Green tech & greener living

For my sins I have noted monthly usage for my gas and electricity for the past 5 years and thought smart meters would allow a consistent regular means of recording my utility usage. Since my Smart Meters were fitted Feb 2017 my electricity has readings have been comparable with previous years but my gas useage has not. Who at OVO is able to check that my gas meter is working properly , first proper month (March 2017) after installation reported 208 units gas compared to an average for this month of 75 units previously. Thanks

When using Secure Liberty 112, what does E1 mean? And, when pressing button 6, how do I stop the meter scrolling too fast through lots of info?

I am expecting my EV in November , I’m an SSE ENERGY customer, SSE have pointed me towards ZOOM EV for my EV tariff , they say I have to join OVO .. I’m not at home during the day so all my charging will be done overnight, the info I see is the tariff is set 24hrs a day at 16.7p KWH , I was hoping for an off peak discounted rate …. Can someone Please help, advise and ping me in the right direction if what to do that is the cheapest option thanks

Hi We had our SMETS2.0 smart meter and IHD last year. Looks like there's still bugs. 😉 As you can see from the attached photos, the IHD is properly synchronised and paired with the meter, the right meter, and it gets the meter readings, and the meter has the right time on it; however, the IHD doesn't have the right time. No amount of resetting the IHD seems to cure this. This means it messes up the night mode timings (and also confuses me, I keep thinking it's earlier than it is, lol!) The IHD model is Chameleon IHD3-PPMID / CA30111. The meter is an Aclara SGM1413-B. The communications hub is a Toshiba SKU-1 Cellular. (I have another photo I've not posted demonstrating that the MPANs match on both meter and IHD too.) I know it's not a high priority issue but I thought I'd best feed it back to you. Julie x

Hello. I'm trying to calculate the power consumption of a heat pump so that I can buy an electric generator with the required power production in case of a power outage. My heat pump specifications: Do I understand correctly that the value specified in the specification "maximum current: 13 Amperes" is the current consumed in only one phase? That is, in total, the heat pump will consume 39 amperes (15600 watts) in a worst case? Or is it the total current consumed by the all three phases (5200 watts)? Also, it is interesting to know recommendations for starting a heat pump from a generator as a whole: what are the pitfalls; how much generator power reserve is needed; what about compressor starting currents, etc. Thank you.

Hi there, Recent OVO customer, been a long time since I've been one. I'd like to have smart meters installed, but would appreciate some advice as to whether we have enough room first, because access to the gas meter is a tad limited due to some building work (so I want to know before I book to avoid charges). We also have quite an old Electricity meter so I figure I will also ask about clearance/room there as well while I'm here First up, Gas Meter (note, I'll have moved all our stuff out the way!): Gap is 40cm wide so a bit tight. Would rather not have to smash up the under-stairs cupboard right now. Secondly, electricity meter: This is our electricity meter box. Its a 1930s house so upstairs landing is the location. As you can see, space between the electricity meter and the DNO fuse is not huge 17cm but perhaps its enough? Any advice most welcome, rather than me booking an appointment and finding out the hard way!

