meter error, would a replacement be smart?

[John D v2.0]

I'm doing quite a bit better than that

Maybe you need to use less! You're saving more than our whole bill.
To the OP good luck getting it updated!
We have some ancient mechanical clock that I can't even work out what time it's on, it makes a loud clunk noise at random times of the day and night.
I called the supplier a couple of times when we moved in to tell them it didn't make sense and their only suggestion was to put the kettle on during the day and see which register changed. The second time they looked it up somewhere and told me some times.
The dno guy who changed the cutout said it's not actually doing anything in our setup, and the meter operator told me I can get it removed if I want. The meter readers never mentioned it.
Both registers increment in about the right ratio, so who knows what's going on!

 

[JohnW2]

Maybe you need to use less! You're saving more than our whole bill.

Don't forget that it is a very large house. With the E7, carefully managed, as this graph shows (same glitch in the middle as before), we run at an average a bit under £3 per day, which I don't think is bad going. You will see on the graph the result of 'having a house full' over Christmas, particularly on Christmas Day (daytime water heating {unusual}, secondary cylinder water heating {unusual}, electric showers {unusual}, fan heaters, hair driers and multiple cycles of DW, for a start!)!

Mind you, even if it were a much smaller house, if the electricity was used in a qualitatively similar way, I'm not sure that the picture would be dramatically different. We average 25-30 kWh/day total (day+night), and nearly a third (generally 7-9 kWh/day) of that is the nocturnal water heating, which would probably be much the same no matter what the size of our house. Nearly all of our night-time usage on 'Phase 2' is the water heating, so the below more-or-less represents just that....

As my previous post showed, we do, manage to get more than half usage at cheap rate. The below, from a couple of days ago, is fairly typical of a 'high usage' day. The 3kW jump just after the start of cheap rate, which lasted about 2 hours is the water heating, with 2-3 very brief 3kW top-ups per hour of that for the rest of the cheap period. The 'extra' ~3kW on top of the main water heating period is, I imagine, a mixture of dryer and WM and/or DW. The very brief ~1kW jumps during the day are probably the macerator in our downstairs loo (about 20 secs a go) and the very brief 1-2kW ones probably toaster/hair dryer/whatever ....

We have some ancient mechanical clock that I can't even work out what time it's on, it makes a loud clunk noise at random times of the day and night.

We had one of those until 5 or so years ago and, like you, I could never make any sense of it, or the noises it made. It's clockwork 'backup' also seemed to wind up every day, which made little sense in the absence of power cuts!

Kind Regards, John
Edit: a few typos corrected and a little detail added to text.

 

[John D v2.0]

That makes sense for a big house, presumably your heating is all electric!
We probably use that much gas plus electric.

 

[winston1]

We had one of those until 5 or so years ago and, like you, I could never make any sense of it, or the noises it made. It's clockwork 'backup' also seemed to wind up every day, which made little sense in the absence of power cuts!

Kind Regards, John

I had one once. The noises are mechanically switching the dials but mainly a large contactor to switch the supply to the storage heaters which could only be charged during night period. As you say the clockwork wound every day but could run the meter for several days in the event of a power cut. It started ticking during a power cut.

 

[JohnW2]

That makes sense for a big house, presumably your heating is all electric!

Unfortunately not. Only the water heating is electric.

As I have observed in the past, the space heating is LPG - and that is a whole different (and, unfortunately, far more expensive) story! However, as I said, given that the water heating would presumably use much the same even if I lived in a tiny house, the fact that my total electricity usage is only about three times that amount doesn't seem too bad to me, given the size of my house.

Kind Regards, John

 

[JohnW2]

I had one once. The noises are mechanically switching the dials but mainly a large contactor to switch the supply to the storage heaters which could only be charged during night period.

Indeed - but, a couple of points. Firstly, all mine was doing was switching a signal line to the meter, not switching any load, but it may have been one with a meaty contactor which could switch large loads. Secondly, as with JohnD's experience, the loud clunks (which I assumed was a contactor) appeared to occur at mutiple, seeming random, times during the day and night (despite the switch-over from day to night metering happening at roughly the right times - as confirmed by a light on the meter).

As you say the clockwork wound every day but could run the meter for several days in the event of a power cut. It started ticking during a power cut.

Yes, but as I implied, I had assumed that once the clockwork mechanism had been 'wound up', it would stay wound up unless/until it ever had to be used during a power cut - so I don't really understand why it appeared to be wound up every day!

Kind Regards, John

 

[kentishman]

Let us know what happens.

Kind Regards, John

The engineer finally came today (having been to the wrong house two weeks ago). He swapped the meter, and said that they don't reset clocks on site; the meter is rented by the supply company and as the rental cost includes repair, the meter goes back to be refurbished if they are faulty. He also said the clocks are all deliberately set slightly out anyway to reduce the effect of them all switching at exactly the same time (but not by half an hour). He also said no-one is currently manufacturing economy 7 smart meters. He was very thorough, and as we have two CUs checked all the tails and remade a few of the connections, ensuring there was none of the blue or brown insulation showing where the CU tails emerged from the connector blocks. Apparently the worst wiring he sees are those done by solar panel installers, where the cables are hacked about with little regard to tidiness, or safety.

