My Night Storage Heaters are only using Peak Rate

[TheCountingHouse]

Hi - This July I had my fuse box changed to a metal one.
There was a smaller fuse box with just two switches which was just for my storage heaters.
The engineer put my storage heaters on with the sockets.
From 01 Oct 2022 I turned on my two Dimplex Quantum storage heaters (both of which have two sets of wires and two switches) and I now find that I am using Peak Rate to charge my heaters overnight. Last winter I used Off-Peak Rate.
I have complained to the electrician, who came around and told me it's a meter problem and the electricity meter is wrong.
However, last winter I did not have this problem, and the only changes made have been his replacement of two fuse boxes with one bigger one. He is adamant he has done everything correctly - what do I do? I have the electricity provider coming on 09 Nov to look at the meter. Should I get another electrician to try to re-connect my Off-Peak supply to the heaters? I am currently using about 6 or 7 kW every night at Peak Rate (£0.44 per kW when it should be £0.14 per kW)

 

[winston1]

I hope they are not fuse boxes in this day and age but are CUs.
The idiot you employed (not an electrician) has put your storage heaters on the normal rate having got rid of the off peak CU.
You certainly need an electrician to refit an off peak CU.

Out of interest what was your reason for the work. It is certainly not a requirement to change an existing plastic CU for a metal one.

 

[TheCountingHouse]

Yes it is a CU - he told me "by law" I had to have a metal one, he was employed to hard wire heat detectors into the flat that would make all 4 flats in the block connected by radio heat detectors and all flats would have an alert in the event of one flat having a fire. He fitted battery operated ones. This work was being done because the council housing/tenancy people were involved with the whole building. I needed a larger CU because there were no spare circuits/spaces for the heat sensors on my old CU. The whole thing has been a con. I no longer trust electricians, and am really reluctant to now get another con merchant electrician who will just rip me off further.

 

[winston1]

He lied. The regs (not statuary) require non combustible (metal is combustible if hot enough) for new installations. There is no requirement to retro fit older installations.

He should not have removed the smaller off peak CU. Get it replaced, the sooner the better. Complain to the council/housing association but don’t expect a fast reaction. Get it replaced and send them a copy of the bill.

 

[SUNRAY]

Hi - This July I had my fuse box changed to a metal one.
There was a smaller fuse box with just two switches which was just for my storage heaters.
The engineer put my storage heaters on with the sockets.
From 01 Oct 2022 I turned on my two Dimplex Quantum storage heaters (both of which have two sets of wires and two switches) and I now find that I am using Peak Rate to charge my heaters overnight. Last winter I used Off-Peak Rate.
I have complained to the electrician, who came around and told me it's a meter problem and the electricity meter is wrong.
However, last winter I did not have this problem, and the only changes made have been his replacement of two fuse boxes with one bigger one. He is adamant he has done everything correctly - what do I do? I have the electricity provider coming on 09 Nov to look at the meter. Should I get another electrician to try to re-connect my Off-Peak supply to the heaters? I am currently using about 6 or 7 kW every night at Peak Rate (£0.44 per kW when it should be £0.14 per kW)

Those heaters are programmable... just program them to charge during the off peak times.

 

[SUNRAY]

I hope they are not fuse boxes in this day and age but are CUs.
The idiot you employed (not an electrician) has put your storage heaters on the normal rate having got rid of the off peak CU.
You certainly need an electrician to refit an off peak CU.

Out of interest what was your reason for the work. It is certainly not a requirement to change an existing plastic CU for a metal one.

He lied. The regs (not statuary) require non combustible (metal is combustible if hot enough) for new installations. There is no requirement to retro fit older installations.

He should not have removed the smaller off peak CU. Get it replaced, the sooner the better. Complain to the council/housing association but don’t expect a fast reaction. Get it replaced and send them a copy of the bill.

As usual you jump in both feet first with unhelpfull and arrogant advise. It is perfectly possible the electrician surveyed the situation and fitted a new CU in the sure knowledge the second was no longer required.

 

[winston1]

As usual you jump in both feet first with unhelpfull and arrogant advise. It is perfectly possible the electrician surveyed the situation and fitted a new CU in the sure knowledge the second was no longer required.

He was clearly wrong then as the OP says his storage heaters are now using peak rate.

Neither arrogant nor unhelpful.

 

[winston1]

Those heaters are programmable... just programme them to charge during the off peak times.

As usual you have not understood the thread. The off peak CU has been removed. There is nothing to say the whole installation goes off peak at any time.

 

[SUNRAY]

As usual you have not understood the thread. The off peak CU has been removed. There is nothing to say the whole installation goes off peak at any time.

Assuming the electrician has not tampered with the service providers seals and customer doesn't have twin meter (which would now >20 years old andI haven't seen for many years ) I believe it's higly unlikely the E7 service has been deleted.

There is of course the chance that either of those possibilities exist and thank you for pointing that out.

 

[SUNRAY]

Hi - This July I had my fuse box changed to a metal one.
There was a smaller fuse box with just two switches which was just for my storage heaters.
The engineer put my storage heaters on with the sockets.
From 01 Oct 2022 I turned on my two Dimplex Quantum storage heaters (both of which have two sets of wires and two switches) and I now find that I am using Peak Rate to charge my heaters overnight. Last winter I used Off-Peak Rate.
I have complained to the electrician, who came around and told me it's a meter problem and the electricity meter is wrong.
However, last winter I did not have this problem, and the only changes made have been his replacement of two fuse boxes with one bigger one. He is adamant he has done everything correctly - what do I do? I have the electricity provider coming on 09 Nov to look at the meter. Should I get another electrician to try to re-connect my Off-Peak supply to the heaters? I am currently using about 6 or 7 kW every night at Peak Rate (£0.44 per kW when it should be £0.14 per kW)

Following on from winstons recent comment, is it possible you could send a picture of your installation.
Ideally of the company fuse and meter and any other device around them or the unlikely twin meters (white meter)
Do you have something like this?

 

[EFLImpudence]

From 01 Oct 2022 I turned on my two Dimplex Quantum storage heaters (both of which have two sets of wires and two switches) and I now find that I am using Peak Rate to charge my heaters overnight.

How did you determine this?

Is it that because the heaters are now connected to the single CU, you just assume the rate at night for the heaters is now 44p. instead of everything including the sockets being 14p. overnight?

 

[sparkwright]

I hope they are not fuse boxes in this day and age but are CUs.

I have a fuse box for my off peak heating.

What's wrong with it?

Does it need replacing?

 

[sparkwright]

Picture of the consumer unit would be helpful, for all we know he has used a dual tariff board, and there is something wrong with the meter.

Time will tell...

 

[Mottie]

Surely with E7, the whole house is on cheap rate at certain hours? That way, apart from your storage heaters, you can set other things like dish washer/washing machine/ tumble drier etc to use the cheap rate.

 

[Adam_151]

Surely with E7, the whole house is on cheap rate at certain hours? That way, apart from your storage heaters, you can set other things like dish washer/washing machine/ tumble drier etc to use the cheap rate.

Thats normally (but not always) the way it works, with a dual rate meter that gets switched over at the same time a contactor pulls in the heating load, however there was a another way of doing it which involved two meters and only the load connected through the cheap (often white meter) would receive the cheaper rate.

I think it was probably somewhat regional and even in regions that adopted it, I think thye have been phasing it out (as sunray alludes to) for a good number of years now.

I cannot recall if I've ever seen the two meter set up in my time up here in the east midlands, but it is probably more common in other areas