Green tech & greener living

Hi, I’m having trouble differentiating which switch is which with my Quantum storage heaters. I know they one is on peak and one is off-peak, but only one switch lights up and turns on the digital display, while the other switch seems to do nothing when switched on its own. Any advice?? I don’t want to be paying for on peak 24/7 by mistake 😖

I reported my Smart Meter was not working in July last year. Nothing has been done about it, though every month I get an email message about the need to supply readings, which is kind of annoying. The screen on the meter is dead so not even manual readings are possible. When chasing some action on this I received a reply in November saying there was a queue for meters to be fixed, but I would be notified as soon as an engineer was available. As it is now April, it must be some long queue.

When i have to put the heating on with my combi boiler is it cheaper to have the boiler set at 70 eco with less radiators on, or at 50 with more radiators on? My boiler man has serviced the boiler and set it to 70 eco for when i need the heating on. Any ideas welcome please! 

Good morning, I moved into our new home about a year ago and have really struggled with finding meter readings from the solar panels.I don’t really k ow which box I should be looking at and what numbers they need. Any advice would be greatly received.

HI,I’ve got an old stone house and we’ve been looking at getting an ASHP installed, we have a quote for a dual 22kw ASHP arrangement. Just wanting to know if anyone else has any experience in running a larger setup? We have an 11kw turbine on-site so this should hopefully take some of the load and will perhaps look to install 5-10kw of solar to supplement. On a good day we can generate ~200kw of wind power.. 

Does anyone know roughly how much electricity is used annually if the gas central heating boiler is left on permanently, thermostatically controlled? Is there a saving to be made by switching off completely during the warmer months?  

After my smart meters installation, My OVO payment site tells me that there is no meter found for electricity. But it is logging the usage . So I need advice if you need meter reading or not.

I have solar panels and a battery, and a smart meter. I don’t have an EV. I’m on a simpler energy tariff with OVO which costs 25.86p a kwh. I’ve seen tariffs elsewhere which offer a cheaper rate to allow me to recharge my battery for a few hours a night; and thereby maximise use of my battery, and increase my savings. Does OVO provide such a tariff? If not, then why not? Especially since they appear to offer such a tariff for ev owners. I’d rather stay with OVO but if there is a better deal elsewhere, then I’ll jump! 

Hi.  I am trying to see the ‘Energy to User’ data so that I can download it together with the ‘Energy from Grid’ data and then can calculate the energy provided by the panels and inverter.   Does anyone know why I can’t see the Energy to user data please?thank you in advance for the help.    

Recently tried installing Tado v3+ wireless starter kit but left me with no power to boiler worked out the cable asked to replace in instructions was power to boiler so put both Tado and boiler L and N cables in the relivant ports in boiler and had powerhowever when it came to test, boiler didn’t fire. was previously using Salus RT520 thermostat, unsure whether this is wired or wireless to boiler tried the Tado support with no luck, they didn’t seem to understand.

Where to find serial number. On edmi es 10 b

Hi, I’m hoping for some help in finding a system that allows me to monitor and adjust house temperature remotely. The house is heated via an Ecodan air source heat pump with underfloor heating downstairs and radiators upstairs. Currently we have one wireless thermostat which allows us to set programmes as well as measure the temperature for a target in whichever room we leave it.  I don’t think we need anything complicated, but want to be able to adjust the target temperature and programmes remotely. Even being able to initiate a hold temperature remotely and then cancel it again to engage the programmed settings would be fine.  I’ve had a look at various smart thermostats but compatibility seems to be an issue and the in-house app by Mitsubishi gets aweful reviews.  Any help or advice very gratefully received! Thanks in advance!

HiThe FIT meter for my solar panels have stopped working. It is showing the same reading since June 2023 which is 3 months ago.Who do you contact? Is it OVO or do I need to get in touch with an electrician?ThanksB Burnett

Over the last few years I’ve had more and more electrical stuff installed - outside room power, electric oven, EV charger and heat pump. To accommodate these my consumer unit (new 20 years ago) has spawned baby consumer units, three to date. Now I’d like to get solar and battery so I’ve been advised to get a new larger consumer unit which will supply all these, plus some spare ways for the future. The electrician has given me a quote for this but also given the option of an Arc Fault Detection version which is considerably more expensive. I’ve read that this is required for multi occupancy residences (which we are not) but also guards against arcing due to rodent damage etc. Would it be a good investment or is it a bit unnecessary? Any advice would be welcome.

