I have two electricity meters with two MPANS - Why are my storage heaters resulting in high energy costs?

Hey there @BrightEyes161 ! Welcome to the OVO Forum! :)

This is just a quick heads up to let you know that I’ve acknowledged your question. It’s a pretty long one, so it’ll take me a while to read through the entire post. I’ll post another comment once I’ve had a chance to read through everything, but if there’s anything else you can add such as more photos, please feel free as they really help us out!

Speak soon! :)

I’ve just gone in and fixed my reply to include a few extra things I initially missed.

But while you wait, here’s a couple of fun facts for you. Horstmann is known as Secure these days, I think they rebranded a few years ago but I can’t remember the exact reason for the name change.

As for English Electric… They no longer exist. There seems to be a few traces that suggests General Electric bought out the company and merged it, but they’re few and far between and it’s difficult to trace exactly what the fate of the company was.

I’ve also noticed that your meters are pretty old and are probably due for Re-certification anyway, which means they’re due to be replaced because they’re reaching the end of the service life. Certification normally lasts around 10 years, so I’m surprised yours are still going!

No worries. You’re clearly experienced in having to deal with this and I can totally understand the headaches you’ve been through. That’s precisely why this forum exists. I’d much rather you get the right advice upfront (even as a forum volunteer!) before you hit another brick wall, than to take a gamble into the unknown and probably fail again. I’ve got a guide that will also help too. Here you go. Technically speaking, any references to “you” also apply to the landlord to at least some extent. If they’re ever unsure about anything, please let them know they’re more than welcome to stop by the forum as well and we’ll be happy to help.

It’s also not surprising at all that hardly any supplier is willing to take you on. These complex meter setups cause serious nightmares and even OVO has choked a few times in the past. I’m hoping Tim and Jess can get an update on whether OVO can support these setups either directly, or by going via SSE for now (OVO now owns SSE’s retail division).

I would be willing to agree with your rental agency as well. Personally, I think they’ve given a pretty reasonable guess and it’s probably either E7/White Meter or THTC/Warmwise. The thing that makes me ultimately think it’s SSE THTC is the fact that SSE is referenced on the RTS Meter (that’s the Horstmann one). We’ve handled similar questions a couple of times, so I’ll give you these threads as they might be of interest. But I wouldn’t be surprised if your setup really is White Meter/Economy 7. It just seems a bit unusual to have used that model of Horstmann RTS Meter for E7 purposes, when they’ve been more commonly seen for THTC...

With that being said, you’re probably right in scope of SSE Energy Networks (SSEN) as your Distribution Network Operator (DNO) because I think they do most of Scotland. Unlike SSE Energy Services, SSEN is still part of the SSE Group. I just can’t picture SSE or SSEN installing that meter on behalf of EDF somehow…

What I can definitely say, is that the meters you’ve got are pretty much never installed anymore outside of maybe a few rare edge cases - and usually just to replace existing like-for-like setups. And they were for legacy tariff types that are definitely going away. Complex tariffs were never exactly good value and generally caused more nightmares than they solved. The vendor lock-in issues with not being able to switch suppliers are just the start...

The delays in getting your MEX done might be down to a huge backlog combined with the fact you’ve got that dreaded complex meter setup. It’s only recently that Five-Terminal SMETS2 Smart Meters became available and even then, there’s the added complication of sorting out that spiderweb of wiring. And yeah… This won’t exactly be cheap either.

I really hope this can get sorted out though. As much as I’d love to have said that you could switch to OVO and then have OVO take care of the upgrade for you - which works fine for 99% of cases where the metering setup is nowhere near as complicated - complex meters are a completely different beast that needs more special attention. That’s why I’m hoping Tim and Jess can get some more details from the teams who know more about how it works.

