RTS Meter Replacement - 4 or 5-Terminal Smart Meter?

TCA

The 5-port smart meter was successfully installed this week. I asked the installer about E7 timings and he said the meter itself had default timings but Octopus may or may not send an ALCS schedule. Usage data appeared in the Octopus app quite quickly and I was able to see right away that the circuit to heat the hot water cylinder was being switched on at midnight, well in advance of the Octopus E7 hours starting at 1:30am. I'm hoping that'll get fixed by them sending an ALCS schedule to the meter but still waiting on the metering team.

On the evening of the install the conservatory had no power when my mum went to switch a light on. When I went up to look the next day a fuse had tripped/popped out in the old style Wylex fuse box and pressing it back in sorted it. Not sure when it actually tripped or whether it has anything to do with the new meter setup (or the recommendations the engineer left behind) but it's never happened before to my knowledge.

I'd welcome any thoughts on these recommendations given how the setup looks now. Aside from the meter switch, it looks like he replaced the old Wylex WS104/4 isolator switch (red switches) with a new Proteus EMIS4P isolator switch (brown and blue switches). Not sure what difference that makes.

The cabling around the Wylex fusebox is certainly not as neat as it was before, but I don't know enough about electrics to understand the changes. It was the red fuse that popped out, which according to Google is 30A. Google also tells me that's a 40A MCB to the right of the fuses, so no RCD. The installer said this Wylex box was for the 24-hour circuit, so I presume the newer consumer unit is to do with the off-peak. Would the new setup have anything to do with the 30A fuse tripping?

Admittedly I haven't had a good look inside the consumer unit and forgot to take a photo, but from memory there are plenty of switches inside. This year marks 60 years since my parents moved into the house, so the Wylex fusebox is at least that old and I presume the newer consumer unit went in when they had storage heaters installed, probably around 2010.

Here's a few photos below. Any advice on the fuse tripping or the recommendations circled in the letter would be much appreciated.

Thanks.


The whole setup:




The new meter:




Wylex fuse box before meter switch:




Wylex fuse box after meter switch:


 

Old Wylex WS104/4 isolator before meter switch:




New Proteus EMIS4P isolator after meter switch:


 

Engineer recommendations:

Phones4Chris

Those seem to be fairly standard recommendations when encountering older installations with older fuse boxes/consumer units which can often have smaller tails feeding them, but they look as though they are adequate for the current load so as long as nothing gets hot and/or regularly trips then how soon or if you choose to "upgrade" would depend on your priorities and budget!.

Those meter tails going across the corner of the Wylex unit is certainly VERY sloppy workmanship, hopefully they will push up a bit without putting any strain on the other ends of the cables.
It's quite likely that the trip that popped was due to being disturbed when those tails were being installed, again very sloppy!
One thing that is not clear is the tails under the new isolator as the view is obscured by the "white box" whatever it is? Could you supply a further picture with the white box moved out of the way.
I need to study the cabling a bit further in slower time rather that the quick view that I've just done, just to check everything is connected as expected, especially in view of your comment about the hot water cylinder.

Edit: Just to add that the 30A trip that "popped" is possibly a ring main which includes the conservatory and the lighting there is probably fed from a fused spur there from the ring (you could check on that).
The 40A MCB is probably a cooker?

Phones4Chris

To add to my previous comments and whilst awaiting a clearer picture of the cabling below the new isolator, it's very tempting to attempt to do a full analysis of all that installation, which IMHO would be a mistake because not all cabling will be fully visible.
Suffice to say that should you have any concerns, you should get get a competent electrician to have a look at things.

It's often standard practise by meter installers to fit new isolator switches, one will do the 24hr supply, one will do the off-peak and one for the Neutral. It's not 100% clear why there were 4 in the old installation but no doubt related to it being the old RTS setup. One thing that can be deduced from what can be seen of the tails feeding the newer consumer unit is that it probably has separate sections, one for 24hr circuits and one for the off-peak (storage heaters and hot water). Whether some of the other circuits on the old Wylex box were disconnected and moved to the newer consumer unit, it would be a good idea for you to check by finding out what turns off when the various MCBs are turned off, and ensure that everything is fully labelled. Obviously we know that some power that includes the conservatory hasn't been altered.

TCA

Thanks very much for your help here @Phones4Chris.

It was difficult to understand the installer. Initially he mumbled about it needing a 7-port meter then said no, a 5-port meter would do fine. But he seemed to be pointing around the old isolator switch when he said something about 2 whatevers not being used. I didn't catch it and just let him get on with it.