My review of the Chameleon ivie Bud IHD Hey there! The name’s 186, Blastoise186 (my real name is classified) and I’m one of the forum volunteers on the OVO Forum. I’m not usually one for tech reviews despite being a tech wizard, but when I heard that Chameleon Technology were working on a new IHD model, I was curious to try it out. In this case, it’s the ivie Bud. Now to be clear, I already have two Chameleon IHD6-CAD-PPMID IHDs supplied by OVO (long story!), so I don’t technically need a third one and OVO definitely won’t send me another one! As such, I used this chance to simulate buying one for myself in a situation where a supplier wouldn’t provide one at all. For the purposes of transparency and full disclosure, I purchased the ivie Bud myself with my own money. Neither OVO nor Chameleon asked me to do this review and I’ve received no compensation either for doing so. Which also means that I can give my true opinions of it and not upset anyone. I also had my own reasons for obtaining the ivie Bud, as Chameleon had previously made a promise to me that they’d fix some other issues I’d previously discovered in the IHD6 in their future models. I can’t go into details about those issues at the time however, as I’m still under NDA about them. As for what happened to my ivie Bud device afterwards? Read on to find out. I’ll explain that as well. It’s also important for me to mention that this review is written completely independently of OVO and Chameleon in my personal capacity as a forum volunteer. All views are my own and should be treated as such. What is it? Firstly, what is the ivie Bud exactly? Well, it’s a Chameleon IHD that’s branded as being ivie as part of this new venture Chameleon are working on. Physically the ivie Bud looks very much like the existing IHD6 and it basically is - except that it’s actually a re-badged Chameleon IHD7-CAD-PPMID v1.2. More on that later. From what I’ve read, Chameleon pitches the ivie Bud has having multiple purposes. Firstly, as a replacement SMETS2 IHD for anyone who doesn’t currently have one and can’t get hold of one, as well as for anyone who wants to get real-time usage data in a smartphone app, which is reported as an upcoming feature integration. As it’s not out yet, I can’t currently play with that functionality though. Other than that, it’s the usual purposes you’d get from any IHD. How to get an ivie Bud Ordering the device was pretty easy. There’s a compatibility check on their website - and I strongly recommend using it before ordering - to make sure your smart meters will work so you don’t get your hopes up and then dashed. Having placed the order early morning, it arrived the next day by courier. And here’s my first issue. The price. At £50 plus another £4 for delivery, I feel it’s a bit steep for what it is and at that price, I’d have wanted free delivery. Oh well. Setup is supposedly simple. You get the device out of the box, fire it up, connect to Wi-Fi, scan a QR Code with your phone and follow the instructions. Or at least… That’s what it says… Almost immediately, I ran into problems. I use some pretty fancy Ubiquiti UniFi kit for my home network and while most Wi-Fi enabled gadgets see all of my four access points as broadcasting a single network, the ivie Bud detected each one individually, meaning I had a total of 16 of my own Wi-Fi Networks listed when I actually only have four. Not ideal and suggests poorly designed firmware - and I’ve not even got it set up yet. I never saw this behaviour with the IHD6, so clearly something has changed with the ivie Bud/IHD7. I’ll be contacting ivie about this so hopefully a future firmware update solves it. That’s not meant to happen! Firmware flaws already?!?!?! How to connect the ivie Bud to my smart meters Actually connecting to Wi-Fi took mere seconds. I do not recommend using the WPS Pin or WPS Push methods for security and reliability reasons - use Scan instead as it’s a lot more reliable. With that out of the way, came activation. You’re supposed to create an account to use this device and it then joins your Home Area Network and pairs to the meters by itself afterwards - this is possible because of Chameleon being a DCC Other User, so your supplier doesn’t need to get involved. For me, that was harder than it seems. My environment is unusual because I’m in a block of flats with fire-rated walls everywhere. I also found the locate address tool unreliable and there was no locate by MPAN this time - I actually had to use the account creation via the Samsung SmartThings integration to get the account created at all, since only that side has the locate by MPAN option. At this point, the ivie Bud started to pair to my Smart Meters, so I unplugged the charger and went off to get closer to Raichu, my smart meter. Big mistake. As soon as I did so, the ivie Bud lost power immediately and then got stuck on the activation screen again. In comparison, I’ve done this walk many times before with the Kecleon Brothers and it’s always worked fine because both of them have an internal rechargeable battery. Further inspection with a bright light revealed that the ivie Bud is missing said battery. Bummer. That also makes it ultimately unsuitable for you if you're on Pay As You Go because you’ll never be able to use the device if your power goes out, unlike with an IHD6. It took several hours of leaving the ivie Bud on before it managed to automatically re-run the activation process and there’s no way to speed things up. This time, after it completed initial activation, I took it down the hallway to be near Raichu and took the power cable with me so that I could get it to connect to my HAN and Wi-Fi at the same time. To set up and actually use ivie Bud, you have to stay connected to both at once so the only thing that made this possible is because my long range Ubiquiti UniFi U6-LR access point Mega Exploud can broadcast a Wi-Fi signal powerful enough to blast through 50 metres of fire rated walls. If I didn’t have such overpowered Wi-Fi, it would have been game over. This isn’t an issue with most IHDs, since all other IHDs to date don’t require Wi-Fi to set up - you can just quickly call your supplier and follow their steps, or - more likely - the engineer who installs your smart meters would pair up your shiny new IHD for you before they hand it over for the first time. Four hours in, I finally