Electric heating 3 meters tariffs no one supports it

Joined
12 Feb 2017
Messages
84
Reaction score
1
Country
United Kingdom
My mum's just received a letter from EON saying they no longer support her tariff and she will be put on to a single rate for all 3 meters. This will result in her bill going from £1000 a year to nearly £3000 a year. We've tried ringing around and none of the energy suppliers seems to either know what i'm talking about or offer any support for 3 tariffs.
OFGEN and citizens advise have just told me to ring around for someone to support her setup but I've spent all day yesterday and 3 hours this morning and I've got nowhere
Can any electricians on her offer any advise?

Basically she's got storage heaters and an immersion heater feed from a separate consumer unit connected to the economy 10 meter with it's own timer which comes on for 3 hrs in the afternoon and 7 hours at night. The rest of the house lights sockets cooker is on another consumer unit connected to a dual rate meter on peak and economy 7, which switches across at midnight to 7 am. We've had a couple of electricians come round to take a look and they say the problem is the 10 storage heaters she has are all designed to work with economy 10 and don't have built in timers they rely on the economy 10 meter switching the supply to them on and off. she will need to have the storage heaters all changed and at £500-£800 each plus the installation works it's looking like it's going to cost £1000's. As a pensioner in the late 70's i don't think it's particularly fair forcing this kind of think on her, but in the quest to get everyone on to smart meters, there will inevitably be some casualties, and it looks likes she is one, but she can't be the only person left in the UK with this setup can she?
 
Sponsored Links
Success Green Energy support her 3 meters but it will be increase her bill by 200%. at least i'm getting somewhere
 
EON have agreed to come out again to look at replacing her 2 meters with a single Economy 10 meter with built in timer that will switch the whole house across to E10 at certain times. I'm not convinced this will work but I've been assured by the chap on the phone from EON it's a standard procedure and will only take a couple of hours and then she can shop around for more competitive tariffs once the meter has been changed
 
EON have agreed to come out again to look at replacing her 2 meters with a single Economy 10 meter with built in timer that will switch the whole house across to E10 at certain times. I'm not convinced this will work but I've been assured by the chap on the phone from EON it's a standard procedure and will only take a couple of hours and then she can shop around for more competitive tariffs once the meter has been changed

fingers crossed then (y)

unfortunately we are in an era of automation and anything out of the norm isnt catered for.
try getting something changed on your house or car insurance
 
Sponsored Links
Basically she's got storage heaters and an immersion heater feed from a separate consumer unit connected to the economy 10 meter with it's own timer which comes on for 3 hrs in the afternoon and 7 hours at night. The rest of the house lights sockets cooker is on another consumer unit connected to a dual rate meter on peak and economy 7, which switches across at midnight to 7 am.
That's a messy situation. I wonder how she ended up with both Economy 10 and Economy 7? That has probably been costing her unnecessary money, since, give that all of the storage heaters and immersion are on the Economy 10 meter, I very much doubt that 'everything else' would have enough night-time usage to make E7 cost effective.
We've had a couple of electricians come round to take a look and they say the problem is the 10 storage heaters she has are all designed to work with economy 10 and don't have built in timers they rely on the economy 10 meter switching the supply to them on and off. she will need to have the storage heaters all changed and at £500-£800 each plus the installation works it's looking like it's going to cost £1000's.
If the only problem is that the existing storage heaters don't have built-in timers, to have some sort of time-switching installed for them would be 'infinitely' cheaper than £5,000 - £8,000 for 10 new heaters. However, maybe there are other considerations that you don't mention.

I don't think that many suppliers offer an E10 tariff those days.

Kind Regards, John
 
According to the electricians that have been out to look at the installation they can't just install a time switch to control the 10 storage heaters as the total load was too high at 120A. I did try and explain that there is already a kind of time switch installed already that is turning on and off the 120A load, this is triggered by the Economy 10 meter, and makes a loud clonk noise when it turns on and off. One of the electricians, and older chap, told me it was an old style contactor (being triggered by the meter) capable of switching 300A, he said that's why it's lasted so long as in normal use it would only be operating at 1/3 of it's capacity. Anyhow i'm hoping the EON engineer can figure this out when he comes to fit the new meter in a few weeks. Interestingly despite the fact she pays 2 standing charges, one of which is only 1.3p / day. Her annual usage is around 13,000kwh and she was paying £90 a month direct debit. As a comparison we've got gas which is meant to be far cheaper and we use 20,000Kwh for both gas and electric and pay £130 a month. so she's only paying slightly more per kwh overall.
 
