Home and heating

Cadent managed to cut through the mains electricity cable to our house earlier today.... Just our house has been impacted. I don't think Cadant have been careful all week with their digging.... Cadent are in the process of replacing all the mains gas pipes in our area so have been digging in the area for weeks UK Power Networks were quickly on the scene after we told them. Cadent hadn't even told UK Power when we phoned... But UK Power Networks couldn't start work until Cadent made the area safe. No eta to get fixed yet. Just wondering is it worth putting in a complaint to Cadant? I would rather not claim on house insurance for  spoiled food. UK Power have been excellent keeping us informed, Cadent useless.  

I have been with OVO for over 20 years but recently my attempt to upgrade to an Air Sourced Heat Pump and also get a Solar plus battery survey and feasibility assessment has been a total failure and as a result I have left OVO and joined OCTOPUS who within just 10 days have got everything assessed and sorted . By comparison the designated OVO assessor cancelled his appointment at very short notice, made a new appointment and then failed to show up. I phoned his number and emailed and left messages to reschedule but received no reply and when I visited my OVO account ALL the publicity and links to the ASHP and Solar plus battery offers had been removed so I must assume that OVO has PAUSED ITS CAMPAIGN FOR LOGICAL or other reasons. WHY DID IT ALL GO SO WRONG?

I am exploring the possibility of asking my energy supplier to  design an Air Source Heat Pump- plus small Condensing Gas Boiler Hybrid System as this would appear to offer the best of both worlds and enable the whole C/H system to work both efficiently and give strong ‘on demand’ heating and hot water ‘on tap’ plus a degree of resilience against individual unit performance degradation. DO any OVO Forum members have first hand experience of design, installation and use of such a system? This Hybrid approach is intended to be an alternative to having an ASHP for whole house background heating and hot water storage plus a balanced flue gas fire added into the living room or lounge to cater for all those sudden ‘on demand’ room heating moments during the year. at a similar overall installation cost (but with the potential for a more intelligent control program to be applied) that is essentially an enhanced ‘fit, setup and forget’  solution to home heating for the future. Apparently, as lo

Hello everyone — our house is about 32 years old, and we're debating whether to spend money on new insulation or replace some of our windows first. If you've tackled insulation and air sealing projects, what improvements did you notice in terms of comfort, energy bills, and overall home efficiency?

Wondered if anyone can answer my query Im an existing FIT payment receiver (solar panels installed with single string inverter 11 years ago) so receive a decent FIT payment. Recently had installed a EcoFlow 3.6kw inverter with 10kw battery storage, the generation meter was changed to a bidirectional meter as instructed and followed the correct schematic. However the meter is showing a negative number and I can’t seem to work out what the solar panels are generating apart from what shows in the EcoFlow app We charge the batteries up at night using an off peak rate and then any solar during the day tops the batteries up. am I correct in thinking there should be another meter of sort between the solar panels and inverter just to monitor the generation from The solar panels? installers seem to think by summer it will change to a positive but that’s no good to me right now when I’ve generated about 30kw of solar   

Back again with a weird one. I’ve had to chase Octopus a couple of times for Outgoing payment since starting tariff in March. Which they have done when asked, just prefer not to be asking. Anyway since the last payment the Solar export figures have been way down. With the decent weather we’d been getting payments anywhere up to £1.15 per day. But as of last Weds after the payment they gave us most we have received is 19p. And we have had some amazing sun. Our usage hasn’t changed in the house but it’s dropped right off. It’s not as though it’s not doing its thing it’s just not as much as I would of expected considering it’s getting warmer.Does something weird happen to panels if it’s very hot? Any insight would be really appreciated.Also they’ve been in a year now do they ever need cleaning? 

I have a pair of Dimplex Duoheat N HHR heaters and one of them is not working on background mode (the cheap rate charge). It does work on comfort mode (radiant heat) and passes the self-diagnostic check describesd in the instruction manual.Before I call out an electrician, I would like to ask if it is possible that the thermal cut out has tripped, and is this something that I can reset myself?