get to play with the device properly, but unfortunately this was short lived and I’ll explain why further down. The short version is that from my hour or two of using the ivie Bud, it was ultimately no different to the IHD6 other than having a built-in temperature sensor and no battery. If you already know how the IHD6 works, then you know how the ivie Bud works. Still, to give Chameleon some credit, the menus are well designed and the display is a breeze to use - once you get it working - so it’s not all bad. I just wish I could say more… While poking around in the settings menu, I decided to test out the “Full Reset” function, which totally resets the device with a warning I’d have to complete activation again… That was my final mistake. After the device rebooted, it had clearly done a full reset and was once again awaiting activation. Great, so you might think it’s ready to set up again… Right…? Nope! Ahh… That’s not good... Instead, I was shocked to see that the cloud portal didn’t pick up on the reset - despite the device being online at the time - and basically meaning it’s a brick. Sure, I can contact support to resolve it, but this isn’t a great user experience. This is however, both a curse and a blessing. While it’s annoying that I can’t self-reactivate an ivie Bud if I accidentally disable it, this does at least prevent already devices from being randomly sold on eBay or Amazon as a “new” device since Chameleon probably wouldn’t allow them to be reset. It’s a bit like how the Find My Device features work on Android and iOS - if the anti-theft kicks in, no-one but the verified device owner can unlock and set the device back up. I’m hopeful that this mechanism will encourage users to leave the ivie Bud behind when they move out, so the new owner can pick it up and set it up again. And now comes my verdict. What do I think of the ive Bud? Based on the short time I’ve had with the ivie Bud so far, can I recommend it? Well, the answer is maybe. At least, for now anyway. Firmware issues, poor setup experience, a bricked ivie Bud (which probably can be fixed) and the high price means I don’t think ivie Bud realistically lives up to the hype at the moment. If you’re desperate for a new IHD and have Wi-Fi (and the tech know-how) to set it up with or you’ve currently got a SMETS2 Chameleon IHD3, IHDL SmartView 2 or basically any non-touchscreen SMETS2 IHD, then sure, definitely feel free to give the ivie Bud a try, as there’s not much to lose and you’ll probably find some use in the ivie Bud. But if you’ve already got a Chameleon IHD6, Hildebrand Glow or Geo Trio II Touch IHD that’s working fine, you’re probably better off sticking with that. If you’re not tech-savvy and/or don’t have Wi-Fi, then I’m afraid this isn’t the device for you. A lack of constant Wi-Fi access will be an instant showstopper and you’ll never get the device running, while a lack of a smartphone and/or paperless billing will make the setup process a lot more difficult. The only other use case which I can’t recommend the device at all, is if you’re on Pay As You Go and need to be able to enter UTRN Top-Up Codes if you go off-supply. The ivie Bud will lose power if it’s unplugged from the mains, so you’ll want to keep your existing IHD charged for this purpose or enter the codes directly on your meter. The other bit of good news is that this device is a LOT more reliable than the SmartView 2 that I’ve heard nightmares about and is far more likely to work than any random eBay or Amazon bought IHD. I also genuinely think ivie Bud has potential here. It won’t suit everyone, but I’m pretty sure there’ll be someone out there who’ll get hold of it and love it. The design of the device is excellent just like the IHD6 (and therefore IHD7) that the ivie Bud is based on, and the menus and screens are well thought out. It’s just a huge shame that Raichu is such a secure meter, otherwise I’m sure I’d have loved ivie Bud. To be totally fair, a lot of my issues could just be down to my unique circumstances. I’ve almost deliberately got an environment which is challenging for any IHD and my smart meter Raichu runs in a super secure state where basically only OVO, DCC and my DNO can do anything with it - all DCC Other Users appear to be locked out. Your mileage may vary, but hopefully won’t be like mine. On top of that Chameleon did get back to me as part of my returns request. They recognise me from previous contact and confirmed that most of the issues I experienced relate to my site and have agreed to a full no-quibble refund. They actually offered a replacement, but they don’t think it would help I’ve decided to let this review stand anyway because I want to discuss my actual personal experience, but hopefully this won’t be your experience. While it didn’t work out for me, you’ll probably have a far better experience. And to be totally fair, based on the response from the ivie team, they do care about customer service. For me though, the biggest let down relates primarily to the fact that the ivie Bud feels too much like a watered down Chameleon IHD6 with little else thrown in. Chances are that won’t be a problem for most people, but for me, when I’ve already got two full-fat IHD6, I really don’t want a watered down one as it’s a major downgrade over the Kecleon Brothers. Final thoughts on the ivie Bud As for my ivie Bud, sadly I’m sending mine back for a refund. I genuinely wanted to love the device and had planned to create more content about it on the OVO Forum, but given that the Chameleon IHD6 is already well documented here and there’s practically nothing new to write home about with the Chameleon IHD7 that lies within the ivie Bud… It’s not worth my time and I’m ultimately walking away empty handed and slightly out of pocket because I’ll need to pay return postage myself. I hope Chameleon Technology see this post and reach out to me about my experiences with their platforms - if they want to do that, my PM’s are open. Will I get another one in the future? Well, maybe I’ll come back to it some day. As one of the first customers to buy the device after the official launch, it might just be a rough launch to begin with. But if my experience is anything to go by, there clearly needs to be some polishing up to do before I’d make a second attempt. But that would result in me having four IHDs, which is also my limit.