Hi, I’m looking at changing my ChargePoint EV home charger to the The Indra Smart LUX however need to confirm that the EV charger will work with the Charge Anytime facility?  Im currently charging 2 vehicles (a Tesla and a Vauxhall Vivaro E) using the ChargePoint however due to their being no support for a Vauxhall Vivaro E, I need to swap the charger.  Thanks 

Has anyone else been contacted by Efficient Homes regarding the GBIS?  I registered as in a band D, EPC D house that is badly in need of loft insulation.  My understanding is that under this scheme you will be given a Gov grant towards the cost with the rest funded by you.  I was expecting to pay a couple of hundred quid but I got a call this morning from Efficient Homes and was told my contribution would be over £1500 to insulate the loft plus I was not able to have the pitched roof insulation which is what I really wanted.  I’m sure I could get a professional insulation company to do the job cheaper than £1,500 but was curious to know if anyone else had registered?  What have your experiences been so far?  Anyone know how much the actual grant amount is?

Hi, been using Charge Anytime for many months now and pretty flawless (2 times failed since started using). This week though the app hasn’t updated from the car since Monday (4 days) and so it’s charging straight away when plugged in.I’m sure it is not my cars fault (Mini Cooper SE) as its own app if working perfectly - this proves that the Mini/BMW servers are working normally.It’s as though the app needs a ‘pull down to refresh’ function! Force quitting the app and restarting still shows status from my Mini last updated 4 days ago!I have emailed the team but wondered if anyone else here affected or any tips to kickstart it working again.

Hi all,New to the forum and to solar panels.  This isn’t really my area, so I apologise in advance if any of these questions don’t make sense.We got a combined ASHP and solar panel setup last week and they finally got the solar panels up and running yesterday.  There’s an issue with the battery, but they’re getting that sorted out with the supplier.Our system is using:Solis Hybrid invertor (Rhi 5kw Hybrid Single Phase)V-TAC 5kw battery (VT48100E)10 x 410w V-TAC half mono solar panels (VT-410B) I have a couple of questions though:1 - I noticed on the SolisCloud app that generated and consumed energy figures are the same.  Is this because we currently don’t have a battery and aren’t exporting to grid?2 - The app shows used from as being 0, but I know there has been times when we pulled from the grid yesterday.3 - When we are no longer generating power from the panels (ie at night) the invertor switches off.  Should th

Hi,My Charge Anytime app seems to have stopped working for some reason. I have been using it successfully since Feb 2023 with no issues however now it shows as last updated Saturday 26 August, one week ago. My car is a BMW 530e and is still charging when I plug it in (and it shows it is charging on my BMW app) however I can’t get the Charge Anytime app to update. I have not changed my car, charger (BP pulse) or energy plan nor have I changed anything in either my BMW or Charge Anytime apps nor the settings in my vehicle. I have tried logging out and back into both my charge anytime and BMW apps but this has had no impact.Any thoughts/ideas greatly appreciated!Many thanks.

My gas usage is not showing hourly, although electricity is showing hourly. The smart meter is sending half hourly info and this has been checked by OVO. I’ve uninstalled the app and reinstalled it, checked online, logged out and back in again, and was told to ask on here for help by the chat assistant, as I think they have run out of ideas. Does anyone have any ideas please?

We are trying to get a smart meter installed to replace our THTC meters.  We have been told by engineers who visited yesterday that, in order to get rid of our THTC meters, we need to change to a heritage economy 7 meter first then we can swap to a smart meter. Is this correct? We have storage heaters and need to keep an economy 7 type tariff. Getting in touch with OVO to get this heritage meter is proving difficult!!

Hi - does anyone have any experience of the lead in time between placing an order with OVO and getting an EV Charger installed?  Trying to work out if I should use them or use a different company to get this done. ThanksMatt

I have recently had an Indra Smart Pro EV Charger installed and joined charge Anytime.  All went well for the first charge, then I had red flashing light which stopped after several resets and leaving it for a while.Now I have a constantly flashing White Indra Logo (Almost ready to charge apparently) and when I connect the car it starts charging almost immediately, the car reads it is charging at 7.5kWh but the website for indra shows it as charging at 0.0 kWh and it does not record how much energy is being used hence will not log that information into the Charge Anytime calculations.  Resets of the unit have not helped. Has anyone else seen anything similar?