Yep, they are both '5-terminal' meters - but, to be fair, neither of the links you have provided given any indication of whether the products being described 'are currently available'.
Kind Regards, John
Faulty Economy 7 timer
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Kind Regards, John
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Fair enough, it's obviously your decision. However, what I described (and you don't want to do) is what many (most?) of us do with our E7 supplies.
I'm not really sure how long these '5-terminal' meters are going to continue to exist. It was different in the days of old when the 'cheap rate' applied only to what was being used by storage heaters, but now that the entire electrical supply of the house switches over to cheap rate at night, I think the time will come when supplies only provide a meter which does only the metering, leaving the consumer to make arrangements for whatever of their equipment they wanted to switch on and off, and when.
Kind Regards, John
As I said, I presumed that you were not meaning to imply that, but when you wrote ...I never did
... you were certainly implying something about your view that switched neutrals were not "that unsafe" if they were only being 'messed with' by authorised personnel (the implication surely being that they would be less safe if messed with by non-authorised personnel)
Kind Regards, John
Already threatened them with that, no response. But that's what I'll have to do.
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Given the choice, what route would you choose? You being responsible for the upkeep of the timer, and potential for any timers to be out of synch with the E7 rate, or the electricity supplier to be responsible, and guaranteed to be in synch?
I don't know that it ever did that. Mine switches the whole flat over to E7, but the heaters/water are on a separate, low rate only, circuit.
I would imagine/hope that the Ombusdman would/will insist that they replace your 'broken' metering system with a meter that will satisfactorily meter whatever tariff they are supplying to you, but, as I recently implied, whether he/she would also insist that they provide a meter that will do the switching of your heaters for you is something I would be less certain about.
Kind Regards, John
Well, it's obviously not the answer you are expecting, but I would personally prefer (and have) the route which puts me in complete control over the time -switching - so that I can monitor, adjust and reset it (or even replace it if/when necessary), as required, without having to rely on the whim of some external agency.
That's how E7 (and similar tariffs) started - cheap night-time electricity for just the storage heaters, but everything else charged at 'full rate' 24/7. As I said, with that system one understands why they wanted the meter to do the switching.
Kind Regards, John
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My MIL is still on the old set up, separate meter for storage heaters , complete with afternoon boost, I connected the immersion to the off peak CU, not really meant to, after her day I will remove it, seem to think the tariff was called D13, E7 was D56, timeswitch has never had a seal on it
I'd expect that if Bulb cannot supply a five terminal meter, then the Ombudsman would insist that they bear the cost of rewiring the storage heaters/water, and supply timers.
Whatever you think about these systems being outdated, there is a deadline for electricity suppliers to supply five terminal smart meters. So Ofgem must be of the opinion that they are necessary.
I wouldn't want to second guess the Ombudsman on that one.
There's a deadline (which keeps disappearing over the horizon!) for people to be supplied with 'smart' meters, but whether that includes an obligation to provide a 5-terminal one, I have no idea. The first generation of 'smart' meters that were rolled out have already become obsolete, and are having to be replaced - so there is potential for this process to go on for ever!
It's not so much that the system is 'outdated', but it's no longer necessary, since virtually (literally?) all suppliers of E7 now allow off-peak electricity to be used by the entire installation, not just storage heaters. If you wanted, say, your immersion heater to take advantage of the cheap night-time E7 (which I do), you would have to provide your own time switching (which, again, is what I do).
Kind Regards, John
That's the implication from Bulb.
I'm a bit perplexed as to why you think that is some kind of innovation. That's the way it's been for at least 30 years. The only distinction here is that you desire a system where you control the timers, and I think it's more sensible to have the system integrated with the timing of the E7 system.
The downside to the five terminal system is that if the timing clock fails then you may have no power to storage heaters or hot water systems. In my case this would be a problem, except that we have at least some heaters that have dual inputs (low and normal) and the immersion heater is also dual input. On the positive side I don't need a timer for every heater, and the off peak devices are always in synch with the switched off peak power.
If you have some kind of failure in a five terminal system this also quickly becomes obvious.
