Can OVO arrange an engineers visit to fix a faulty external time-switch? My storage heater timings are out!

Oh damn.    I don’t suppose there are newer models of timeswitch, are there?

Do Smart Meters incorporate timeswitches?   

I think my actual current meter (the small white ‘box’ with a screen for taking a reading) would be more like 8 or 10 years old?

If a new Smart Meter then malfunctioned, can I immediately ask for it to be made ‘dumb’?     And then would I revert to taking readings, like with my past meter?

What if a malfunction happened after office hours or over a weekend/Bank Holiday - does OVO have a 24/7/365-day help/emergency phoneline?

Excuse all these questions, but I live alone, and can find new things quite alarming, so I’m quite apprehensive about having to get a Smart Meter.

No worries. It’s what we're here for.

Your current timeswitch isn’t the oldest one I’ve seen and I think the oldest one I’ve discovered was from maybe 1980-ish? There are newer models, but you cannot source and fit one yourself. Only OVO can fit one as OVO is your active supplier, and doing so now would be at OVO’s discretion. I can’t guaranteed they’d agree to it.

Smart meters don’t include the same kind of time switch that you’re used to, but at very least they're all capable of switching between Day and Night rates at the appropriate times. Certain models can also turn things like storage heaters or water heaters on and off at the right times as well. OVO will fit one of those models as long as you tell them that you’ve got that immersion heater rigged up to only run at night and are being currently controlled by your existing meter.

Your current electric meter was certified in February 2005 and probably manufactured not long after that, making it 17 years old. I use the first three characters of the Meter Serial Number - D05 in your case - and the certification mark - Z32 M05 in your case - to identify and calculate the age of your meter and from there, estimate the remaining service life as long as I’m reasonably confident I can do so. I can’t quite remember how long the Ampy 5196D was certified for, but I’d estimate it’s got maybe three years of service life left at most.

Smart meters rarely malfunction, but the ability to submit manual readings is always available as a backup, just in case. I’m afraid the smart functionality cannot be disabled though for security and integrity reasons.

If a malfunction occurs that causes a power cut out of hours, your first port of call should always be to call 105. For everything else, this forum is open 24/7/365 and a forum volunteer like myself will at least be able to give general advice and try to help figure out the issue. We can’t access your account, make changes or book an engineer visit from here, but it’s definitely better than having no help at all!

Great to see our community superstar, @Blastoise186, giving some really great support here, @Kate Barber.

Just to confirm, as we’d be unable to repair or replace an external time-switch, in order to get this faulty time-switch sorted, a meter replacement would be required. A smart meter would still allow you to take your meter readings manually, but you shouldn’t need to submit these monthly as the meter will update these to your account automatically. We often find this really helps make sure your bills are accurate and will also allow you to keep a closer eye on your usage if you’d like. Smart meters are rigorously tested and very rarely malfunction to affect your supply. In the extremely small chance this happens we’d of course arrange an emergency same-day appointment to make sure you’re reconnected. Your local DNO can also arrange an emergency appointment if this happens out-of usual working hours.

We understand that changes to your set-up may be worrying but would encourage you to give the Support Team a call to discuss things further. 

Sorry to go on being so nit-picky, but - does the below quote imply that, if the Smart Meter chose to malfunction at any point, I would then have no electricity?

Quoted from Blastoise:

If a malfunction occurs that causes a power cut out of hours, your first port of call should always be to call 105.      

Thanks Blastoise for reminding me of the emergency no 105.

I’m often worrying about power-cuts happening, because it’d probably happen when I was using my computer.    Or, it would happen after dark.

And, as my flat is all-electric I wouldn’t even be able to boil a kettle!

As far as I can remember I’ve never had problems with my current meter, nor with any meter before that, nor - as far as I know - with the timeswitch either  (I’ve lived in my flat since 1982).
 

EMERGENCY SAME-DAY APPOINTMENTS / DNO

Jess, you mentioned ‘emergency same-day appointments’ - would my local DNO - (who I’m assuming would be 'Southern Electric Power Distribution') - be accessable 365-days (even over Christmas)?

And would ringing the number 105 take me to 'Southern Electric Power Distribution'?

Well - if I do end up with a Smart Meter, at least I’d - hopefully - know what to do if it landed me in the dark, out-of-hours, on Christmas day!).