Re the old setup, there were 2 MPANs. The storage heaters were on 1 MPAN but the hot water was on the same MPAN as the rest of the house. Octopus weren't able to offer a cheap tariff for the storage heaters because of the setup but the rest of the house (including hot water) was on Economy 7.

I'll get some more photos on Sunday and check out that white box.

Phones4Chris

Hmm. Sounds la bit mean not giving you an off-peak rate for the storage heaters but as there was only one meter, I find that a bit odd as the RTS presumably switched the supply to the storage heaters on, as well as switching register on the mete, but clearly that's now history.
Some of these smart meter installers haven't had quite enough training on how to deal with what is considered "complex metering", and hence the nonsense about "7-port" meters. At the end of the day it's very simple, you have circuits that are on 24/7 and off-peak circuits that are activated by a smart meter (or a time-switch in older installations whether it be RTS or mechanical, or even digital built into the meter). A 5-port meter is all that's required, there maybe a need for additional "henley" blocks that connect the various consumer unit tails when there are several of them.

Anyway, now that you have a smart meter there will be one MPAN, the 2nd one becoming redundant.
That looks to be an Aclara SGM1416-B smart meter, if so, I'll post you a bit of information about the display and how to check the registers and the switching.

TCA

Phones4Chris said:

Hmm. Sounds la bit mean not giving you an off-peak rate for the storage heaters but as there was only one meter, I find that a bit odd as the RTS presumably switched the supply to the storage heaters on, as well as switching register on the mete, but clearly that's now history.

Anyway, now that you have a smart meter there will be one MPAN, the 2nd one becoming redundant.
That looks to be an Aclara SGM1416-B smart meter, if so, I'll post you a bit of information about the display and how to check the registers and the switching.

When the storage heaters went in it was with Scottish Power on their Comfort Plus tariff, which I think actually had 10 hours of off-peak, 3 of them in the afternoon. I don't even think my parents were aware of the afternoon hours. There was a billing nightmare with Scottish Power lasting over a year (wasn't resolved) and they just wanted away from them, with very few suppliers willing to switch them because of the metering setup. Bulb Energy did and it was a difficult process because nobody understood RTS, but they weren't able to offer a cheap rate on the storage heater MPAN because of the 10 off-peak hours apparently. And nothing changed when Octopus took over Bulb. Anyway, all history now as you said.

You're correct about the Aclara meter type and the good news is, after a further day's usage visible in the app, I can see the hot water now being heated at 01:30 (the start of E7), instead of at midnight. So presumably Octopus did send an ALCS schedule and it's now in effect. I do wonder if that would've been picked up on if i hadn't brought it up. I've got my doubts.

The mysterious white box is a 100A 5 pole connector block. There's actually 2 of them. Another one is squashed in behind under the isolator switch. Hopefully the photos below are good enough to show the cabling in and out of them.

Looking inside the consumer unit, there's a mixture of RCBO, MCB and RCD. The 6 MCB in the first image appear to all be for the storage heaters. The RCBO says off peak immersion. In the second image, the 2 RCDs just say RCD Protected Circuits. The MCBs in the second image appear to say "Smoky", " Toilet D. Flow", "24 Hr Immersion" and "L Room. Con". "Smoky" maybe refers to wired smoke alarms. No idea what "Toilet D. Flow" means, although I think there's an old fashioned pull cord immersion heater in the bathroom (forgot to check) and the shower is electric. No idea what "L Room. Con" refers to. Presumably living room but the storage heater in there already has an MCB. Con maybe conservatory (other side of the house to living room) but it was the fuse in the old Wylex box that popped when power was lost in there. Unless the panel heater in the conservatory is on the off-peak circuit. My mum wouldn't have checked that when the power failed.

Back to the old Wylex box, there's not much slack in the sloppy cabling. I managed to squeeze one brown cable above the fuse furthest left. The other brown cable would squeeze in the empty space where a second fuse would go, but I just left it. There's no play in the blue cable at all. There's no indication as to what each fuse is for. The sticker on the side of the furthest left one just has typed technical data on it. I can take a look next time if that's helps. So there's 2 blue fuses (15A), 1 red fuse (30A) which we know is the conservatory and 1 green fuse (45A). If you reckon the 45A might be the oven, the 2 blue fuses could be upstairs and downstairs ring mains?

I found some paperwork inside the newer consumer unit which I've included below with some more photos, although it only refers to installation of 3 of the storage heaters.







