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Discuss Someone needed to sort issue with economy 7 in East London in the Electrical Work Up For Grabs |Electrical Jobs area at ElectriciansForums.net

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We’ve been having a long running issue with our economy 7 not kicking in at night, which means we have no heating from our storage heaters or hot water (luckily the boost still works).

Our electricity supplier said that getting a smart meter would fix the issue- which we had installed last week - but it’s still not working.

I’m pretty sure the heaters and boiler work as someone from the housing association came to have a look and managed to switch the economy 7 on for a while before it went off again.

We are based in East London- any advice or recommendations most appreciated.
 
that's the best lie from a supplier about smart meters going. failed in saying they save you money, now they're relying on even more complex lies to make you agree to having them.perhaps if you switched to their most expensive tariff, they'd manage to get them working immediate.
 
Can you check the consumer unit that the storage heaters are fed from? The switches on the circuit breakers should be up to be on.
It may be separate from the main one or part of the same. A photograph showing the breakers will help.
Also a photograph of all the supply equipment... meter, incoming cable, Timeclock if there is one...

As above, it is your landlords responsibility to maintain. Get onto them again and again until it’s fixed.
It’ll be costing you a fortune to heat the place without night storage.


Keep us posted as to what they say.
 
Hi - Can I ask who is the energy supplier?
There was a tech problem with smart meters working with E7 and I'm not sure that's been fixed (?).
 
Can you check the consumer unit that the storage heaters are fed from? The switches on the circuit breakers should be up to be on.
It may be separate from the main one or part of the same. A photograph showing the breakers will help.
Also a photograph of all the supply equipment... meter, incoming cable, Timeclock if there is one...

As above, it is your landlords responsibility to maintain. Get onto them again and again until it’s fixed.
It’ll be costing you a fortune to heat the place without night storage.


Keep us posted as to what they say.

Really helpful, I’ll check this when I get home from work today and try and post pictures too
 
Really helpful, I’ll check this when I get home from work today and try and post pictures too
Can you check the consumer unit that the storage heaters are fed from? The switches on the circuit breakers should be up to be on.
It may be separate from the main one or part of the same. A photograph showing the breakers will help.
Also a photograph of all the supply equipment... meter, incoming cable, Timeclock if there is one...

As above, it is your landlords responsibility to maintain. Get onto them again and again until it’s fixed.
It’ll be costing you a fortune to heat the place without night storage.


Keep us posted as to what they say.
Can you check the consumer unit that the storage heaters are fed from? The switches on the circuit breakers should be up to be on.
It may be separate from the main one or part of the same. A photograph showing the breakers will help.
Also a photograph of all the supply equipment... meter, incoming cable, Timeclock if there is one...

As above, it is your landlords responsibility to maintain. Get onto them again and again until it’s fixed.
It’ll be costing you a fortune to heat the place without night storage.


Keep us posted as to what they say.

I found the comsumer unit switches (photo attached) and turned out that the switches were set to off. I thought that would fix it, but our storage heaters and boiler didn’t come on in the night. Interestingly, the storage heater in the communal stairwell did come on though.

I haven’t had chance to have a look at the meter yet but our display is saying that we are on economy 7.

Someone needed to sort issue with economy 7 in East London 0DF25C80-0DDD-4A60-BFDF-25DDDE43CE88 - EletriciansForums.net

Someone needed to sort issue with economy 7 in East London A6F7C885-1DF9-440D-B530-4D061348A0D4 - EletriciansForums.net
 
Oh heck... where should I start?

That board is marked as the landlords supply so it shouldn’t be going through your meter. But that will be why the communal areas have come on.

Not your responsibility, but the metal trunking there should have a lid on it, and something done about the holes. The meter tails are pressing against bare metal... just be a matter of time before it wears through and there’s a big problem.

I would have thought your consumer unit would be in your flat somewhere, Even if the meter was in a plant room in the communal areas.
 
Here’s the unit in my property - all on.

I couldn’t find a time switch anywhere. The smart meter is showing two rates.

I’ve contacted the housing association but not heard anything as yet. It’s really frustrating as we’ve had this issue for months and no one seems to be able to get to the bottom of it.

Someone needed to sort issue with economy 7 in East London F0D2494D-E8EB-4AD2-9A24-48B201933577 - EletriciansForums.net
 
Few fact about E7:

1 Being in East London your E7 hours should be from midnight till 7am.

2 Some (perhaps most) properties have autoswitch radio frequency which turns on certain circuits and connected appliances with them - usually storage heaters.

3 At E7 hours ANY electric used from ANY of the circuits are charged at the dropped rate and hence this is not to be confused with the teleswich!

4 The smart meter shown has an internal clock which registers and relays how much electric is used and at which rate and hence does not have to switch meters (like the older analogue/mechanical types).

With regards to your immersion heater (for heating water) if there are two elements (one lower down the cylinder and one higher) then likely case is that the lower operates (or did!) with the teleswitch and the one higher up is a boost function (in cases when hot water is depleted you can run the above element for an hour [usually] to tie you over until the bottom element kicks in at cheaper rate times. Your problem could be to do with the absence of the teleswitch (which isn't entirely necessary) and if so it is a fairly straight forward job to install a timer (synchronised with the GMT clock) that simply switches the heating element on at the E7 hours.

Hope this helps

Thanks
Huseyin
 
... Your problem could be to do with the absence of the teleswitch (which isn't entirely necessary) and if so it is a fairly straight forward job to install a timer (synchronised with the GMT clock) that simply switches the heating element on at the E7 hours ...
I'm liking this explanation - perhaps that board isn't connected to the meter at all now (?). All the circuits are E7 and without a timer they would run anytime throughout the day, so "they" left it off (?).
How is power provided to your lights and outlets?
 
Well, we ended up getting an electrician around to check it all out and he found that the E7 cable hadn’t been connected to the smart meter at all. See the photos attached - it’s the blue wire that feeds the E7 consumer unit.

The guys who fitted the smart meter came back and finally hooked it up to the meter, no apology or explanation. They said they had assumed that blue was neutral.

However, now the E7 electric is constantly on (storage heaters and immersion). Better than having nothing but we still have to managed it manually.

To top it off, this morning our electricity flickered - I’m hoping this wasn’t just us and was a general issue.

Someone needed to sort issue with economy 7 in East London 7A108E22-944F-4046-A4D2-EC0FAB191D54 - EletriciansForums.net

Someone needed to sort issue with economy 7 in East London 95A118B4-6C84-41A7-B750-82FD589B9F0B - EletriciansForums.net
 
I was asked to connect up an off peak board to 24 hr after customer had storage heaters replaced with electric radiators.
The meter fitters had removed E7 meter, fitted single rate and put in a handy isolator. Didn’t connect off peak board back up. Said they weren’t allowed to.
Just leave an elderly couple with no heating then chaps.
 
The electrician removed the cover, it’s back on now.
I’m still not convinced the smart meter has been wired correctly, but at least we’ve got heating now.
 

Reply to Someone needed to sort issue with economy 7 in East London in the Electrical Work Up For Grabs |Electrical Jobs area at ElectriciansForums.net

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