heat so that's what I always do".

It's a real shame that you've got £1000s-worth of storage heaters that you can't use as intended due to shoddy installation work.

Gromit07 said:

In future we're planning to pay Octopus by card as its a nice upgrade from mailing a cheque, but still keeps control of how much payments are and when payments are taken in our hands. Apparently doing it this way is about £5 a month more expensive than Direct Debit, which we may switch to at a later date but for now is fine.

Something to consider once you are comfortable with Octopus is a half-way house where you set up a low DD - £10 a month, say - then pay the rest by card. You keep most of the control over payment timings but still get the DD price.