No hot water or storage heating following smart meter installation

Hey ​@wdan96 

Sorry to hear about this.

From what you initially posted, I too would have recommended the remote commands be sent by the Support Team to resolve this issue, I do hope it’s not a wasted journey.

Please do keep us updated with how that appointment goes. 

Thanks ​@Abby_OVO 

The engineer has just confirmed that the meter thinks it's a single rate tariff even though my account is on dual rate. He'll be asking OVO to make the change to their systems which can take 48hours.

This is very frustrating given I explained this already to the service desk. Because my storage heaters are hard wired I am unable to heat the house for another 3 days until I can check if the system is working.

I'll post an update based on what happens next.

Ok, so after 3 whole days being without heating or hot water, an engineer finally came over to take a look (after spending a long time yesterday on calls being passed from one person to another and kept on hold, and being told so many different things), the problem was identified as a tripped switch and was resolved in 0.5 seconds.  It is absurd that it was so simple considering all the disruption and discomfort it caused.  The engineer has kindly given me his contact number in case it happens again in the next few hours and offered to install a replacement meter if it did trip again.  The whole process has been so frustrating and disempowering, I have emailed the complaints team and I’m keen to seek an alternative supplier now.  I dread to think how much it cost to send the engineer out, I’m imagining that that cost will be passed on to the customers.  Thank you to those of you who took the time to respond to my plea for help, thought it was worth sharing this (hopeful) solution in case it comes up again.

It’s worth noting that most other suppliers don’t benefit from a Forum like this one - and certainly wouldn’t be so willing to send out engineers to do what the engineer you had did.

The cost is absorbed by OVO’s profit margins. Don’t worry about that part - it’s covered.

A tripped switch? Are you referring to a breaker in a consumer unit (what we used to call fusebox)? 
  

Whenever an electrical appliance stops working, people will normally check the appliance itself - that it’s properly plugged in and switched on, for example.

If that’s all in order, the next step is to check the consumer unit. This contains breakers that trip automatically to prevent damage if there’s a fault somewhere. Some breakers are very sensitive and can trip if, say, there’s a sudden surge, e.g. caused by a lightning strike. If resetting the tripped breaker allows the appliance to start working normally again, there’s nothing much to worry about. If it happens again repeatedly, time to call in the electrician.

Yes

Hi ​@Clairey_bell,

I’m sorry to hear about the experience you’ve had. I completely understand your frustration.

I’m glad to hear that it was resolved in the end. Thank you for coming back to share this update, it may be very helpful for others in future.

Sadly this is still ongoing and I'm without heating.

OVO had difficulty obtaining the engineer report, and then scheduled a second engineer that didn't show.

I was contacted yesterday by a helpful lady at OVO who insists they are looking into this. Hopefully positive news soon.

Hey ​@wdan96 

I’m so sorry to hear this how frustrating. Are they going to exchange the meter itself? 

There is the option of raising a complaint. You can find out more about the complaint procedure on our website. 
 

I just got a new smart meter installed on the 30th December 

this is a economy 10 smart meter to replace RTS meter  The tariff we had before the new smart meter was essentially economy 10 but called simpler energy but came on various points through the 24 hour period to a total of 10 off peak hours. 
now the meter has been changed, the meter and ihd3 knows it’s supposed to be an economy 10 meter and tariff. You can see on both when it changes to off peak times and these are in chunks through the 24 hr period as it should be for Scotland. But  now the storage heaters (quantum) only switch on at midnight and charge till 7am on the peak rate. I’ve checked the heaters and it now tells me (420) mins available when it used to be (510) and it still should be. Does this seem like a engineer issue or a ovo meter/tariff configuration issue? We have a engineer booked but he did not arrive. I’m assuming this is festive period problem and he will appear in the new year. :) 
 

Hi ​@marymcarter ,

It’s not an Engineer issue and isn’t strictly a Meter issue either. Fortunately, it’s an easy fix.

The solution to this one is actually usually pretty simple - but an engineer on-site is NOT the way to fix this. It’s something that OVO needs to do remotely - the only thing an Engineer can do is call OVO to request something that’s faster for you to request yourself.

Once OVO is back open, please ask the Support Team to ping the SMETS Commands for Update ECAUL/ALCS Configuration - this almost always fixes the exact issue you’re seeing.

Hope this helps!

Oh fabulous thank you, I believe they’re open tomorrow so will call in the morning. 
 

No worries. OVO will indeed be open tomorrow, but the Forum Moderators will almost certainly agree with me saying that the phone lines will probably get smashed to pieces. You might have a faster time via Live Chat at https://ovoenergy.com/help .

Alternatively, if you don’t mind waiting a few days, things should cool down a lot from Tuesday next week and you’ll get through faster.

Hello Ovo forum.

I installed a smart meter on the 10th of December as my old meters were being phased out. Upon arriving back to my flat I do not have heating or hot water. My flat uses storage heaters and I get hot water from an immersion heater. I have a separate meter for the heating as it runs off-peak.

When I log in to my account it shows two readings for electricity (one for my old meter and one for my new) but nothing for heating. I used to have a reading for both heating and electricity prior to the smart meter set up.

Is there anything I can do about this? It's winter and having no hot water and heating is inconvenient. 

Kind regards.

Hi ​@Hirra ,

Having no reading for Heating anymore after a Smart Meter upgrade is expected - you’ll have most likely been migrated to a tariff where there’s no “Heating” register anymore so it’s no longer needed. The old Meters will have all been removed as part of the process and replaced with a single unit that does everything - you’ll see those readings as Day and Night/Peak and Off-Peak in the future.

However… I do have a suggestion about your other issue. Give OVO Support a buzz via Live Chat at https://ovoenergy.com/help and ask them to issue the SMETS Commands to reconfigure ECAUL/ALCS and that should do the trick.

Hope that helps!

Hey ​@Hirra 

Sorry to hear about the issue you’re having with that.

It’s not too uncommon with these types of exchanges, and should only take a quick remote command to fix the issue as Blastoise186 has already mentioned. We’ve got a few similar topics that may be helpful:

I’d recommend, again as Blastoise has mentioned, to contact the team via live chat and it may be worth sending them a link to either this topic, or one of the one’s I’ve included above.

Keep us updated with how you get on.

Hello. Thank you both for your support. I contacted OVO via their live chat and requested them to do the reconfiguration as ​@Blastoise186 had mentioned. They said that they can see that there are no issues as my electricity is connected through the meter. They suggested that I ask my landlord to get an engineer to see my boiler/ hot water issue. 

The heating has started to work, which is great!

Hey ​@Hirra,

Glad to hear that your heating is working. If you have any more issues let us know and we can try and help 😊