Hi There, As you can imagine i am looking to reduce my Elec bill and i have calculated 40% of my elec bill is due to charging my PHEV car at night, so i am keen to get on the Economy 7 Tariff and take advantage of the discount rate timings.I previously have managed to speak to Ovo customer service and was told this is not possible due to having a SMETS 1 smart meter which cannot do a dual tariff required for Eco 7 tariff. I asked if i can get the meter changed but was told this is not available at this time, even if i was willing to pay for the change... After doing a bit of digging on here and online to see if there is anything else i can do, i believe i have a SMETS 2 (Landis & Gyr E 470) meter but linked to a Trilliant SEAP-2001-V comms hub which is limiting the capabilities of the smart meter. I believe this is true after reading this. My Current Set up below. My Smart Meter Set up? Is it possible to change the Comms hub alone and not the meter to allow me to get on the ECO 7 Tariff? Is this possible to do with OVO? Apprieciate the picture shows there is no space for the top mounted comms hub, but there is potential to move things around to make space. Sorry if this is a repeat question but I would struggle to explain this over the phone so thought it would be best to ask here, as i have seen some really positive discussion and positive outcomes on other messages here! Many thanks in advance. Jimbo

Hi, While tinkering with my UFH and trying to develop a control algorithm for my “virtual” thermostats, I ended up here and on other forums and realized I am doing everything WRONG. Shame on me 🤣 I have already read up on as much as I good on related topics, watched all the related heatgeek videos I could find. I get it now, low and slow is the game, and right now the weather is perfect to commission the system and dial in by weather compensation curve . I seem to have got the right temperature down for the current(2-3c) weather and will try it out during the night when it hits 0c today. I am currently also at 4c(it does move between 3-5) of TD between in and return flow. So what I now learned (if its wrong please correct me): Low and Slow Weather Comp. Limit 3rd party intervention Low setback Use thermostats (or in my case smart relays with temp. sensors that shut the valves) Try to at least have one zone running to reduce cycling (if applicable) Now I think I am nearing completion to a degree, but more questions now arose that I hope ya’ll here could help or at least explain: Hypothetically, you discover a perfect curve, that always matches your target temperature @ all outside temps (till heating is no longer needed), does the heat pump then never shut off, assuming that you keep your rooms at a fixed temperature (no setback). COP will be amazing, but what about the actual electrical usage through the month? I have discovered that at the moment, 34 degrees is perfect to maintain my house at 22c and with all stats open thats exactly where my house is at. What happens when I want to up the temperature in the guest bedroom to 24c, the system wont have enough power for that, wont it? What if my temperature demands change, do I need to go back and up my curve. As far as I saw, the ecodan does not have the best control ux so bumping it all would be a pain, is there a better way to do this? Maybe some thermostat suggestions? Is there an option to even do this via cloud (its a smart home so thats expected) So from what I learned and if understood correctly my plan is this: Make the living room my main, “always”(till the stats close lets say when the sun heats it up) open circuit. Its the largest area in the house, has floor to ceiling windows and has more windows that wall. Is South facing so during the day gets plenty of solar heat (even in winter times if its not cloudy) Then use the stats in the living quarters to modulate the temperature as needed. So if a guest comes that likes it cool, he can crank it down to 18, but unsure how this would work if someone wanted it much hotter (hope the question above answer this) My current setup: ERST20C-VM2D No buffer UFH in all rooms - all set as 1 zone New Construction Located in North Italy Current COP (why I even entered this rabbit hole to begin with): None for October (first cold is Nov) 2.64375 for November 2.40 for 2022 so far My previous way of running it: Temperature sensors in every room report to smart relays that open/close the valves. Since I have direct access to the programming, I dialed in the open/close thresholds for every room, usually about 1-1.2c below is when it opens and closes 0.3-0.4c before reaching target (I came up with these numbers analyzing the data). On sunny days, I only need heating at about 3-6 in the morning (thats now), dependent on how cool the outside is, as soon as the sun goes up, the living room(main area) needs 0 heating and can last about 30-35hours before dropping again to the ON temp for the stat. The bedrooms are behind it, so get way less sun and hence they only capitalize from the solar heat passively. Maybe theres no reason to go low and slow in my use case at all assuming how low my heat demands are? Thank you and I cherish every tip

