Home and heating

 It seems quite straight forward doesn’t it? You stick a thermostat on the tank. If the water is cold you turn on the boiler/heat pump and heat it back up again. What’s the problem?Well if you know where heat is going and where it is being lost you make changes to reduce your losses.So I have an old (ancient?) 160l copper cylinder with around 1” of crumbly foam insulation. It has an additional insulating jacket and recently I have added further insulation (10cm thick Diall insulation roll – the stuff made from recycled plastic bottles).In June I added four temperature sensors at approximately 1/8, 3/8, 5/8 and 7/8 down from the top (this equates to around 20l, 60l, 100l and 140l of hot water above each sensor). I can also measure the indirect coil flow temperatures in and out, and the temperature of the cold water entering the tank.The first thing to note is that water is actually quite a poor conductor of heat. You need strong convection currents

Hi Had to change to smart meter due to telesignal switch off. Used to have total heating total control. Economy 7 doesnt heat my storage heaters enough. Requested change to single rate and ecaul sent to energised port 5 all the time. Ovo have refused this to send ecaul after changing to single rate. Its cold and don't know what to do next any help would be really appreciated at this time. 

Hi,I have recently had a Vaillant aroTherm Plus heat pump installed, which is eligible for the Heat Pump Plus add on.I have entered all details in the eligibility checker and got a message back saying that OVO will get in touch in the next 5-7 days. It has been more than 3 weeks and I haven't got any correspondence with OVO.I have sent an email to OVO, and also I have been redirected to Heat Pump department but the line just drops after a while.I have exhausted all communication channels to get to some one to no avail.Any recommendations as what to do now? Basically their tariff is the main reason I signed up with OVO but I cannot do a simple thing of adding their tariff.

My old RTS Meter (for off peak heating only) was switched off years ago - anybody in the same boat and waiting for a replacement?

We've had updated Dimplex storage heaters (Quantum QM100RF etc)  for 2 months now, and there’s one thing that isn't good. The kitchen has a patio door. In fine weather the sun comes through it in the afternoon and heats up the room a lot for an hour or more. We are on Economy 10, with its afternoon charging time coinciding with the most heat from the sun  to this room. The heater’s smartness seems to decide to stop charging it up with heat for later. I suppose it “thinks” that it's warm weather outside so it won't need to output much heat later.  That’s been OK until recently, when on some days it’s been sunny but very cold outside (freezing yesterday). The result is that the Quantum heater runs out of heat early in the evening.  The other rooms are shaded from the sun, and their heaters’ output fully all evening. Is there any way in which I can influence

Hi, I signed up to move over to OVO yesterday and gave all my details for Heat Pump Plus. But was emailed today saying they’ve paused onboarding new customers.Can anybody give any reason for this all timescales ?   

Hi guys,First timer here so thank you for letting me join.I have a condensate boiler with an outside pipe for the waste water. For the last two winters either my outside pipe or the condensate trap under the boiler has frozen. I have double lagged the outside pipe and I have lagged the trap as well. I am still worried that if we get a weeks worth of really cold weather ( like the last two winters ) something will freeze and the heating wont work.We are away from home for 3 weeks in January ( if I was home I wouldn’t be so worried ) and want to know if I could do the following in the basement. There are air bricks and small holes around the room.Could I get a small heater and use it with a thermostat plug so that if the temp drops below 3c or 4c the heater would kick in ?? If this is an idea then what size heater would I need. The room is about 10’ x 8’ and about 7’ high. The heater could sit close to the condensate trap and direct any heat onto it.

I’m reading a few recent posts on another group that OVO have stopped offering E10, and are now offering E7/E8 or E9, I’m aware that until recently OVO were the only supplier offering E10, can anyone else confirm this. Bit baffling as technically E9 and E10 are very similar - but obviously E9 has 1 hour less, are OVO just looking to save some money?

Hello,  looking for some advice - done a fair bit of research/reading but still a bit confused by a few things;we moved into a property in April that has a daikin heat pump (fitted in 2018). Obviously efficiency only really become an issue in last few weeks since heating required. Realise it’s a bit of a journey at the beginning to work out what you need from it.  We have 2 zones, UFH in main part of house (1 thermostat) and another thermostat for rads. we have set the thermostats to 18 in day (we don’t love a hot house) and 17 overnight. there seems to be conflicting advice as to whether you should set room thermostats or have it on constantly and just dictate room temp by trial and error with flow temp or am I missing something?Also everyone says you shouldn’t turn it on and off but when the fan is not running does that mean it is off as surely it has to cycle and the fan will stop when it gets the room to temp a

Dear OVO please supply 4hrs of cheap electricity overnight to charge my batteries? Battery boost is not good enoughNow winter has arrived please guarantee a miniumum of 4-5hrs of cheaper electricity so I wake up to 50-60% of my batteries charged. This could be from end of October to the end of March.Battery boost is inconsistant and not good enough!Please rectify the problem?   

