This is sadly not unusual. In most cases where the offpeak circuits fail to switch when they should on after a new smart meter is installed, it’s a faulty configuration of the meter itself. It’s not the engineer’s fault, because his system tells him that everything’s in order. 

We can’t tell whether this is the problem you’re facing, although a photo of the meter itself would help with diagnosis. If it is a simple misconfiguration, the solution is usually straightforward: you have to ask Support to get the smart team to send the ECAUL request to set the ALCS. I don’t know whether this will be possible on Bank Holiday Monday, but it’s worth trying. A visiting engineer wouldn’t be able to do anything else, so it’s probably quickest just to do it yourself.

If you could take a photo when the heating circuits are supposed to be active, we’d be able to see if this is your problem. It depends on where you live when that would be, but before 7AM is a fair bet. The photo should include the wires connected to the meter and we’d have to be able to read everything on the screen. 

Thank you very much for your reply and I will take a picture by tomrrow morning and post it hear so, you can see the status of the meter. Recently taken picture of the meter is attached herewith for your reference. Thank you again for your time. 

Brilliant - just what the doctor ordered. This snippet shows the state of the two switches in the meter:
  

  
Switch ı should be always closed (o¯o); it controls the power to the tail labelled 4, for everything not on the offpeak circuit. Switch ıı is the one for heating, closed only during offpeak hours. This is the Auxiliary Load Control Switch (ALCS), governing power to tail 5.  

You seem to be in the West Midlands (WMEB) region, so your offpeak hours are 00:00-07:00 GMT, i.e. 01:00-08:00 BST. You can tell if the ALCS is working by checking switch ıı before 8AM tomorrow, when it shouldn’t be open. What does show there depends on how the engineer wired things up; it might show a closed switch (like switch ı) or something like LC1 or even LC1 LC2. So long as it’s not open, you’re up and running. If it is open, you have the same problem as many other customers before you (including me!) and the magic ECAUL request will fix it at the flick of a switch in Bristol. 

Best of luck!

Hopefully Firedog’s notes have given something to review @AsandaW .
One difference here compared to what is normally seen is the report of the off peak feed not working before the switch. I’ve no idea what meter was installed before but if it wasn’t the fault of that, then the new meter won’t make any difference. 
Fault finding here needs a step by step approach and so if you can see if the switch indication operated, then the next step can be reviewed 

Just something else worth noting by the way.

Please try to avoid pre-fixing your threads with “Urgent:” - that won’t get our attention any faster I’m afraid. Most of us patrol the Forum and respond to threads in reverse-chronological order based on the most recent activity (oldest to newest). Regardless of what you tag your posts with, we don’t usually guarantee that we’ll see your thread any faster so it doesn’t benefit you much.

Thanks!

Brilliant - just what the doctor ordered. This snippet shows the state of the two switches in the meter:
  

  
Switch ı should be always closed (o¯o); it controls the power to the tail labelled 4, for everything not on the offpeak circuit. Switch ıı is the one for heating, closed only during offpeak hours. This is the Auxiliary Load Control Switch (ALCS), governing power to tail 5.  

You seem to be in the West Midlands (WMEB) region, so your offpeak hours are 00:00-07:00 GMT, i.e. 01:00-08:00 BST. You can tell if the ALCS is working by checking switch ıı before 8AM tomorrow, when it shouldn’t be open. What does show there depends on how the engineer wired things up; it might show a closed switch (like switch ı) or something like LC1 or even LC1 LC2. So long as it’s not open, you’re up and running. If it is open, you have the same problem as many other customers before you (including me!) and the magic ECAUL request will fix it at the flick of a switch in Bristol. 

Best of luck!

Thank you very much for your reply @Firedog, probably, I will check this tonight and inform OVO by tomorrow since today is a bank holiday, I can not contact them. 

You can certainly contact them today, via their social media channels if not otherwise. The blue button at the foot of this page will connect you via Facebook Messenger, or if you prefer, they’re also there at 

It’s quite likely that they won’t be able to reach the smart team today, though, but I’d give it a go if I were you. 

Hey @AsandaW 

Let us know how you get on with this, the Support Team should be able to complete the ECAUL to get the storage heating and hot water working again if you've not already been in touch, please do so and they’ll get that command sent.

I’ve linked below to some similar topics where the commands fixed the same issues:

Keep us updated with how you get on.

Hey @AsandaW 

I’ve had our Forum_Support reach out to you via private message, just to be sure we get you back on supply with the storage heater and hot water asap. If you’ve not already had the issue resolved by the Support Team, please message our Forum_Support back so they can help.

Hi everyone,

I wanted to provide an update on the heating issue I've been facing in my apartment. Yesterday, an engineer visited and conducted a thorough check on the meter. I'm pleased to report that everything was confirmed to be fine with the meter.

This morning, I personally checked the off-peak switch, as suggested by @Firedog , and verified that it is indeed working. I've attached an image of the meter reading for th off-peak period for your reference.

With both the meter and off-peak switch confirmed to be in good working order, it eseems that the problem lies with the heaters themselves. Therefore, I'm currently in the process of chasing my letting agent to arrange for an electrician to address the issue.

If anyone has any insights or suggestions on next steps, your input would be highly appreciated.

Thank you all for your support and assistance in resolving this matter.

That’s good news, at least in part.

We had a similar case recently where the meter was apparently working as designed after the smart team had done their ECAUL magic, but the heating circuits were still not active when they should be. It turned out that someone - suspicion fell on the installing engineer - had been a bit heavy-handed with the cable from the meter to the consumer unit for the offpeak circuits, and it had become disconnected at the CU. The customer’s own electrician was able to reconnect it in a matter of minutes and the heating started to work again that night. 

/EDIT a few minutes later to add:]

It’s not straightforward for the installer to check that the offpeak circuits are working properly unless he’s there during the night. He should have checked that the connection was continuous to the CU, but he might have missed that bit.

@Abby_OVO It could perhaps be standard procedure for the engineer to activate the boost function in the meter briefly just to make sure that the circuit was live. 

In my case, the hot water supply resumed using the off-peak supply after resetting the control unit at the hot water cylinder. Additionally, the meter is running during the off-peak period. @Firedog , do you think it's still possible that the heating circuits were not yet active?

@Abby_OVO , could you please confirm if a full investigation will still be conducted on this matter?

Now that the meter is working as designed, OVO’s part is finished. Any remaining problems are for your electrician to sort out. If there are additional controls on the heaters themselves, these may need resetting after a period of no power.   
 

I can’t speak for Abby, but I can’t imagine that any sort of investigation will take place. If the ALCS was not configured on installation, then this is a known problem with a known workaround. The solution (getting the engineer’s app to report the ALCS status properly) is clearly taking time to be implemented. It’s unpleasant for those subjected to it, but all’s well that ends well. Let’s hope your electrician can sort out your heaters quickly - it’s lucky we’ve had a warm spell for the past few days, so your home won’t have been unbearably cold.

I can verify this. It’s not worth doing a deep dive or full investigation for minor issues that can be fixed with a single SMETS Command such as ECAUL/ALCS stuff. The resources required just can’t be justified for that.

If a ton of meters were randomly exploding however, that would definitely get one because it’d be a safety concern.

Hey @AsandaW 

As our volunteers have already mentioned, an investigation now would be unlikely as they’ve explained, but I’ll also have Forum_Support double check this to be sure.

Hopefully an electrician can sort the storage heaters out and everything will be as normal.