Ovo swapped me from E10 to E7 and now I think my storage heaters are storing heat at the most expensive times

Oh dear, that sounds like a mess. Let’s get some details right first.

Do you have access to your online account? If so, the name and details of the plan you’re on should be on the Plan page. In most cases, these will include the peak and offpeak hours. Economy 7 always allows at least 7 hours offpeak (hence the name), yet the times you gave only add up to 6 hours. If these aren’t available online, where did you find out that these were your offpeak hours? 

Can you say precisely when the storage heaters are charging up? How can you tell?

If a meter is governing the times when heating equipment is charging up, the times should match those at which the tariff changes from peak to offpeak and vice versa. If you’re seeing a mismatch, it depends very much on the type of meter how to deal with it. What sort of meters do you have?

It would be most helpful to see photos: close-ups of meters clear enough to allow us to read the display and other markings (if the display is dark, touch a button to light it up), and a view of the whole meter backboard showing all the cables to and from the meter(s) and other equipment on it. 

Hello Firedog,

Thank you for responding to me. 

I logged in to the account and it seems we have a Simpler Energy Flex Rate Account.

The reason i thought it was E7 was because when I rang Ovo on Friday to enquire about the switch off and the fact we hadn't been contacted, the gentleman I spoke to gave me our E7 times (which it now seems we are not on).

I only know when the Dimplex storage heater in the kitchen is heating because a red light appears on the switch (see photo). The others are so old they don't have this facility. 

I attach some photographs......it seems I can only attach one at a time via my mobile. 

I am very grateful for your help and advice. 

Thank you. 

Thanks for those really helpful photos. I can’t see just how things are wired up or which circuits the breakers in the consumer units are connected to. I would expect the storage heaters and the immersion heater to be on a circuit controlled by the RTS meter. The meter should both switch the equipment on and off and record the electricity they use on an offpeak register. You should then be billed for this usage at the offpeak rate. 

That said, I can’t tell what the second (Ferranti) meter is doing; could this be for a 24-hour heating circuit? 

In any case, the times when your heaters charge up are probably determined by the RTS in the Horstmann meter, which might explain the odd times you were given. This is what will stop working as expected when the RTS signal is switched off  at the end of June. You can tell whether this is the case by watching the meter when the red light is on the at the heater in the kitchen. Press the blue button on the meter until you see all eights across the numerical display. Then press it again; you may see the date , and the time on the next press, but you might see the reading on register 1, the peak rate. The next press should show rate 2 for offpeak. Go through all the screens you see - repeated presses just cycle through all the various screens. Make a note of the readings for rate 1 and 2, and of the reading on the Ferranti meter. Go back to the meter an hour later and note the readings again; the one that has increased most will be the one for the storage heaters, hopefully rate 2. 

This might involve a bit of trial and error to establish which meter is registering what. You might have to do the same exercise again while the heaters are not charging (red light off), this time taking the readings, then boiling the kettle a couple of times and taking them again. This will tell you which meter/register is recording ‘everything else’.  Please let us know what you found out.

You will have to ask for these meters to be exchanged for a smart meter as soon as possible, to be sure of getting sorted out before RTS shuts down. If the other storage heaters are like the one in your photo, I’d guess that Economy 7 would be a good option. I’ve just explained some of the implications of the various tariffs in some detail in another thread, so you might get some insight from there: 
  

Thank you so much for your reply. 

After some investigation I think the Horstmann meter is registering the storage heaters and hot water and the  Ferranti meter is for everything else.

I am going to leave things as they are for the moment and see what becomes of the smart meter installation saga which is where all this confusion began. I initially rang Ovo as we have yet to receive any sort of notification as to when the meters are to be upgraded as apparently there is no WAN signal here (and several neighbours I have spoken to had no idea about the imminent RTS switch off, which is also a worry.)

I really appreciate all the help you have given me on this forum, you have helped me to understand it a little more. 

Thank you. 

Hey ​@lauriancotes 

Sorry to hear about all of this, I’m glad one of our volunteers has been able to help in some way! 

You’re not alone in being in a no WAN area awaiting an RTS replacement and I know it’s something the team are working hard on and contacting with solutions as soon as they can.

It does sound like it might be best to wait until that’s been solved and may save you messing with things twice, but it’s hard to tell without knowing the replacement solution so I’m sorry we can’t be of more help on that.

Feel free to pop back any time, and if you’re still concerned about having no contact about a replacement in a few weeks time do let us know and we’ll see if we can gain any further updates down the line.