I recently had a GivEnergy 9.5 battery installed to work with my solar panels. I am having difficulty getting the battery to charge manually via the app or online. I contacted GivEnergy and have been advised that there is an API ? in place with OVO and this may be stopping me setting a charge time to make use of my off peak periods (economy 10 with smart meter) I set it to charge manually for eg. 1 hour and it stops charging after about 10 mins 🤷‍♂️ Can anyone offer any advice please ?I should add that OVO are not charging my battery at any time and I’ve had it now for two months. The only time it charges is when the sun shines ! which in the Highlands isn’t often at this time of year !

Here goes I have a single tariff smart meter . I need take out my coal central heating due to health reason.I need a meter that can accommodate economy 7 or similar (2 rates) as I couldn't afford to run on a single tarrif And ideas would be helpful thanks 

Hi folks,Can anyone confirm if OVO are going to be making Grant ASHPs eligible for the Heat pump plus tariff?we’re in the process of deciding on a Grant aerono or a more expensive Vaillant, I’ve been told that the Grant ASHP will be eligible but I’ve seen nothing to confront this from OVO?thanks

I’ve recently bought a house which has solar panels already installed (no battery storage) along with the FiT Scheme. I have transferred ownership and I just have a few general/basic questions regarding the solar panels/FiT scheme. I’m only querying this as my neighbour in the same size house/same number of occupants (2 adults) is roughly £40 a month cheaper than us in energy bills without solar panels.I have just submitted my first generation reading to OVO and will receive my first payment in December. OVO have said that I am paid for any excess energy that I generate. Are the solar panels directly powering some appliances in my house and if so why don’t I see the benefits on my energy bill?  On average we use roughly 380kW per month and have a smart meter just for our electricity. Apologies for the basic questions, I just want to make sure I understand it all before selecting our new tariff. Thanks

Hello I have just moved into a one bedroom property (one open plan living area/kitchen downstairs) and one loft space bedroom upstairs. I am electricity only and am racking up useage of £90 a month. I am not using my heating (it's 9° inside!) I'm not using my washing machine or electric shower I can't understand how I'm using so much electricity.  I have been away for work from Monday to Wednesday evening this week and used 29kwh. Is this normal usage for just a fridge, a router and 2 smoke alarms? I'm too scared to put my heating on. I have not lived in an electric only property before so don't really know what is normal monthly expenditure for a one bedroom property? Any help would be appreciated.

I had x12 440w panels and a 9.5 & 5.4kwh GivEnergy batteries fitted earlier this year and I am really pleased with performance. This will be my first winter using Battery Boost and to date I am not sure about it especially when the heating will be on fully (electric only with no heat pump). I find it to be too intermittent, I would prefer to wake up with a minimum of 50% in the battery.Those of you that have had battery boost for a while are you happy with it? Many thanks.

 Two engineers have visited my house so far to fit a smart gas meter but they dont have the correct  fitting, nor an adaptor, to connect to the gas tap. It doesnt seem there is anything we can do about it!The size of the short copper pipe coming out of the flange and going into the lead pipe is 0.795 inch / 20mm outside diameter. The house is 1962 but the gas meter is 1994. I’m suprised that it is so unusal. Anyone know about gas pipe sizes?Incoming gas pipe

This may be a bit off topic for this thread, but researching alternative low rate tariffs, if found my self thinking that it might (should?) be possible to replace traditional brick-filled storage heaters with batteries. After all if it works for cars and trains, why not houses?

Hi, I recently moved in this flat. It comes with 2 storage heater which are made by creda. My electricity supplier is OVO and my plan is economy 7 and also have a smart meter. The problem is storage heater come on from 1 pm to 4:30 pm and also at midnight. But my off peak our is midnight to 7 am.There are no thermostat or time switch for the storage heater. Can you guide me with it? 

HelloThis seems obviously wrong but how do I solve it?It’s a Mitsubishi Ecodan system. The heating seems to be driven by the thermostat fixed on the side of the HWC, and not the roving thermostat.Fixed stat reports 19.5 actual / 18 requiredRoving reports 16.5 / 18How do I get it to use the roving thermometer?(yes, one solution is set the stat to 21 or something but that is not very helpful, thanks)The Melcloud app reflects the fixed readings.Thanks for any helpmelcloudfixedroving