According to the electricians that have been out to look at the installation they can't just install a time switch to control the 10 storage heaters as the total load was too high at 120A.
You need to find an electrician who has heard of a 'contactor' (I would have hoped that they all would have done!).
... I did try and explain that there is already a kind of time switch installed already that is turning on and off the 120A load, this is triggered by the Economy 10 meter, and makes a loud clonk noise when it turns on and off.
That is presumably a contactor!
... One of the electricians, and older chap, told me it was an old style contactor (being triggered by the meter) capable of switching 300A, he said that's why it's lasted so long as in normal use it would only be operating at 1/3 of it's capacity.
It's getting confusing - so at least one of them has heard of contactors! Maybe the one she has is an 'old style' contactor, but countless 'new' ones are freely available, with switching capacities up to thousands of amps if one wants!

Kind Regards, John
 
If the only problem is that the existing storage heaters don't have built-in timers, to have some sort of time-switching installed for them would be 'infinitely' cheaper than £5,000 - £8,000 for 10 new heaters. However, maybe there are other considerations that you don't mention.

I don't think that many suppliers offer an E10 tariff those days.

The E10 storage heaters might not have enough capacity, if run on E7 without the afternoon boost..
 
The E10 storage heaters might not have enough capacity, if run on E7 without the afternoon boost..
Yes, that's more-or-less why I 'warned' the OP that many suppliers don't seem to offer E10. However, it sounds as if he has discovered that E.ON do, so that sounds good. I've never looked, but I imagine that E10 is somewhat more expensive than E7, since some of the electricity it provides (at 'cheap' rate) is during the daytime.

Having said that, unless it's a very large house, 10 storage heaters sounds that it might be enough, even with E7, and even if the heaters are old and not very good at heat retention. In fact, unless they are unusually small, 10 storage heaters is likely to be beyond the capabilities of a normal single-phase domestic supply - I wonder if it is 3-phase?

Kind Regards, John
 
In fact, unless they are unusually small, 10 storage heaters is likely to be beyond the capabilities of a normal single-phase domestic supply - I wonder if it is 3-phase?

Good point - at 120amps I would guess it would have to be..
 
Quick update, i'm still waiting for an EON engineer to come back to complete the survey, with the current situation this may take some time! With regards to the size of the supply there are 2 100A main fuses in the meter cupboard, between the incoming cable where it comes out of the ground and the meters. so i guess the total capacity for the house is 200A
 
200A supplies, either a single 200A fuse or 2x100A on 1 or 2 phases, were not that uncommon a few years back for big houses on E7. I did a lot of work in a very large house which had been converted to a hotel which had the remains of a 80A 3ph supply just for the white meters [3 sp meters but only charged as 1 meter] and a seperate sp supply for the black meter.
 
Get Eon to recognise your mum as a vulnerable person due to her age and they should record her on their priority services register. It may help speed up the attendance of the engineer and prevent them getting arsey with her billing.
 
In no particular order ...
You can have a contactor switch any current you need - and it sounds like you already have one. Bear in mind that "regular" contactors will buzz when engaged, while there are some made specially for this application that don't (internally they use DC for the coil).
One "simple" solution would be to switch everything to an E7 like tariff - but it sounds like you might not have the capacity to run everything off one supply.
To get around that, they could fit a 3 phase meter but configured for a single supply - it's "sort of" what we had at church. The two supplies would feed two phases on the meter, with the outputs connected to your existing distribution boards. The meter internally totals the loads on the different "phases" and, in our case, presents two registers (normal and cheap). So yes, your two-meter setup CAN be physically replicated with a single smart (or dual-rate) meter - getting the "paperwork" to allow it might be a different matter though.
 
.... To get around that, they could fit a 3 phase meter but configured for a single supply - it's "sort of" what we had at church. The two supplies would feed two phases on the meter, with the outputs connected to your existing distribution boards. The meter internally totals the loads on the different "phases" and, in our case, presents two registers (normal and cheap).
What do you mean by 'configured for a single supply'. Two (or three) phases going through a 3-phase meter obviously have to derive from the same 3-phase supply.

What you describe is precisely what I have here - a 3-phase supply going through a 3-phase meter (which just gives totals across all 3-phases for 'normal' and 'cheap'), even though, downstream of the meter, I use the three phases separately (plus a neutral) as three separate 'single-phase' distribution circuits.

Kind Regards, John
 

DIYnot Local

Staff member

If you need to find a tradesperson to get your job done, please try our local search below, or if you are doing it yourself you can find suppliers local to you.

Select the supplier or trade you require, enter your location to begin your search.


Are you a trade or supplier? You can create your listing free at DIYnot Local

 
Sponsored Links
Back
Top