Scottish Power RTS replaced with Smart Metre

Bsteele

I have had my RTS metre replaced with a smart metre by Scottish Power, they didn't tell me that I would need to install a timer for my heating and hot water as the water is heating 24/7 and my storage heater is on for the full night rate - 11pm to 7-30am in winter or 12pm to 8.30am in summer, because I didn't find out about this till four days after installation of new smart metre I think the thermostat in the water tank has been blown due to it being on constantly, the only reason I found this out was by calling Scottish Power to report a fault with the new metre so I thought as the water was unbearably hot, the engineer who came said nothing wrong with the metre and then mentioned timer, nothing was mentioned beforehand or during installation despite my many questions on how this metre would work both to Scottish Power agents and the installation engineer

Scottish Power say it is up to me to pay for electrician and plumber to install timers and to fix thermostat

Also Scottish Power stopped my direct debit and put me on monthly bill without my knowing or agreeing which meant when a monthly bill came in I had to pay it over the phone, it took 3 months for the direct debit to be set up again and the monthly amount went from £80 to £117 with no clear reason given except it was a new electricity account

I was quoted different tariffs over the months since the installation and none match what is on the actual bills - been told I could have been quoted vat inclusive or vat exclusive figures

At this point in time the last bill I had was dated 6th Jan 2026 and they haven't sent a letter on my new tariff from April

The complaint is deadlocked and I have gone to the Energy Ombudsman

Any advice please

sheenas

You seam to have a number of issues with Scottish power. The RTS meter have been removed as they will in due course stop working. Scottish are not required to provide a timer or repair your faulty equipment.

In terms of the DD and tariff, no one should have quoted VAT exclusive prices without clearing stating that VAT needed adding. The process does seem unnecessarily slow, but what are you expecting as an remedial action?

Ayr_Rage

It sounds as if your METER is working normally.

The faulty thermostat is entirely your responsibility.

The only issue is the tariff, payments and your complaint, hopefully that'll be resolved soon.

Ectophile

Timers or contactors?

If you are on a dual rate tariff, then they should have installed a 5 port meter. These have the usual live and neutral in, live and neutral out, and a 5th terminal to indicate you're off peak.

Ildhund

@Bsteele wrote:

… the water is heating 24/7 and my storage heater is on for the full night rate - 11pm to 7-30am in winter or 12pm to 8.30am in summer,

The SP Special E8½ economy tariff!

If you showed us photos of your meter clear enough for the display and all the markings on the meter to be legible, the backboard it's mounted on so we can see the cables to and from it, and of the consumer unit(s) ('fuse boxes') with the lid propped open and again, clear enough for any labels to be legible, we'd be better able to make suggestions.

The storage heater may well be on for the whole offpeak period, but it won't be consuming energy for all that time unless it's very big or very old and leaky. An ordinary 1500W storage heater is designed to store enough heat to keep a reasonably well insulated 15m² room warm for 14 hours when it's -3° outside, and that will take 7 hours to charge up from cold.

Your water heater should have been wired to the same circuit as the storage heaters, meaning it too would normally heat up from cold in 3 or 4 hours. It sounds as if the meter engineer didn't do the wiring properly, but let's see the photos before making any more assumptions.

EssexHebridean

A google search for "re-set thermal link on immersion heater thermostat" is probably your friend regarding the water heater - it's a fiddly task, but likely to be perfectly straightforward.

On the billing, were you by any chance previously paying quarterly? I have a feeling that SP were one of those who stopped the quarterly billing recently - people were notified in advance though as we had a number of folk rock up here very unhappy about it. Might be worth checking that the email address associated with your account is correct, and that emails aren't going to junk/spam.

QrizB

Welcome to the forum.

they didn't tell me that I would need to install a timer for my heating and hot water

You don't need to install a timer for either of those things. They should be being switched by the ALCS in your meter, exactly as they were switched by your RTS before it was replaced.

the water is heating 24/7

Are you sure? The standard element should only be live for your cheap rate period. If you have a second "boost" element, this should be switched manually.

and my storage heater is on for the full night rate - 11pm to 7-30am in winter or 12pm to 8.30am in summer,

This is normal. Adjust your heat input control to suit the weather and, when it gets hot enough that you don't require heating, switch them off until autumn comes around.

Scot_39

Which SP RTS tariff were you on before the meter switch - and what are you on now - see if the link below names appear on new meter or old meter period bills.

What meter model do you have ?

Does it have 4 or five meter tails (1/2" thick cables coming out of the bottom ?) - I presume 5 from your NSH "on 8.5 hrs" comment.

https://www.scottishpower.co.uk/energy-efficiency/energy-efficiency-toolkit/electric-heating/

From posts here - not all old SP RTS meter / tariff combinations have been replaced by one standard replacement or meter type that was needed to provide it.

Your times suggest perhaps your now on vanilla Whitemeter 1 - E8.5 as one user above described it.

Its possible the meter has been wrongly wired if the hot water immersion now has a 24.7 supply but before was on a RTS restricted (live only say 8.5 hours a day) supply.

Your feed to the NSH again - sounds normal to me - it should always have had power from a restricted feed. Now if like water it had gone 24/7 - again that would have suggested a wiring / configuration fault.

Old RTS systems sadly could be more complex than some meter fitters were used to - some RTS were just a timer - others were actual switches - and some homes had more outputs than others (my old RTS had 2 different restricted outputs - it scared away 2 meter fitters when replaced).

Any chance of a photo of meter cubpoard showing current wiring - new meter serial number redacted ?

Bsteele

thank you for all the suggestions which were very interesting, much appreciated

Be_Happy

Some very confusing advice being offered here re the timer settings. Our complex of 47 flats all previously fitted with the old Comfortplus meters using a RTS was converted to smart meters over the past year.

The meters installed by Scottish Power are White Meter 1 version. As said previously, the storage heaters were connected at the time the meters were changed and work by a thermostat automatically overnight on the off peak hours - in our area of South Scotland this is 8 1/2 hours winter 11pm to 7.30am and now in summer 12am to 8.30am. To avoid a sudden surge when the power changes in the region this time has always varied slightly, in my case the timings start and end 10 minutes later (the meter gives a click when the rate changes). Nothing had to be done by us regarding the storage heating timer.

We were warned by the meter fitters (by most fitters but not all) that a timer would have to be fitted to the water boiler. This was usually the case in previous houses where the immersion heater had its own timer fitted. Most of us have now paid for a timer to be installed by a local heating engineer for the water boiler to turn on for 2 or 3 hours overnight. Some people have chosen to have no timer and just leave it on all day and rely on the boiler thermostat to control on/off.

As regards the other problems with Scottish Power, we've had a variety of problems with billing etc but are gradually getting things sorted. Because of there being a communal laundry here and elderly people not doing much cooking we have a very low electricity usage. SPs computer is convinced that we also have gas meters. We know there is no gas in the modern building, the customer service agents have checked the national register and agree there is no gas here, but the 'computer' has still to be convinced to stop suggesting we install smart gas meters. Owners are gradually getting the many other problems corrected. Smart meters, themselves are working well its just the administration.

Reed_Richards

I think the thermostat in the water tank has been blown due to it being on constantly

You can fix this. If the thermostat was on all the time the water in the tank would heat up to boiling point. To prevent this from happening all thermostats have a cut-out. Your tank will have got too hot causing the cut-out to activate so you need to reset it. This video explains what to do . The reset button will be protruding out, just press it and you should here a click when it resets

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sdoOvRiqXU