Our account homepage says the smart meter isn’t sending a reading and could we help by submitting a reading. But clicking on ‘submit a reading’ leads to a page saying we have a smart meter and don’t need to submit a reading… There’s no email contact on the support page to submit a reading. What’s the solution please?

Hi! I've got my smart meter yesterday but something went wrong and my boiler is not working. It's Friday night and I have no hot water until the next week???

Can anyone recommend a good efficient electric wall heater. The one I currently have is eating electric and I can't afford to have the heating on. Any help would be appreciated

Our Liberty 100 meter has started beeping for some reason. There is a code of E1. What does this mean? We also have a message about credit and cost, but we pay by monthly DD. Can anybody out there please tell us how to stop this beeping???

I've been considering getting a company to do a thermal survey of our house, to see where we could improve insulation and reduce heat loss. But having seen the photos that @hambrook took with his IR camera I'm wondering if it might be better to buy one and do it myself. Has anyone had a thermal survey done? Was it worth the money? Does anyone else have an IR camera and have used it to improve their home? Are there any other views on which is best?

I have read a similar query where it appeared there was a discrepancy between the smart meter and the display unit injtially I thought this might be my issue, but just now doing further investigation into my £20+ / day costs found my meter is showing the same rate as my display I should only be paying 34p, even if that is + VAT I appear to being charged far too much my bills are scarily high, but it would appear they shouldn’t be as high as you are showing me.

