RTS box for THTC stopped working

Harley77

I have had THTC since I moved into my house in 1992 and had no problems with it. A month ago the RTS box stopped working so our hot water wasn't heating up on cheap rate. Thinking it was the hot water boiler I contacted a plumber and electrician only to find out it was the RTS box ! I contacted my provider OVO (was with SSE then shoved over to OVO) who initially told me in chat that it wasn't their problem and I had buy a new box myself from B&Q! Finally spoke to somebody who actually KNEW what they were speaking about and a sub-contracted engineer came and had look. All he could do was remove the box, so now we have no THTC automatically charging on cheap rate. OVO can't provide a smart meter in our area so what am I supposed to do now? Trying to speak to anyone at OVO is a nightmare as their customer service centre only works 8 am - 6 pm, Monday - Friday and when you work full time it's almost impossible to find the time to hang on the line. Our plan name with OVO is Simpler Energy - THTC. Any advice? 

MattMattMattUK

Could you fit a normal timer and set it to run in the cheap energy windows? 

EssexHebridean

I'm guessing that if the RTS controller has gone kaput, there may BE no cheap energy windows... Harley - are you currently using your heating? If so is that working as it should be as it seems odd that this would just be affecting the water. 

I'd suggest that your first port of call is to get an electrician who actually understands the THTC system to take a look at things. while there will be a spend involved, it will certainly be cheaper than trying to run your heating on the peak rate all winter. 

Scot_39

It could appear you are the victim of a bad meter install.  Or rather one that didn't deal with the faulty old meter well.  Rare but definitely not unheard of.

You would assume they would leave you with a fully connected and operational system - but sadly on some occasions from posts here this has not happened.

THTC is one of the more complicated from a house wiring / metering point of view of the legacy (Northern Scotland from SSE post) as a rule systems - although iirc SP did something similar in Southern Scotland with one of their Comfort tariffs.

https://sse.co.uk/help/electric-heating/other-two-meter-tariffs

From SSE website - THTC comes with three home circuits driven by two meters - at three different tariff rates

- one normal meter charged at a premium cf normal default tariffs for lighting, standard circuits

- one THTC meter time limited off peak heat rate for main NSH and hot water - on a dedicated circuit - on that link variable daily so "on" for min 5 upto 12 hours depending on weather

- another circuit - with a third dedicated 24/7 heat charge rate at one time - for secondary heating (panel heaters, living room fires, shower? etc) - not sure which of the two meters this would have been on

But note many of these specials are on a list of "we will no longer support soon" - on the SSE website

https://sse.co.uk/help/energy/meters/types-of-meter

The first thing to do if you have a mix including NSH electric heating - is check them out as well.

As you may have lost power to some of them - most likely the NSH - as these would normally be switched by the same special RTS THTC meter at the varied time slot of 5 to 12 hours per day) - as the hot water according to descriptions like the above.

You might be able to migrate in a similar fashion to what happened to me years ago to a more standard dual rate set-up - with another supplier - sadly most likely E7 - and only two rates - but if Ovo saying they cannot even supply that .....

Just as a guess - based on what happened to my 3 old meter circuits 

From the above description - suspect that would need the home wiring special rate heating and normal circuits (lights / sockets) on E7 meters live 24/7 feed.

And the HW / NSH on E7 5 port ALCS switched output.  

With the modern take on single E7 metering rate convention - purely time not circuit dependent.

(For my HW and NSH - that simply meant an additional henley block / isolator switch in the meter cabinet to join them so fed in parallel from the one meter tail - in your case - you would need an electrician to advise best solution to match a given Ovo or alt supplier metering set-up)

Others - including one post here from another SSE 3 rate meter - said been told were reportedly still working on a solution to their complex metering tariff RTS based systems (one of those listed above - single meter but 3 rates / 2 circuits iirc.  There are several variants across the UK with a range of suppliers - THTC, Comfort Plus, Flexiheat, E2020 etc).  And likes of SP - who have be far the largest % of RTS meters - have requested another extension to the switch off to do so.

At least one other poster here had his faulty RTS module replaced by a 5 port meter - only using the 5th port.  To supply the time switched output - albeit at fixed times.  Leaving the other metering / wiring / billing rates etc intact.  So closer - at least in terms of wiring - solutions to some legacy RTS set-ups are available.

Posts like yours make me worried about what is going to happen to the 100,000s likely to be impacted by RTS switch off - still scheduled AFAIK officially for end of Mar 24 - if not in practice as has been delayed before

You need to check what circuits have been disconnected - if indeed you had all 3 in use - either yourself if savy / skilled - or a local electrician - sadly potentially at your expense.  

And not sure how you can ever get back to the special dedicated 3 rate / 3 circuit deal if at all.  

But then not sure how good a deal those tariff prices / rates really are anyway cf likes of E7.  

And 7 hours off peak - may be no match for the upto 12 hours you had from the THTC in mid winter.

But it certainly seems strange Ovo cannot give you a better solution - than what they have left you with.

But certainly a chat with likes of Citizens Advice or other groups advising on power issues - seems warranted.

And after that - if they agree you have been mistreated - I would be tempted to go full complaint route.

QrizB

Harley77 said:

... Finally spoke to somebody who actually KNEW what they were speaking about and a sub-contracted engineer came and had look. All he could do was remove the box, so now we have no THTC automatically charging on cheap rate. OVO can't provide a smart meter in our area so what am I supposed to do now?

Can you post or share a photo of your current meter setup, and any associated electrical gubbins?