Hi, I have been running a Dimplex Quantum QM050RF for a year or 2. I have an energy monitoring system attached to most circuits in the house (Emporia Vue) and note that the Quantum only charges up at 700W (max) on the offpeak supply. As I am with Octopus Intelligent Go tariff, I only get 6 hours of charging per day ie the Quantum only charges up to (700W x 6 hours =) 4.2kWh per day. This is corroborated by the Quantum's own historical stats (accessible via the display and controls).How can I get around this issue as I am not getting sufficient heat from 4.2kWh during winter to adequately heat the room in question (a small kitchen)?

My heating and cooling costs remain high despite a window replacement and attic insulation. I’m considering having a home energy audit performed but have no idea what kind of company to use or what tests would be performed. I would greatly appreciate any insights and recommendations.

Hi, I live in Dundee, Scotland which is a fairly large city, senior citizen currently on pre payment meter THTC and know all about the RTS switch off. Made arrangements with OVO to change over to pay as you go Smart meter, Engineer arrived yesterday and couldn't do the switch as the Smart meter failed to connect, he sent the relevant information to OVO that no installation had been made, what happens next?Engineer just said let OVO figure it out, can someone help

Hello, I have two meters, one for standard electricity and the other which connected to a radio signal meter. I have two consumer units, one for standard electricity and the other for storage heating which I do not have. The consumer unit which is connected to the radio meter has a large sticker on it which says PERMANENTLY CONNECTED. This supply although from the radio meter never goes off. I have underfloor heating and hot water which runs from this consumer unit and is on all the time apart from when the room thermostats switch it off. Would I need to smart meters. Is this setup correct. Thank you all.

Hi Everyone,Thank you to all those who helped last year regarding Air Source heat pump as my oil boiler went down and i was having trouble with my housing association about when it was going to be installed etc. That was in May last year. Fast forward to this year we now have a heating system ....its Storage heating and I spoke to OVO regarding all this being changed in January this year apparently yes then at the last hour it was no. Ok so I tried to look for a different company that do Economy 7 tariff. Found one but now OVO don't want to let me go due to a huge bill which I have due to it being wintertime and having to use electric heaters due to no heating system can anyone advise  me what to do obviously I didn't really want to leave but ....its a case of having to but then if OVO did Economy 7 or something similar I wouldn't have to.

If my batteries reach 100% before the sun goes down the solarman app shows 100% all night.  It doesn’t reset until the actual soc gets down to around 70% the next day.  when this is a problem for me is when then sun is putting out and my batteries show 100% they won’t charge.  The following screen shot shows this happening.  I should be getting around 7kw right now, but I don’t because the batteries are showing 100%.  Nothing goes to the grid because I have it set that way.  My only fix is to plug my truck in or create a large draw and make the actual soc gone down below 70% and then the soc suddenly will show 65% or so.  Any help would be appreciated. 

Can I get a statement of all the FIT payments received since installation of our PV panels?

Hi all this is my first post,I want to add dual fuel heating  elements to 3 designer rads and 3 towel rails in my house.looking to fit more designer rads to the house over time.I am by trade a plumber but not a heating engineer, not gas safe I mean.I can see that you can get heating elements with built-in thermostats and Wi-Fi. Is there a way of linking  all these, using  the same heating type of course to a specific room stat that is just for these elements, when on electric. the reason is I am planning to fit 14 solar panels a sun sink 5KW inverter and 16.1 Fogstar battery. I would like the option of using electric heating sometimes but when it gets really cold, December January still using MY gas central heating.thanks in advance 

Bear in mind I’m not solar savvy...I had solar panels installed in July last year and everything worked fine ...using the Fox cloud app etc .I updated the app and now it appears that my battery is not charging and my daily production is showing the same every day ? How do I set up my battery again to use the charge during the night? All the apps shows is my grid importing and the energy being used in y home ? I find the whole thing bloody confusing as, as the weather has improved eg generating more solar my daily bill is lower but nothing being shown on the app ? Is there a different app I could use or do I need to get the installers back ? Cheers in advance Andy  

I have a Landis + Gyr 5246C meter that was installed in October 2014 and runs Economy 7 in my flat. There’s no radio teleswitch label on the meter and no separate box with a radio teleswitch label. Does this mean RTS isn’t used to switch between peak and off-peak? I don’t want to upgrade to a smart meter unless i absolutely have to. OVO have sent various letters about upgrading to a smart meter but none of them have mentioned the RTS switch off.