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Rank 2
March 21, 2024
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No hot water or storage heating following smart meter installation

  • March 21, 2024
  • 75 replies
  • 4810 views

Good evening,

I had my smart meter installed Monday.

Since then I don’t have hot water or heating (storage heaters).

I found out yesterday as for personal reason myself and my kids we weren’t home.

i thought it might be because electricity was out and a reset my thermostat program but still not working. 
im calling ovo tomorrow first thing in the morning, but after reading some comments I just would like to ask to any of the members if is anything I should say to ovo for them to fix my problem as soon as possible?

thank you in advance 

Best answer by Blastoise186

Updated on 10/10/25 by Abby_OVO

 

Easiest fix is this: Ask the Support Team to reconfigure ECAUL/ALCS Configs. That fixes 99% of these cases.

 

If that doesn’t work, please come back here and reply to this thread.

 

Blastoise186 has left some really helpful advice about this. The following topics may also be helpful:

 

75 replies

igmendezAuthor
Rank 2
March 23, 2024

Hopefully they are! I’m in the southern England (new forest). Still Waiting for an engineer to show up. 

igmendezAuthor
Rank 2
March 24, 2024

So… this is me at 3 am as I can’t sleep knowing that still not hot water and engineer said the meter is fine I took this pictures just now to see if it is as it should be. ? Thank you all for your help really appreciate it. 

 

BPLightlog
Super User
Super User
March 24, 2024

Oh dear - well that display looks like others we’ve seen working correctly. 
It really needs someone to trace the cabling to see where the connection is lost. The added complication is of course, it will only be live overnight 

Bring me Sunshine ~ E&E {Solar PV, Battery Storage, Hybrid EV, ASHP and Home Assistant automation}
igmendezAuthor
Rank 2
March 24, 2024

Will Ovo trace the cabling or would i need to pay someone to do it? 
Yesterday it wasn’t any electricity running on the wires red and black when the engineer was here before he left it tested it again and it was life. 

thanks for your time, don’t know what else to do. Could still be the ECLUA? 

BPLightlog
Super User
Super User
March 24, 2024

I’m not sure if OVO would do the tracing. Although as things were working before, something has changed. 
If your day time electricity is ok, we can discount the left hand connection. 
For the right hand, overnight 

The power, when switched on time, goes along the brown cable (yellow arrows), up and into the connection block. It then goes out on the red cable (green arrows) into the right hand consumer unit. That is the path that needs tracing with the power to it on

Bring me Sunshine ~ E&E {Solar PV, Battery Storage, Hybrid EV, ASHP and Home Assistant automation}
igmendezAuthor
Rank 2
March 24, 2024

Thank you for your replay.

i should call them tomorrow and tell them what you just told me? Sorry im lost in electrics and I don’t even know if they will know what im trying to say 🤦🏻‍♀️ 

Firedog
Super User
Super User
March 24, 2024

Well, good news and bad news! The meter is now functioning as it’s intended to, with the ALCS definitely ON at 03:00.  [As I wrote yesterday, “Switch ıı might change to something else during the night, depending on how the engineer wired up the ALCS. It might show  LC1  or  LC2  or both instead of o´o. All that matters to you is that it doesn’t show o¯o during the night.”]

So, if power isn’t getting to the heating CU even though it’s switched on, it looks most likely that the fault is as BP says at the Henley block he illustrated so clearly. It has a seal on it, but whether that was fitted by the DNO or the meter engineer, a careful electrician could break the seal to check it out with no comebacks, because it’s downstream of the meter. It won’t be live during the day when switch ıı is open o¯o . There’s also a possibility that the connection into the CU is broken, but that’s not so likely with those nice modern CUs. 

Because OVO have done their stuff and the meter is now doing what it’s supposed to, it’s your (the customer’s) electrician’s job to sort out the broken connection after the meter:
  

Schematic diagram of a typical installation. The time switch in your case is inside the meter, so OVO’s responsibility. You as the customer are responsible for equipment in the pink zone, including the Henley connection block.

 


PS If there is a fault with that connection block, you might consider having the electrician install an isolator switch instead, or even a double one instead of both blocks. This would make it simpler in the future for electricians to work on the CUs and in the house without having to remove the main fuse. Ask him what he thinks. What would you say to that, @BPLightlog ?  Sr Mendez might want to install an EV charger at some point …

 

Noel | I have no official status; I'm just a volunteer who comes here to help other customers. My gear: Aclara SGM 1416-B Electricity-only E7 meter; Chameleon IHD3-PPMID-AAA | It may look as if I know what I’m talking about, but don’t let that fool you. |
BPLightlog
Super User
Super User
March 24, 2024

In my experience, it’s best to keep the circuit paths separate as it’s easier to follow. (They can use a single block of course, that’s just my preference).

A fault can be anywhere on that 5th terminal connection - including the neutral return if that’s been disturbed. All connections need to be checked, but a simple non contact live wire

detector could do the job, tracing along the path (but only when the overnight circuit is live of course)

Bring me Sunshine ~ E&E {Solar PV, Battery Storage, Hybrid EV, ASHP and Home Assistant automation}
igmendezAuthor
Rank 2
March 24, 2024

Thank you so much for your answers.

ill be contacting ovo tomorrow morning and I’ve got a electrician coming over to check, my question is shall I tell him about ovo or wait for him to see what he can find out? 
I’ll be requesting and electrician from ovo too as they were the ones who installed my meter.

ibe for a question too, if I tell them to put me on single tariff will that make my hot water and heating work? Also if it was a problem on my cpu wouldn’t tripped over? 
thanks in advance 

Blastoise186
Super User
Super User
March 24, 2024

Going onto Single Rate won’t have any effect. It’s the ECAUL/ALCS that must be configured either way.

For testing purposes however, you could trigger the Boost feature on the meter to energise all circuits at once for a couple of hours - but it’s at Standard Rate.

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