Consumer unit - left hand side:




Consumer unit - right hand side:

Phones4Chris

Thanks for the additional pictures, that clarifies things (and the extra sloppiness!). I had a feeling that it was a "floating" Henley block but didn't want to remark until it was verified. The meter installers are constrained in that they aren't allowed to replace consumer unit tails, only connect to them using Henley blocks where needed but space limitations can often make life very difficult. Nevertheless I would have thought that it could have been "mounted" to the right of the other white one which replaced an original black one.

First, to comment about the original isolator, the new one and its cabling. The two Brown cables, one a 24hr LIve, the other Off-peak Live going to the isolator 1st and 2nd poles, these appear to be the original cables. The Blue Neutral cable appears to be the original which used to go to the Neutral (marked N) Henley block to the left of the isolator, now going to the Blue(N) on the new isolator - this means that the Neutral was not interrupted by the original isolator. All three are slightly short now coming directly from the new Smart Meter to the new isolator and so crossing the corner of the Wylex box.

On the original isolator, the 3rd way seemed to be a 24hr Live feed back to the RTS setup and the 4th way an Off-peak feed for the Immersion, all that now redundant with the new meter set-up.
This would also explain what appears to be the two separate Off-peak Live feeds to that newer Consumer Unit with the Immersion being on that separate RCBO. (That would also explain the 3 Neutrals from the N Henley block to the newer consumer unit - one for the 24hr Live, one for the Off-peak Storage heater circuits and one for the Immersion).

The saving grace about all this sloppiness is that it could be quite simply and readily resolved by a competent electrician by moving the Neutral Henley block so that the Isolator switch could be moved to the very left of that board, the cables from the meter would then clear the Wylex box and the Neutral Henley block then mounted between the Isolator and the DNO's 100A Cut-out and of course replacing the tails to the Wylex box.
The newer consumer unit could be "tidied up" with the need for only one Off-peak feed (hence dispensing with the current "floating" Henley block).

As previously suggested, find out what circuits are actually used on the Wylex box. Make sure all the trips are on and go round and check everything is powered as expected then trip each MCB in turn and find out what goes off.
The two 15A Blue ones won't be ring mains (normally 30A/Red) they could be individual power sockets perhaps.

I hope that's covered most things. Ideally the Wylex box could be replaced by a modern CU but that might depend on what circuits it actually has, what condition they're in (might be in need of a rewire if very old) and of course budget and other priorities, though safety should always be the most important consideration.
I'll post a bit of info about the Aclara meter in due course.

TCA

Many thanks again @Phones4Chris. I think I understand most of that. Will have to read it over a few times more though.

Regarding the second Henley block, I think it's against the wall but not secured to it either. Doesn't look like it'll move any time soon though. I can probably live with the sloppiness but safety would be the main concern. How big of an issue are these unsecured blocks if the cables aren't under any undue strain and the cupboard unlikely to be accessed by anyone? I could of course always complain to Octopus about the workmanship.

Phones4Chris said:

As previously suggested, find out what circuits are actually used on the Wylex box. Make sure all the trips are on and go round and check everything is powered as expected then trip each MCB in turn and find out what goes off. The two 15A Blue ones won't be ring mains (normally 30A/Red) they could be individual power sockets perhaps.

Will try this next time I'm at the house. I presume just pressing each small red button will pop it out and trip the circuit?     

Phones4Chris

There shouldn't be any safety concerns with those Henley blocks providing the cables are properly secured in them and they are not disturbed so as to cause the cables to become loose in the connectors. As mentioned, a competent electrician could sort that lot out along the lines I've already mentioned.

I doubt complaining to Octopus will achieve much considering the history to date, but that's up to you if you think it's worth the effort. If it weren't possible to tidy things up without a return visit of a meter installer (whose knowledge or training may be limited in any event) or the DNO because eg. seals on the meter would have to be broken, then that would be a different matter, but that's not the case. Seals on Henley blocks etc your side of the meter are of no real consequence, a competent electrician would know exactly what they were doing.

Yes, the MCBs should readily "pop" out pressing the buttons. HTH.

TCA

Thanks. I'll have a further check of the Henley blocks on my next visit but I think they'll be ok. I very much doubt these cupboards (apart from the one with the meter, to take readings) have been opened in over a decade.

My main concern is safety given the installer's recommendations, but I can already hear my mum saying "well there haven't been any problems in 60 years" blah blah blah.

I guess the old Wylex box will inform us a bit more when I trip the MCBs.