I’m wondering about the significance of the ‘supply address’ as opposed to the ‘billing address’ on my account. This is in part prompted by my smart meter’s stubborn refusal to be adopted by DCC. When I visit https://smartmetercheck.citizensadvice.org.uk, I’m consistently told that ‘we can’t find your meter.’ One possible explanation for this is that the ‘supply address’ is in a different postcode from the meter itself*, and postcodes seem to have some vital role to play in any aspect of energy supply. Is this a possibility? Another reason for my concern is that if I visit https://switch.ovoenergy.com in order to find out how much I’ll be paying once my fixed-price contract runs out, I see a message reading “Good news! We already supply your home, so we can give you a more accurate quote ...” But when I examine the Tariff Information Label, I see that this ‘more accurate quote’ is for single-rate electricity, when my meter is set up for E7. In order to see the equivalent two-rate tariff, I have to enter the address of a house half a mile away in the next postcode, which it shares with my ‘supply address’. So how come this function can’t see that I have an E7 account? Incidentally, it did cross my mind that it was the distance from the nearest communication masts that was making it difficult to get the meter adopted by DCC. However, all my postcode investigations having led me to intimate details of my neighbours’ meters, I plugged in the MPAN for the house next door to the CAB tool and was peeved to see that their meter had been migrated last year: Your electricity meter's working in smart mode Supplier: E.ON Next Energy Limited This means your meter should automatically send readings to your supplier, so you don't need to send them yourself. It's working in smart mode because you have a first generation (SMETS1) meter that’s on the smart meter data network. The network connects your smart meter to energy suppliers ... So poor communication was not likely to be the reason. * I guess that this is because this rented cottage was earlier occupied by the estate’s gamekeeper, with his bills paid by the estate. The manor house is in the next postcode, so someone made that the ‘supply address.’ I did have to change the address for correspondence after I moved in several years ago, since my bills were being delivered to the manor house. This hasn’t hitherto caused problems, until perhaps now.

I am considering buying a house which has an ashp half installed. a huge amount of work/insulation has been done but not completed. The 3-layer radiators have been bought but not fitted. My question is whether the existing 15mm diameter pipework will be adequate? I read somewhere today that ideally it should be 22mm diameter or more.

These meters are pretty ancient looking. Looks like they need replacing urgently !! Please advise.

Hi all rightly or wrongly, been trying to get smart metres fitted to gas and electricity. Booked up a free visit last year with OVO engineer and he took one look at it and said can't do it gov because your gas and electricity metres are too close to each other. And off he went. So, been toing and froing with OVO and they said they will be able to fit smart metres if minimum distance between said meters is achieved and it will cost me £125 to them to movement the gas metre, or so I thought..... So booked a date in November for what I thought was going to be OVO to move the gas metre and was then told to phone Cadent i.e. British Gas for them to actually repositioned meter. Got a provisional quote from them for £790 to move it less than a metre !! The cadent person also said there is no legal requirement for a minimum distance to be achieved for older gas and electricity installations although these days there is for new installations. Googled it and couldn't find anything relating to it other than forum posts discussing whether there is room for the smart metres or not but don't have that problem at all here. So, obviously not going to pay them £790 to move a gas metre and looks like I'll have to ask for the £125 I paid to OVO back unless of course anyone here knows different and the first engineer wasn't quite correct in saying I can't have smart metres due to the closeness of the existing meters? Hope someone can help out. Thanks in advance

Right another query from me. :) I have noticed that my smart meter and my remote for my boiler read different room temperatures.. Any idea why? Had heating set for 13 overnight.. smart meter said it was 15 in the flat.. Turned heat up to 16 after I got up.. and smart meter says its currently 18.. No way in heck its 18 in here.. Why the discrepency???? Is this causing any issues with my usage? Any ideas welcome.

