Thanks all. I'll try and get a piccy inside the meter cupboard and post it up later. To answer some of the other questions: As Winston says, I was also under the impression that the whole house switched to E7 but since my kind electricity supplier sent me one of those usage monitor gadgets (the ones with the ferrite thingy clamped round the cable) it doesn't appear to be the case! I say this because it's clamped round only one cable (from the day meter) and it still registers a power draw at night. The main cable that feeds both meters is too big for the clamp so I'm pretty certain I'm only recording either the day or the night (and it reads day and night).
Dishwasher is very OLD - so yes, if I twist the knob to the start of a programme and press the power button, it will start up by itself when power becomes available. Washing machine is newer and that DOES need power or it won't remember to start, but we rarely go to bed until AFTER the E7 has started. That said, I think our E7 is one of those where it comes on quite early (11.00 I think) and stays on for a few hours (maybe until 01.00, then goes off for a couple of hours, then comes back on again. That'll be OK for the dishwasher (it'll finish it's cycle in a couple of hours, but maybe not so good for the washer. I guess I need to find out exactly when it gets power. Any ideas how I can do that without staying up all night watching the meter cupboard? Don't suggest calling electricity supplier - tried that three times, spoke to nice people in some far-away call centre and got 3 different answers! Also, we've changed supplier since and I don't know whether the day/night switchover times are controlled by the supplier or by the hardware in the house!
Comments about fires noted!
Dishwasher is very OLD - so yes, if I twist the knob to the start of a programme and press the power button, it will start up by itself when power becomes available. Washing machine is newer and that DOES need power or it won't remember to start, but we rarely go to bed until AFTER the E7 has started. That said, I think our E7 is one of those where it comes on quite early (11.00 I think) and stays on for a few hours (maybe until 01.00, then goes off for a couple of hours, then comes back on again. That'll be OK for the dishwasher (it'll finish it's cycle in a couple of hours, but maybe not so good for the washer. I guess I need to find out exactly when it gets power. Any ideas how I can do that without staying up all night watching the meter cupboard? Don't suggest calling electricity supplier - tried that three times, spoke to nice people in some far-away call centre and got 3 different answers! Also, we've changed supplier since and I don't know whether the day/night switchover times are controlled by the supplier or by the hardware in the house!
Comments about fires noted!