What on earth is going on with my electricity? Should I go to the Ombudsman?

mathilde

@Scot_39 may I have your permission to share your notes with Octopus? I expect that will really help their engineers.

WiserMiser

If it's a genuine Economy 7 tariff, all  electricity will be at the cheap rate regardless of which circuit is using it. 

Beware that the cheap rate is unlikely to start as early as 7pm, especially with a smart meter.  The meter on the wall will tell you if you press the buttons in the right order, but it can be very fiddly; the portable display (IHD) is a better bet.

The best way to be certain is for your local friendly electrician to change one of the storage heater wall outlets to one with a neon indicator.  Choose one that's easily visible at a glance e.g. living room.  Remember that it may be a 'split shift' such as 2230-0030 and 0230-0730 GMT.

mathilde

WiserMiser said:

If it's a genuine Economy 7 tariff, all  electricity will be at the cheap rate regardless of which circuit is using it. 

Beware that the cheap rate is unlikely to start as early as 7pm, especially with a smart meter.  The meter on the wall will tell you if you press the buttons in the right order, but it can be very fiddly; the portable display (IHD) is a better bet.

The best way to be certain is for your local friendly electrician to change one of the storage heater wall outlets to one with a neon indicator.  Choose one that's easily visible at a glance e.g. living room.  Remember that it may be a 'split shift' such as 2230-0030 and 0230-0730 GMT.

Thank you for this. My technical knowledge is very limited, so may I ask: what would the neon indicator be indicating? It would show which rate was in use, so I would be able to see when the the rate switched over to the cheaper night-time tariff?

WiserMiser

Yes, if the orange light is on it means the NS heaters will be able to charge up and you can use the washing machine, tumble dryer, immersion heater etc all at the cheap rate.  Ditto any panel or fan heaters in the bedroom. 

You'll also spot any changes to the switching routine much more quickly, e.g. GMT/BST.

Scot_39

Assuming as per the hardware potential and 2 thin wires - my and @QrizBs conclusion tge meter is likely to be controlling your heaters and switching the restricted section of the consumer unit supply - then fine.  But its only our interpretation not gospel.  

Its just potentially obscuring the meter and the tariff issues you need them to resolve if you provide too much info.

BUT they do need to know your reliant on them configuring the ALCS - the so called ALCS calander times - if in fact you are - as well as multirate tariff times and pricing if you go multirate.

That is if heaters are reliant on meter switching and dual wired if modern nsh - so have a restricted and a 24/7 live feed.  What models are they ? 

So the bit about ALCS controlling heaters via an external contactor is potentially important.

And in the event of a future meter upgrade it would be important they know its using the external 2A (upto 2A/230V) external auxiliary load control contactor switching mechanism - and not as above a default 5 port with 100A tail switching. 
Some meters only have the 2A contactor, some the 100A IS ON BOARD (so called 5 port), and some have both available.
If they fitted a 5 port with 100A only - you would need an electrician to wire a new restricted tail into a second isolator in CU - and mods to use that supply to feed the nsh mcbs



However if your heaters are live 24/7 and relying on sonething else like own programmed times - or worse actually permanently live on charge input just to get them heating as a quick fix  - then I would wonder why the alcs wires are connected.

As I said without further details of what went wrong when, and knowledge of what was done to fix it - its impossible to know if the meter alcs is now actually in control.

As if the alcs was wired correctly but not configured, the second meter visit should have been able to call or report to supplier to get them to resend configuration details.


Ps is the 6A rcd in bottom row lhs -  really a nsh - as not annotated as such - and if not  is their one of 5 fed from a breaker on top row - as thats quite a low rating at c1.38kW at 230V - only the smallest - like say quauntum 50 in a series of 5 sizes / ratings would be covered.

As to fitting a led on one of the room spurs - it may be that the cu contactor already has a so called "flag indicator" in the bottom rhs looking at photos - it may just be a bit of coloured plastic that moves behind a clear plastic window - when energised.  If its easy to see CU at likely e7 times.

I have no idea why it would have been offpeak 7pm to 4 am - that is 9 hours not 7.  Even SP whitemeter only went to 8 or 8.5 for their extended e7 equivalent.  But there were lots of bespoke tariffs at one time across different boards - that people mistake for the modern take on e7, because they were dual rate.


So by all means tell Octopus the 2A external ALCS contactor is wired in.

But we dont actually know if alcs configured - it wouldn't normally be for a single rate tariff - but it might not have been reset from some default if thry attempted multiratevsettings (my smets1 was preset e10 out of the box)  unless you can confirm the heater supplies are being switched on off at preset times.

Octopus might be able to tell you the settings by checking mpan or history - not sure maybe even request a report from the meter itself.


We have seen cus with multiple such contractors here in past - there was one third party controller fitted by a couple of the old regional electricity boards that you could program to program to drive iirc upto was it 20 independent devices - nsh, hw immersion, towel rails etc.  Independent of meter alcs or  tariff settings.

And so again - as above - did your electrician explain what he did to get nsh operating ?

He certainly wouldn't have been able to program the ALCS times to fix it.

QrizB

Scot_39 said:

. ... Some meters only have the 2A contactor, some the 100A IS ON BOARD (so called 5 port), and some have both available. If they fitted a 5 port with 100A only - you would need an electrician to wire a new restricted tail into a second isolator in CU

As a slightly nerdy aside that needn't bother the OP, in principle the 5th port could be used to drive the existing contactor so no need for a separate electrician's visit.

But that's a future hypothetical, not anything to worry about right now.

MeteredOut

Completely off topic, but I applaud the OP for the pun in this thread title, if intended

mathilde

Thanks so much for the comments. No, I'm afraid I'm not knowledgeable enough to have made the pun deliberately.

Phones4Chris

@mathilde I agree with @QrizB 's last response, that reply from @Scot39 is rather nerdy (and could be confusing IMHO). Your NSHs are obviously controlled by the contactor built-in on the RHS of the lower CU (as detailed by @Ildhund on p1. When the Smart meter switches that circuit on, the whole house is on the night rate tariff (as the meter switches to the night rate register).

As previously mentioned, you should however check exactly when your night rate is active, the times you quoted are unusual but of course may be correct, check by looking at what time the light on the contactor activates and goes out. 

Whether the white switch below the lower CU actually does switch the supply to the Contactor is easily checked when the contactor is active - switch it off, the light on the contactor should go out. Then switch it on again obviously if you want your NSHs to work! (I suppose it's a handy way of turning the contactor activation - and hence the NSHs, on/off, even if unusual but whoever did that untidy wiring of those two thinner wires needs shooting IMHO!).

Phones4Chris

Shame @mathilde hasn't come back to confirm the Night Rate times and whether the white switch does what we expect.