The positive aspect of what you advocate is that you can have granular control over devices. The downside is that a fault could occur with the system that puts the power use out of synch with the off peak periods, individual devices can fail in non-obvious ways and the measurement of low/normal can fail in non-obvious ways.
I'm not sure why your suggesting anything about an innovation - as we're both saying, it is a decade's old system (and a system I had back in the 70s).
I think that what I am not getting across well enough is the difference between a 'need' (from the point-of-view of the supplier and the electricity industry) for 5-terminal meters (i.e. for them in be in control of the switching of the cheap-rate supply) and the 'desire' you (and others) may have for such a system. As soon as suppliers started allowing consumers' entire installations to benefit from cheap rate electricity (with E7 etc. tariffs) the need for them to be in control of the switching ceased to exist.
There are some potential advantages, at least for some people, of 'being in control of the switching' which I don't think we've discussed. A friend of mine has storage heaters run from an E7 system. He discovered that the heaters only took 3-4 hours to get 'fully charged with heat'. Hence, if he switched them on at the start of the E7 cheap rate period (which is what will happen with a 5-terminal meter), they would subsequently spend an unnecessary 3-4 hours losing some heat (and having to be 'topped up' by the use of more electricity). He therefore now has his storage heaters coming on about 3 hours after the start of the cheap rate period, and thereby has (he tells me!) achieved a significant reduction in electricity usage.
Goodness know what will happen if/when the 'smart' meter system every gets off the ground properly. We may then well have a situation in which the cost of electricity changes from hour to hour, not just 'day/night'!
Kind Regards, John
This is the point I made previously, but which you indicated was irrelevant, because the heaters had thermostats. See post #15.
You're right. I didn't read, or taken in, what you had written well enough - my apologies. So, yes, although I'd forgotten/hadn't realised exactly what you wrote, my friend's experience I've just described confirms that what you said was dead right.
For what it's worth, I currently do exactly that with my immersion heater. Depending on how much hot water has been used, it takes between 30 mins and 2.5 hours to heat up at night. I used to naively have it coming on just after the start of the cheap electricity period, thereby giving it anything up to 6 hours to lose/waste heat (and hence need to be topped up). I now have it coming on about 4 hours after the start of the cheap period, thereby avoiding a few hours of unnecessary 'cycling on and off'.
Kind Regards, John
We inherited a system exactly like the OP's 35 years ago - The entire system ran at the E7 rate during the hours determined by the timer, but during those hours it also switched on a separate consumer unit which supplied storage heaters and also a separate network of cables and outlets which only became active during E7 hours. Over the years the timer gradually lost time, until by the time the meter came due for replacement it was still on E7 at 10.00 am.
I think it was a clockwork motor continuosly wound electrically.
Two years ago they replaced the old meter with an electronic one with combined timer. The consumer units and circuits were untouched, and it still behaves exactly as originally. We very rarely use the storage heaters now, but the E7 facility is useful for automatically turning on washing machine, dishwasher, and dehumidifiers.
Over time replacement units usually no longer reset simply by turning on the electricity supply, so we have to rely on their own internal timers. That is annoying because power cuts usually of only a few seconds are commonplace, but cause modern appliances to lose their settings.
Although we hardly use the storage heaters, having E7 still saves a little bit.
But the point is that new meters providing the OP's switching requirements are clearly still available, and the supplier is just being lazy in pretending they aren't.
I think it was a clockwork motor continuosly wound electrically.
Two years ago they replaced the old meter with an electronic one with combined timer. The consumer units and circuits were untouched, and it still behaves exactly as originally. We very rarely use the storage heaters now, but the E7 facility is useful for automatically turning on washing machine, dishwasher, and dehumidifiers.
Over time replacement units usually no longer reset simply by turning on the electricity supply, so we have to rely on their own internal timers. That is annoying because power cuts usually of only a few seconds are commonplace, but cause modern appliances to lose their settings.
Although we hardly use the storage heaters, having E7 still saves a little bit.
But the point is that new meters providing the OP's switching requirements are clearly still available, and the supplier is just being lazy in pretending they aren't.
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