It might be worth looking at replacing those Storage Heaters with something else in the future, but you’ll probably want to discuss that with the landlord first. Even if you just replace them with newer models that are more energy efficient, it might bring the bills down. I think it’s also possible that you might qualify for the Warm Home Discount as well. If you do qualify, it’ll give you £140 off your electricity bill to help you through the winter - and it’s available with almost all suppliers including OVO. Some of the smaller suppliers might not offer it though, so I definitely recommend asking first before switching if you plan to make use of it.

I’m still researching this one at the moment, but hopefully we’ll be able to figure out your options soon.

I’ve just remembered some additional info that might be useful, so I’ll go ahead and write it down here while it’s fresh in my mind. It’s some stuff that I just remembered while browsing a few other forums and resources to dig deeper into this issue.

One of the problems you’ve got is that your Dual-MPAN setup from the two meters often creates what is known as Related MPAN’s - where there’s one for each meter but they’re both tagged as being at the same address. It doesn’t always happen, but is pretty common with complex meters. LOADS of suppliers choke when faced with these, because it confuses the systems as to which MPAN is being switched and causes the process to fail in many cases.

Here’s an example of a previous discussion that I found on here which I have been part of.

In theory, it might be possible for OVO to take on your supply, but it’s extremely likely that the self-service Quote & Switch tool via the OVO website will choke if you attempt to use it. In some cases however, it can be possible for OVO’s Support Team to manually process the switch from their end and they are sometimes able to get tricky switches to work in cases where the self-service methods break. It’s probably worth having a chat with them over the phone to discuss your situation as the team might be able to check if they can switch you without having you commit to it first. If they can, then you might be in luck but it would have to be done over the phone for the most part.

If you do manage to get OVO to take on your supply successfully, it should then be possible to arrange a Meter Exchange to upgrade you to S2 Smart Meters. Since this would result in two meters being replaced with one, you’d be converted to having just one MPAN rather than two - which also means only one Standing Charge and much easier switching in the future if you decide to move on. If this works, OVO would also be able to take care of updating the records and zapping the second MPAN for you (the second Standing Charge would be terminated once this completes).

This is all very dependent on whether OVO is able to pull this off and I can’t make any promises, but I think there’s a possible chance it might work. I have a feeling Tim and Jess might also be digging through their notes on this one, but I hope this is at least something that might help you escape this headache.

I would strongly recommend having a chat with OVO’s Support Team before making any commitments though. Please feel free to let them know about this thread as well, since the information you’ve provided here will almost certainly help them out a lot. :)

Good luck with getting this sorted! We’ll be here if you get stuck.

Well, I have a real Brucie Bonus for you right here. And it’s pretty useful in a general context but also explains my point about certification. Feel free to check this puppy out.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/857025/Schedule_4_-_7th_January_2020.pdf

I honestly don’t know how I managed to find this thing, since it’s buried so deep on GOV.UK that I don’t think many people encounter it very often. But in short, it seems to be a list of Certifications for basically every every single electric meter ever used in the UK. Except that it doesn’t seem to be fully up-to-date as brands like Aclara are missing… Still useful to have around though. Gas meters are probably in a separate document though, which I’ll probably discover eventually.

Looking through that list, I’ve identified that your Horstmann RTS Meter - which is a Horstmann NU077-122 for this purpose - and listed as a Horstmann NU077-1 in the document had a 20 year Certification lifespan… Which ever so conveniently expired almost a year ago in November 2020. I can’t find any references to your English Electric one in the document, but given that it’s got a Certification sticker of January 1996 and there seems to be very few meters that were granted a lifespan of more than 20 years… I’m going to take a wild guess and assume that it ran out in January 2016. The huge gap in the dates is definitely unusual, but it’s probably because the two meters were manufactured and/or installed at different times.

