Home and heating

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.

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.

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 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

I've previously posted with regard to my hot water and heating both being wired up to the off peak meter even though the storage heaters were replaced by thermal radiators before i moved in.  What I'm trying to find out is what hours the cheap rate actually is.  If i knew this then i could time my heaters to be on during these times rather than on the expensive rate. I just keep getting told it can be between 5-12 hours which is very vague.I know it changes depending on weather etc but surely there is a way of finding what those hours are.The sooner they phase out thtc and change my meter the cheaper it will be for me.Any help greatly appreciated

Why do my pvs give energy to the grid when the batteries are not full?  

We have recently had solar pv fitted, with iBoost on the hot water tank to use any generation excess.I am trying to get a figure for the savings made by using the solar pv to heat the hot water rather than the central heating gas boiler. There is a 3-way valve to control rads & hot water separately. This raises the question:Does 1 kWh of immersion heating produce roughly the same amount of hot water as 1kWh of a gas boiler heating the water? I realise it will not be identical due to efficiencies and losses, but are they similar?I hope to be able to compare costs of heating hot water by pv or gas, ie loss of SEG payment vs gas rate.Then I will know the savings to be made.

Hello, I have just had grid tied solar panels fitted, I believe I have to inform ovo within 28 days, is that correct

Ecodan COPGood morning  , I have just looked at the COP for March and seems to be 1.25 , which I believe is poor. 1.48 DHW and 1.10 for heating . I have the heating on weather compensation mode and hot wat at 45c eco mode .  New system just in since end of January so new to all of this !!!  4 bed detached , no UFH , 20c downstairs and 18c upstairs . 10 PV solar panels 4kw. Anything I should do to improve COP?

I have been trying to get a new heating system to replace electric storage heaters for over two years as my bills are very high in winter. I was told by one company that I had successfully got ECO3, but then so many delays happened that it was no longer valid and I had to wait for ECO4. Meanwhile the company closed down and some of the people started a new company. They told me after several months that I have been accepted for ECO4. That was about half a year ago now, and again, so many delays have happened and appointments cancelled by them that I've lost trust. This has been going on since 2020. The latest I heard from them is that it'll definitely be done a few weeks ago, so I moved all my furniture and wall decor away from walls etc and moved into my partner's place and I'm still here almost a month later. Recently they said they're delayed because they'd "run out of money", as ECO4 funding is only given after the job is complete, so they need to buy everything ou

I’m planning to get solar panels for my bungalow. I have a lot of south east facing roof space, an air source heat pump, and an electric car (low mileage). We are ‘at home all day’ and I am hoping to not need battery storage.The word on the street is to get as many PV panels as can fit on the roof, 24 would fit and the DNO is ok with that. How do I decide just how many panels to get ? Any advice would be gratefully received.

I bought my house 5 years ago.  There seem to be issues with the installation.  First there was no insulation on the external pipework.  Now I’ve been told (by a different company) that the pipes attached to the unit should not be lying on the ground (half buried) but raised and clipped to the wall.  It’s going to cost a bit of money and I’d like to know if this gentleman is correct with his observations.Any comments appreciated.

Many of us on here are interested in the COP of our heat pumps to see how efficiently they're running but most people will only be interested in what happens to their electricity consumption and bills. You often see claims that heat pumps will reduce your energy costs but is that correct? So, how has your energy use changed? What about your bills?

Long story short, we are with Octopus (were Bulb). Octopus cannot connect to our old smart meter and are unable to fit new ones for ex Bulb customers yet and no timeframe! We need the smart meter as we are committed to having solar and ASHP installed - without the meter we cannot have the special tariffs. If we came across to OvO how long would it take them to fit a smart meter and presumably they too have special tariffs for solar and ashp?Thank youColin

Please can someone advise.  I know nothing about storage heaters apart from the fact that my daughters in her new apartment and hers don’t heat up.  Not sure if we are doing something wrong or the system is broke.   Basically on each side of two of the heaters there are two plugs that are wired to the heater.  One shows it has a fuse and the other doesn’t.  In the cupboard is what looks like an emersion heater.  There are two switches in there.  One that says ‘switch for emersion heater’   The other says Economy 7 supply.  Landlord says switch both of them on at night and turn off in the morning.  Also to set output on the heater to 1 and input to 9.  I’m assuming that’s when it uses the economy 7 Tariff.  We then switched on the power on the right side of the heaters which doesn’t say it has a fuse and expected to have heat and hot water this morning but nothing! All stone cold.  Are we supposed to have the power on the right side of the heater on as well? The one in the hall only

Hello,We are getting our house ready to fit an air source heat pump.  We have seen a few houses around us that have installed the heat pump in the light well at the front of the house.   We would like to do this, but want to know whether it makes sense.  We would put the ASHP on the ledge so the top would be at the top of the lightwell the depth (wall to bay window) of the lightwell is around 2.4m so room to have space behind and in front.  one side is totally open the other side will have a wall around 0.5-1.0m away.I know there needs to be good airflow around the pump and this seems enough (and more than the places we have seen them installed in other lightwells).   Does anyone have any thoughts? Thanks 

hi, we had solar panels, an inverter and pure drive battery fitted. So far we have used a fraction of electricity produced. The battery does not charge or discharge.Installer says it’s a fault and are waiting for pure drive- I think it’s set up as it charged from the grid at one point and discharged to the house, but they changed the settings and now nothing.Installer also say the meter doesn’t show up on the system in any their installations. The meter in our fuse box has remained at zero. The real question - is this a set up fault or a product fault? Thanks

Hi I know I am not the brightest tool in the box!Ovo offer battery electric cars a home charging standard rate of £0.07p a unit. (no standing charge).I have a set of home Batteries charged by off peak electric at 13.59p a unit, and topped up during the day by 4kw solar panel's.The un used power held in the car batteries can be fed back into the house when needed.so the car battery is doing the same as my house batteries at a far lower rate (10p) than the off peat rate! the only difference is the car batteries are on wheels! can any one explain WHY? there should be so much price differance...I can understand if it was the other way round to cover charging point installation cost. 

Hi everyone,Back to thinking again about how to manage our heat pump better and I don’t think this has been covered yet, so I am looking to start a conversation with you all.We got our second ASHP (after a Northern Gas special) in August 2021. We tend to go away twice each winter, one month at a time, so have now been away four times.We got no information on what to do to ‘shut down’ our house for holidays from either installer. When we had a combi gas boiler, we’d just set our Nest thermostats to 9C (so the house didn’t freeze) and then tell the house to heat up again about 24hrs before our return - the app is particularly useful here.We still have Nest and now an ASHP with a hot water tank and Eddi solar diverter. We were content to set our thermostats to 9C and tell Eddi not to heat our water with excess solar, but the ASHP still wanted to heat up the water tank all the time. Looking at the Operation Manual I was given for the Daikin Altherma control u

Hi, I added picture showing electric hob's specifications. Does anyone know how much electricity would cost if one of large heaters is working for 1 hour? What about small heater? Thank you for answer. Best Regards,Robertas 

Since theres a few ways of creating electricity like necular and wind power, do you think in the future there be a new way to convert a different type of energy into electricity? Some sustainable like solar?  If so what do you think it will be??