It’s more likely to happen if you’re on Pay As You Go because the relay in the electric meter and valve in the gas meter flip on and off if you run out of credit and later top-up again, but that’d be the same with just about any meter to be honest. Plus, they’re rated for thousands of movements beyond what would be expected anyway.

In Credit Mode, neither the valve nor relay would ever really move at all because there’d be no reason to. Malfunctions can happen to any meter and time switch, but usually the worst that can happen is that your Economy 7 times get out of sync or the meter fails to count properly. The chances of getting disconnected due to any meter fault is tiny compared to all the other possible ways of going off-supply and let me reassure you of this. None of that stuff is unique to smart meters. If it’s going to happen to a smart meter, it can also happen to a traditional one.

There are multiple safeguards though, if a smart meter in credit mode malfunctions, the valve/relay will remain where it is and your supply will not be cut off.

And yes, 105 will get you to your local DNO 24/7/365. One number for all of them and it’s handled automatically in the background.

Um - just one more thing (I hope!).

Malfunctions can happen to any meter and time switch, but usually the worst that can happen is that your Economy 7 times get out of sync or the meter fails to count properly.

ALERTING SYSTEM?

How can I tell if my E7 times are getting out of sync or the Smart Meter is failing to count properly?   

I’m not naturally very good at following things up - I prefer to have it and forget it!

Is there any sort of alerting system that can draw my attention to things not being as they should be?    (Eg, on that other thingie that one has indoors, that has a screen (a  ‘home something’?).

It took me 2 or 3 weeks or so before I’d twigged that my hot water was getting hot at an odd time, when it should’nt have.

That shouldn’t be a problem anyway. Unlike your current setup, smart meters can sync their time from the Comms Hub that sits above the electric meter and that Comms Hub gets it’s time from a remote time server that ultimately links back - via multiple other hops - to atomic clocks at the National Physical Laboratory in Anthorn. It’s almost impossible for those to get the time wrong, and therefore smart meters can keep time very, very accurately.

Both the meters and your In-Home Display will also show you exactly which of the two rates is active at any given time and I can definitely give you the user manual for the meters that OVO installs if that helps. Specifically, Page 20 is the one you’re after at https://www.smartme.co.uk/documents/Aclara-SMETS2-Single-Phase-Electric.pdf . It’s not quite an alerting system, but it’s pretty close.

The meter will also keep records as well, which will help to fix billing issues if the times end up being wrong. OVO could simply retrieve all the data and do a bunch of number crunching to fix everything. You can’t do that with a traditional meter!

If you have any reason to suspect any meter isn’t clocking usage properly, please stop by the forum again. We will help you to do a Creep Test or Burns Test which will indicate if the meter accuracy has deteriorated or not. From those results, we can decide whether to recommend a formal Meter Accuracy Test.

Many thanks Blastoise, Jess, and others who have responded to my concerns.   

Well, the latest news is that I’ve now made an appointment to have a Smart Meter fitted, and this will be on 27 June.  

It’s good to know I’ve got this forum to return to if I have any problems!

Hello again……

Well, so much for my 27 June appointment!    Stupid engineer never turned up - and, as far as I can make out, didn’t bother letting me know this either.

It seems crazy that Ovo apparently cannot contact the engineers whilst they are out on the road.     And even crazier that Ovo don’t have ‘in house’ engineers, but instead use what I think they called ‘second companies’(?) - in other words, outside contract I suppose.

When I rang Ovo to complain that no engineer had turned up, they did admit that they sometimes had had problems with using these companies.

I’m supposedly being given a £40 compensation.    But it seems a weird way to run things!

I was given the next available appointment for 18 August.   

Such a shame to hear about that missed appointment, @Kate Barber. You’re correct in saying that you’ll be getting £40 compensation if you weren’t given at least 24 hours notice of the cancelled/missed appointment. 

OVO do have in house engineers under the name of Field Force. We’re growing the size of this fleet of skilled engineers to be able to fit smart meters, heat pumps and more. This takes some time to build up and in the meantime, we will use third party contractors for smart meter installations, meter reading visits etc. We nonetheless commit to excellent standards and things like compensation if things are missed. It can happen and I’m sorry you were affected. Glad to hear this is booked in again!