Removal of economy 7 - allow E7 circuit to be live 24/7

william_rl · Jan 14, 2015

Hi

I have just purchased a flat which currently uses Economy 7. It has a secondary circuit which the storage heaters and immersion boiler are run off. This circuit only becomes live during the off peak hours. There is a 2nd consumer unit for this circuit.

I have had the storage heaters removed and wish to re-use the existing circuit to wire in new electrical radiators.

Whilst I will be getting an electrician to do this work, I am trying to understand what needs to be done. I understand the following:

1) A teleswitch receives a broadcast signal to switch the meter over to the off-peak tariff. This also enables the E7 circuit.
2) There is something (?) in the E7 circuit's consumer unit to react to the teleswitch.

I will be having the E7 meter switched for a normal one, but I suspect that the teleswitch may be shared (meter room in a block of apartments). Therefore it is possible that the teleswitch will still be controlling the enabling of the E7 circuit.

If so, will an electrician be able to bypass the teleswitch at the meter? Or alternatively, can the 'something' mentioned in 2 above simply be removed/replaced with something that doesn't react to the teleswitch.

Thanks in advance.

driverman · Jan 14, 2015

I would of thought you have your own Teleswitch which controls your E7 s/htrs. Your electrician should be able wire your s/htr consumer unit into the 24hr supply using henly blocks. Has he looked at the set up ?

william_rl · Jan 14, 2015

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get into the meter room when he was there. I still can't in fact (need to get the right key). However a friend who lives in the same block is going to let me into his meter room later so I can get a photo of the setup (should be the same). If I am wrong about the shared teleswitch (totally uneducated guess), that would be great as I imagine things would be somewhat simpler as you suggest.

driverman · Jan 15, 2015

william_rl said:
Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get into the meter room when he was there. I still can't in fact (need to get the right key). However a friend who lives in the same block is going to let me into his meter room later so I can get a photo of the setup (should be the same). If I am wrong about the shared teleswitch (totally uneducated guess), that would be great as I imagine things would be somewhat simpler as you suggest.

On that note, has anyone else in the block done what you intend to do?