Admittedly, there are apparently a handful of meters with a lifespan of 40 or even 45 years somehow but they seem to be an exception to the usual rules. It’s an awfully long service life though…

I also randomly came across a discussion on another forum from nearly 10 years ago that seems interesting. While some of the language is a little dodgy, I’ve read through it all and I’m satisfied that it’s not too bad. Feel free to check it out if you’re interested. This definitely adds more weight to my thoughts that it’s a THTC setup. It’s also looking like your English Electric meter has clocked itself all the way back to zero at least once since it was installed. I realised this when I noticed the rotary dials on the register don’t properly line up anymore which is really common when these types of dial have gone all the way back to zero. This isn’t a sign of tampering of course - just an indication that loads of electricity has been passing through the meter over the years! Your bills shouldn’t be affected either, as most billing systems are capable of detecting this scenario and then doing some extra number crunching to account for it.

The next problem I’m seeing however, is that THTC was an SSE exclusive tariff and further research is starting to indicate that even EDF Warmwise might not be as similar as I thought it was. The problem with these legacy supplier specific tariffs is that there was almost never anything that came even close to matching them, so comparisons were impossible unless it was clear that it was just a cosmetic thing for marketing and branding purposes (which was really rare). I can’t see how you’d be able to get EDF to do any kind of off-peak or Economy 7 type tariffs with this complex meter setup, because that Horstmann RTS Meter is almost certainly going to blindly react to the same control signals as all the other SSE THTC meters with the same Group Code - it won’t have a clue that you’ve moved to EDF and that THTC no longer applies to your supply.

SSE’s Total Heat Total Control tariff (aka Total Heating with Total Control to give it the full name) also responds based on the weather forecast for the area as well. According to SSE, the off-peak hours can run between five and 12 hours per day based on the weather forecast and SSE would switch storage heaters and water heaters on and off via the control signals based on what they believe is appropriate for that day. If the weather forecast is looking pretty sunny and warm, then it’d be more likely that your off-peak hours would be closer to five hours, but if it looks like it’s going to be a snow storm with freezing temperatures, you’re more likely to get closer to 12 hours of off-peak.

There’s also certain things that get the cheaper rate 24/7 like electric showers and towel rails. So that makes things even more complicated - especially the wiring! This would have been a possible option back in the day, but sadly it no longer exists for new customers.

On the other hand, EDF Warmwise appears to be a legacy tariff that merely grants eight hours of cheaper electricity per day, but according to the MSE Forum, there’s references to having a single meter with four rates. This appears to be backed up slightly by the only reference to Warmwise that I can find on the EDF websites. That page is literally the only one that still exists for some reason. In reflection, I now start to feel that you’re probably not on Warmwise at all, since it doesn’t seem to match up to your meter setup at all.

At this point, I feel as if I can start to understand another possible reason why your bills are so high. I get the impression you’re on a single-rate tariff in a scenario where Economy 7 would be a lot more appropriate. Although it is possible to use this complex meter setup on a single-rate tariff (the supplier can just take all the readings and run the numbers to get a combined total), I can’t really see how you can get anything like Economy 7 with this arrangement. If the RTS Meter is reacting to THTC control signals rather than E7 control signals then it basically makes E7 style billing impossible to calculate. There’s not really any way to reconfigure the Radio Teleswitch either, short of replacing it with another one - and in your case that would mean replacing the entire RTS Meter, since the Radio Teleswitch is built-in on that particular model. And if you’re going to have that done, you might as well just upgrade to Smart Meters anyway because chances are that EDF no longer offers complex tariffs like Warmwise or Heatwise. And the fact that the RTS Service is slowly being decommissioned means that it would be unwise to install RTS Meters now, outside of replacing faulty meters on a temporary basis.

Jess is still waiting to hear back from the team and it might take a while, but I hope you’re OK with that. We’ll definitely keep you posted if we manage to get any updates or figure out anything else.

Oh, and I think this serves as yet more proof that community forums are an absolutely amazing resource! You would never get this kind of discussion going on most social media platforms, that’s for sure!

No worries, you’re most welcome. Figuring out extremely tricky puzzles is something we absolutely love doing here - and ultimately I want you to be able to leave here with the best possible advice that not only acts in your best interests, but also your landlord as well. I think your landlord and the rental agency would be very keen to read through this discussion - and no doubt they’d be more than happy to do away with the current metering setup!

