RTS (Radio Teleswitch Service) Shutdown Update

I’ve got an immersion which is on the same circuit as the storage heaters, so would have come on for the 10 hours of Economy 10.
I know there’s a thermostat, so it’s not actually on for all 10 hours, but a year or so ago, I fitted a timer switch, and have found that for my needs it only needs to be on for an hour a day. Your usage and level of insulation on the tank may vary from mine.
In the summer when the storage heaters are off, then I could see the actual usage of just the immersion, and changing it to 1 hour a day I’m saving about 1 unit per day - so took about 6 months for the savings to cover the cost of the timer switch, and now saving about £80 per year

Hi Mo59.  I’m the same as ManseRunner - water on same circuit as the heaters.

Well maybe since you are reading this you could inform the folks that call to arrange the appointments to ask for photos if necessary. I would gladly have provided photos in advance. They asked many questions about needing ladders etc but at no point did they ask if everything was in the same place. I could easily have told them meters outside and distribution directly through the wall. I assumed this was not something ‘unusual’. Unnecessary journey for the engineer also = unnecessary stay at home all morning for me! 

Have a look at my signature - I don’t have any back door access to the support staff. My time in these forums has taught me that it’s much easier to help customers if we can see their equipment, so photos are always welcome whenever there’s a question about meters. Even if they only show an ordinary arrangement, that at least rules out many of the pitfalls that an extraordinary one might lead us to suspect.

Don’t shoot the messenger! 

Sorry only self defence since it felt like you implied I wasted the Engineer’s time when I only followed ovo procedure. If the support staff have any sense they will follow this forum and learn from it how to avoid ‘unnecessary journeys’. I also wanted to see how folks in my area got on with the meter change.

I’m really sorry if you got that impression - of course there’s no blame on your part at all, and absolutely no intention on my part to suggest that there was 🙇‍♂️
 

Just something to keep an eye on. Thanks to the intervention of the support team on this forum I got my installation resolved with E10 switching the second circuit correctly and changing price.

However since then my meter has decided to change back to a standard tariff at all time, the second is still switching at E10 times so I’m not sure how long it’s been doing this for.

I’ve got this resolved yet but keep an eye on your meter folks.

Hi @ByeeTHTC,

Happy to hear you managed to get this resolved. Thanks for bringing this up, this might be helpful for others in the same situation.

Just had my RTS controlled THTC set up replaced just now.  First check will be to look and see if the heating and hot water come on at 1.30pm like they should.  Pleasant engineer who has done a tidy job so hoping everything works ok.

You’ll be grand, I’m sure.  Don’t worry if the red light on your heater switch doesn’t appear bang on 1.30 as I’ve noticed my lights come on 5-10 minutes later.  The actual cheaper rate, though, DOES kick in on the half hour exactly (you can confirm this by watching the IHD).

Thanks.  Yes,  it was a couple of minutes after 1.30 then I heard it give a little click and storage heater started to charge and immerser came on.  All good so far.  😀

Make sure the rate changes too, and keeps doing so. 

Oh, that’s a shame. I’m sorry to hear this. 

It may be worth contacting the Support team again so that they can look into this for you. It sounds like this may be something that could be fixed remotely but the team should be able to confirm.

To be frank telephone advisors are next to useless as they won’t signpost or connect you to a team that can help. I’ve already spent hours trying to get past them and all they do is insist that visiting engineers can fix this kind of thing when they have no way of doing so. 
I’m trying to get the complaint handler from last time to help but if that doesn’t work it’ll have to be a long boring OFGEM complaint. 
The fact that OVO’s back office or the meter itself can change your tariff with no notice is worrying and exactly why so many people resist them. 

This was my dads cupboard with old THTC meters - this is quite an old granite flat - maybe late 40’s or 50’s construction, lath plaster walls etc

This is with the new meter installed 

Nice!

One question: the meter shows in the bottom right-hand corner of the display that the switched (i.e. offpeak) circuit was off [o´o] when the photo was taken. The TimeGuard switch has a red lamp indicating that it was live, which might mean that whatever it’s timing was drawing power. Is this switch for something not wired to the offpeak circuit, so potentially on at peak times and thus rates? Or did you configure it to be on only during offpeak periods? 

Well here we go again - another no show by the OVO engineer to install a smart meter!!  This is the second time I have had an install date and no engineer shows up - no text, no phone call -nothing, even though their email 3 days before states that the engineer will phone or text on the day of the install. Another sitting at home all day when I have more important things to be doing.  What annoys me most is the total and utter waste of 2 days.  Surely it is at least a matter of courtesy to inform the customer if the engineer cant make it for whatever reason. At least that will be another £30 in compensation. 

Will now have to wait until OVO get round to contacting me again to offer a new date - at this rate its going to be next year before I get the new meter installed.  An official complaint will be going in this time. And I again get a text message asking how satisfied I was with the engineer today - you can guess the response to that question.

I would also appreciate if any of the Ovo Community Moderators could investigate why this Smart meter install failed again.  I am sure I am not alone in this and what makes it so galling is that I see my neighbours getting their new meters installed without a hitch. Grrrr

It's a water heater on the 24/7 side of the board. On THTC this used to be charged at cheap rate. We removed the 120l hot water tank and fitted 15l water heater, no bath and electric shower. My dad controls this manually, could be programmed but he does not like that. 

We had very good text Comms from the metering engineer on day of appointment. 

I wish I had but just------nothing.  If the engineer could just let me know he wouldn’t make it I could get other things done during the day.  My appointment was for 10:00am so no excuse from them.

Early days but my new smart meter appears to have gone without a hitch.  Kept fully informed by OVO and the engineer when he would be here.  Meter fitted on Monday and all seems to be working perfectly on Economy 10.  IHD connected immediately and the meter seems to be sending readings to OVO already. 

Hi @metalsman,

I’m sorry to hear this.

If the engineer failed to attend without at least 24 hours notice of a cancellation, you may be eligible for a standard £30 compensation known as Guaranteed Standards of Performance (GSOP) payment.

Please contact our Support Team to get this appointment rebooked.

This thread may be helpful: 

Hi @Mo59, 

I’m glad to hear everything is going well for you so far!

Update on the saga of no show engineers.  Spoke with CS at RTS smart meter install (@Shads_OVO, your link with the phone number above to the support team for smart meter installs for RTS shutdown is incorrect as I found out to my cost yesterday) with a new smart meter install date of 28th November.  Lets hope its 3rd time lucky or its the Energy Ombudsman  and the Task Force thats my next port of call. Compensation for no-show of £30 added to my online account.

I’m sorry to hear this @metalsman, I’ll find out if there is a specific number for RTS smart meter bookings. Do you have the number you called with success? 

I’m glad to hear the appointment has been re booked & your compensation is on it’s way.