 

[JohnW2]

The engineer finally came today (having been to the wrong house two weeks ago). ...

Thanks for the update.

He also said no-one is currently manufacturing economy 7 smart meters ...

That's a silly statement. No-one manufactures "E7 smart meters" because they don't need to. One of the main features of a smart meter (and one of the things that worries some people) is that they have the ability to cope with umpteen different tariff periods during the day (not just two, as in the case of E7) and (which is probably what people worry more about), the timings etc. of those various tariffs can be changed remotely. "Economy 7" is therefore but the simplest example of the sort of thing 'smart' meters are designed to deal with!

Kind Regards, John

 

[kentishman]

E7 meters that have the switched line output for feeding night storage heaters. Do current smart meters have that facility? Apparently they are due later this year.

 

[EFLImpudence]

Isn't it that the whole supply is changed to "off peak" rate nowadays?

 

[JohnW2]

E7 meters that have the switched line output for feeding night storage heaters. Do current smart meters have that facility? Apparently they are due later this year.

I wouldn't really have expected that, but that's the 'old fashioned' version of E7, and I wouldn't have thought that it would really be in your interests to have that - far better, I would have thought, having the whole installation switching to off-peak electricity during the night hours (just 'metered' separately) and then have have separate time switches/contactors to control the storage heaters. All electricity (e.g. immersion heaters) used during the cheap-rate hours then benefit from the cheap rate, rather than just the storage heaters.

I suppose they might (perhaps for 'backward compatibility') be making some meters that including storage-heater switching (as well as changing over the entire installation to cheap-rate metering at night), but I haven't heard of that (although that proves nothing!). Someone else will probably know.

Kind Regards, John

 

[JohnW2]

Isn't it that the whole supply is changed to "off peak" rate nowadays?

As I've just written, I think the answer is essentially 'yes' but I don't doubt that some still have the 'old fashioned' system - which, as I've just written, means that it wouldn't be impossible for them to make 'backwards-compatible' meters - although I can't see that it would be in anyone's financial interests to stick with that 'old'system.

Kind Regards, John

 

[ban-all-sheds]

No-one manufactures "E7 smart meters" because they don't need to. One of the main features of a smart meter (and one of the things that worries some people) is that they have the ability to cope with umpteen different tariff periods during the day (not just two, as in the case of E7) and (which is probably what people worry more about), the timings etc. of those various tariffs can be changed remotely. "Economy 7" is therefore but the simplest example of the sort of thing 'smart' meters are designed to deal with!

Have the ability, or can/will/potentially have it?

Absolutely, "smart metering" will lead to that, it's one of the main goals, but AFAIK no suppliers have yet got the infrastructure in place to push pricing out to meters, nor the tariffs/contracts, and will never have with the SMETS1 generation of products.

So "no-one is currently manufacturing economy 7 smart meters" is true.

 

[kentishman]

Isn't it that the whole supply is changed to "off peak" rate nowadays?

Sorry, I wasn't clear.... The new meter that was installed, and the old one removed, had a separate switched line output as well as the permanent output, so had the option of being wired as appropriate.

I wouldn't really have expected that, but that's the 'old fashioned' version of E7, and I wouldn't have thought that it would really be in your interests to have that - far better, I would have thought, having the whole installation switching to off-peak electricity during the night hours (just 'metered' separately) and then have have separate time switches/contactors to control the storage heaters. All electricity (e.g. immersion heaters) used during the cheap-rate hours then benefit from the cheap rate, rather than just the storage heaters.

I never said it was in my interest to have that... I have it wired exactly as before with no power switching, just the meters changing tariff.

I suppose they might (perhaps for 'backward compatibility') be making some meters that including storage-heater switching (as well as changing over the entire installation to cheap-rate metering at night), but I haven't heard of that (although that proves nothing!). Someone else will probably know.

Kind Regards, John

The engineer that came knew...

 

[JohnW2]

Sorry, I wasn't clear.... The new meter that was installed, and the old one removed, had a separate switched line output as well as the permanent output, so had the option of being wired as appropriate.

Yes, that's what I assumed you were saying.

I never said it was in my interest to have that... I have it wired exactly as before with no power switching, just the meters changing tariff.

I'm not completely clear as to what you mean by this. Are you saying that, although it exists, you have never used the 'switched output' of the meter, with either the old meter or the new one?

I think that everyone I know (including myself) who currently has E7 has a dual-tariff meter which has no switched output (or, at the least, doesn't use such an output), so a ('multi-tariff') smart meter without a switched output would be no different from that.

Kind Regards, John