These?

My neighbour was told she couldn’t have a smart meter because there isn’t enough room. I was a little stunned at that.

Close, but I think it’s that Horstmann box just to the right of those two. I have a feeling that could be the elusive timer we’re looking for.

I’m a bit surprised that your neighbour was refused as well, since there’s clearly plenty of space for a Smart Meter to replace all of those existing meters. However, it depends on which make/model the supplier was trying to fit. You’d have a really hard time fitting ANY Secure Liberty meter in those gaps and even an L+G E470 would be a bit of a tight fit. But any Aclara will easily squeeze in as yours proves, as will a few others. Possibly a handful of EDMI, Elster/Honeywell and Itron models?

After all, the better manufacturers like Aclara took these factors into consideration and deliberately designed their products to fit within the same footprint as almost anything that they’d replace in order to make installations easier. Admittedly it sometimes means they’re a bit deeper than others, but that’s not usually a problem - it’s the height and width you really need to worry about!

Ah. I thought I put both pictures in. Here’s the other one.

Bingo. I think we have our timer. That’s a Horstmann Radio Teleswitch that’s most likely controlling an RTS Meter. But the question remains as to which one… I’ve never heard of these devices controlling multiple meters at once, nor multiple properties at once off of a single device. And given that they’re not usually used alongside a Smart Meter, that makes things even more interesting.

All the other remaining traditional meters were manufactured by Horstmann (now Secure) as well, so that’s really curious...

Could this be linked directly to those heating contactors next to it rather than the meter? I have the same contact in my fuse box.

Possibly, but hard to say for sure.

However, a bit more research has revealed another clue. I’m glad I managed to read the model numbers for those other meters from your photos! Sometimes, it’s maybe not so bad that not everyone has upgraded yet. XD

The other meters that have not been replaced yet are Horstmann F2K-100-29 Economy 7 electric meters by the looks of things. A quick bit of Googling revealed this little gadget. It’s a Horstmann 425 Tiara Programmer. Sorry for the link being to a retailer, but it’s the best I could find.

https://www.screwfix.com/p/horstmann-425-tiara-programmer/18470

Try looking around your flat for a device that looks similar to that photo. If you can find it, then you might just hit the jackpot. To be honest, I’d be surprised if it’s still installed as well, since it’s only technically meant to be used with those old Horstmann meters that were installed when you first moved in.

Nothing like that around. I do have a controller but it’s for the immersion heaters.

In this photo of my fuse box you can see the main cables going in plus 2 smaller ones. Could these be coming direct from the timer to the contact?

It’s possible, but I also just spotted a safety issue. You’ll definitely want to discuss this with the landlord ASAP.

It appears that there’s exposed cabling to the right of that fuse box, which is definitely not a good thing. Please DO NOT touch that! You could be in for a very nasty electric shock if you do. This might be the responsibility of your landlord to resolve, so please flag this up with them and ask for this to be repaired. There might be other safety issues as well, so it may be worth calling in a local electrician to take a look. Luke can probably give you some advice as well.

To be honest, I’m starting to wonder if there’s some really unusual configuration going on here, with the way your storage heaters are hooked up. I just can’t seem to escape the theory that all of the storage heaters for every single flat in the building are wired up to a single controller/programmer that in turn is connected to a single RTS Meter or a single RTS switching device of some kind.

My other theory is that maybe there’s a single controller or programmer that’s managed by the landlord which just so happens to control the on/off times of every storage heater at once, but each tenant is able to adjust the dials of the storage heaters in their own flat as desired.

Either way, that makes for a very unusual setup and it would be the first time I’ve ever really heard of it being used outside of any shared heating arrangements. But I just can’t let go of these theories somehow...

That big black cable protects the smaller cables inside there is insulation under that bit of wire plus the smaller cables will have there own insulation. As far as landlords go there aren’t any. I think you’re right about 1 timer control for all which leaves me with nowhere to go since I can’t really change the time without affecting my neighbours. I think my only real option is to invest in some new storage heaters that have more timing controls built into the units. Pricey but after 22 years I think replacing them is well overdue but it’s been kinda fun trying to figure this out and I thank all for the help.

No worries, hopefully that’s helped to at least solve part of the puzzle.

I think you’re probably right there as well. It would still be useful to figure out exactly how the current storage heaters are being controlled, since that might otherwise interfere with any new ones you get. I think it’s also worth giving you a heads up about the fact that the RTS Service is being deprecated and won’t be available for much longer. At the moment, I believe the plan is to keep the service going until everyone who uses it has been migrated over to Smart Meters, but it definitely won’t last forever. There’s probably at least another couple of years left in it yet though.

There’s also a bigger snag with RTS setups. You can’t control the times at all, since it’s all done remotely using control signals - these are used to switch entire groups of RTS Meters all at once, which can span anywhere from a small town to an entire region depending on how many of them are still in use under each group.

Normally, migrating from an RTS Meter to a Smart Meter isn’t too hard if it’s for Economy 7 and a single meter is used (it’s a bit more complicated for multi-meter setups). I think it’s usually just a case of removing the old meter, fitting a new Smart Meter and then removing the redundant timeswitch/teleswitch. That works pretty well if there’s just one property being controlled this way, but with several flats that might be on a single RTS device… It’s a bit of an edge case that probably isn’t that simple. So that’s going to probably cause a lot of… Fun...

We’re really happy to help with the detective work here, @WB01 - and we’d love to get an update once you’ve spoken to an electrician about your storage heater options.

As others finding the thread in future might be having a similar quandary, it’s always so helpful to hear how these situations get resolved - don’t forget to pop back once you’ve learned more!