Hi Just started to review our usage on the small monitor and don't understand why the hourly usage between 1.30am and 5.30am is almost as high as when i had the washing machine and dish washer on this morning. Any idea? Thanks

Hello, Sorry if this is a bit long-winded, but we are getting so frustrated with this matter. Earlier this month, the fitting day arrived for our new OVO electricity and gas smart meters. The engineer was brilliant and fitted our electricity smart meter in no time. However, he was unable to fit the gas smart meter, as the bracket on the old gas meter was broken. We live in a house owned by a housing association and, when we had an annual gas inspection in 2016, we and a neighbour required some work done and, in doing this, the contractor must have broken the bracket on the gas meter, but we never knew about it until we came to have a smart meter fitted. We have lived in the house since it was built and the gas meter was brand new and has been sitting in a meter box in a cupboard, clean and in excellent condition, until the bracket was broken. The OVO engineer also wasn’t sure about the regs regarding the plastic gas pipe coming from the gas meter, as the pipe is in a cupboard (made of brick and attached to the house), so he called out Cadent. The Cadent man wasn’t sure of the regs regarding the plastic gas pipe, but he shook the meter bracket in front of us (the OVO engineer had gone by this time) and said it was solid and safe. He said he would return in 3 days, when he found out the regs regarding the plastic gas pipe. He never returned and my husband contacted OVO, but we are still awaiting them getting back to us! So, I contacted the housing association and explained things to them. The compliance manager got back to me and said he has discussed this with their gas contractors and can confirm that there are no concerns with regards to the pipework at our property and went on to say this would be confirmed by the attendance of Cadent engineers not issuing any safety concerns or isolating the gas supply. So, that’s fine; however, we still have the problem of the broken bracket and the compliance manager said housing association is not responsible for it. He advised us to contact the meter company and advise of this update and request that the meter is replaced. This is where we are going round in circles, as the OVO man cannot replace the meter bracket, so cannot fit the gas smart meter. The gas meter is now almost 28 years old, so does need replacing, but how can we get around this problem? We didn’t break the bracket and so don’t want to have to pay for it to be replaced. Thank you, in advance, for any advice anyone can give, as we really need this gas smart meter, now the prices have gone up so much.

Updated on 22/01/25 by Chris_OVO Heating strategies with an air source heat pump Air Source Heat Pumps (ASHP for short) offer a great chance for us to decarbonise how we heat our homes, as they’re designed to heat your home efficiently using electricity rather than fossil fuels like gas boilers. We’re lucky to have lots of heat pump owners here on the OVO online community. They’ve already been sharing some great insight into life with a heat pump for those who might be considering making the ASHP leap. We heard from two of them, @hydrosam and @hambrook, in our most recent online event on the 2nd of March (we’re hoping to publish a summary of themes and insights soon). That event has inspired the topic of our next ‘Share your experience’: heating strategies. After you’ve made the decision, accessed any relevant grants and the excitement of installation day has been and gone - you might be wondering exactly how this new heating system works best. Heating your home and providing hot water with a heat pump is different than with a gas powered boiler. You might need a change of radiators , perhaps you’ll need to get to grips with the heat pump controls instead of your smart thermostat , learn how to set different desired temperatures and perfect your hot water heating strategies . It might involve a behavioural shift in the way you think about your heating, with some saying it’s more cost effective and efficient to aim for a constant house temperature with an ASHP, rather than the on/off approach of gas power boiler and heat zoning of smart thermostats. That’s what we want to explore in this ‘Share your experience’ thread: What is the most cost effective and efficient way to heat your home with an air source heat pump? Is there a consensus among heat pump owners? Or does it vary from heat pump to heat pump? Join the discussion below - We’d love to hear your thoughts based on real life experience, and I’m sure anyone who’s recently had a heat pump fitted will feel the same!

How much does a 3kw heater cost to run per minute please?

A green e symbol as appeared on my smart meter only on electric circle can somebody tell me what it’s for?