While the OVO Forum is primarily volunteer led, Tim and Jess are also on hand to help with moderation tasks and also to provide extra help with some of the more complicated questions. And in cases like yours, they’re able to ask OVO’s internal teams for even more advice. The mysterious Smart Meter Friend is seriously good with these complex meters as they know a ton about them - so they’re not just a Smart Meter expert! But even I don’t know the identity of the mysterious expert because Tim and Jess won’t reveal their identity even to me! XD

You basically have unlimited access to the forum whenever you need help and we can help with almost anything that isn’t account specific… Or paying the bills… We tried to build a TARDIS for that, but it kinda disappeared into the Time Vortex and we’ve never seen it since.

Anyway… Let’s get back to the action!

It’s really difficult to switch suppliers/tariffs with complex meters. Not only will suppliers often outright reject the switch, the few that can handle them often struggle later on - or end up giving you an even worse deal than before. You also can’t use price comparison tools of any kind… Because basically none of them are capable of recognising complex meters unless they’re Economy 7/10/White Meter.

Your current meter setup was almost certainly installed purely with THTC in mind. Jess is asking OVO’s Smart Meter Friend for an expert opinion, but I’m highly confident that I’ve managed to identify it as being one. Every single resource I’ve got points at your setup being intended for SSE THTC and in actual fact, if you were to ask OVO or EDF (or basically any supplier) to do an ECOES Lookup for your address, you could probably retrieve a full Supplier History and Meter History pretty easily. I bet you a Mars Bar that SSE would be on there somewhere. I honestly have no idea how on earth someone managed to hack/bodge a switch to EDF though, because it seems extremely clear to me that EDF cannot support your meters properly. Unless a previous tenant managed to pull off some kind of black magic or used a voodoo doll somehow… I just don’t know how that happened. But in short… Yes… You appear to have SSE THTC meters that have been dragged kicking and screaming over to EDF, despite EDF not supporting them and since the meters don’t know you’re with EDF now, they’re still listening for SSE control signals and reacting based on what SSE THTC thinks your meters should be doing. EDF has no say over this behaviour… And unfortunately you don’t either. So yeah, the weather dependent control signals probably are causing your flat to be a desert at weird times, while turning you into an ice cube when you really need to keep warm. Because as we all know, the weatherman always gets it wrong! 

But it gets even worse for you - and yes, those usage figures are extremely high and are definitely a factor in your high bills. You’ll definitely want to chat with your landlord about your options to upgrade the heating to something less power hungry.

The problem you have is that while SMETS Commands for Smart Meters always target individual meters on a one-at-a-time basis (everything else gets ignored), RTS Meters will just blindly accept basically anything that seems like a valid control signal for their group, even if it’s not actually meant to target a particular meter due to a tariff change. In your case, while you’re no longer on SSE THTC, your Horstmann RTS Meter is still responding to SSE THTC related control signals and it’s impossible to force that meter to listen for Economy 7 control signals instead... Unless you to break the anti-tamper seals and get zapped with 240 volts of eco juice from the nearest wind farm (don’t do that!).

Either way, a THTC Meter will always be a THTC Meter for its entire service life and it will never know whether or not you’re still on THTC. That’s one of the downsides of the Radio Teleswitching Service - it’s a one-way system and it’s completely impossible to target a single meter, so good luck using RTS to reprogram one and disable THTC functionality (because you can’t).

To me, I feel as if EDF are ripping you off a bit with even more confusing tariffs. If you do nothing, you’ll be automatically dumped on their Standard Variable tariff once your fixed term deal ends - and it’s likely to end up costing you even more than it does now. But at the same time, it’s a gamble to enter into a new contract with EDF if you’re planning to switch to OVO or any other supplier, as you might get punished with Exit Fees if you do. So if you’re planning to leave, I’d suggest going onto their Standard Variable tariff for the short time remaining until you switch away. I would strongly recommend against locking yourself into a three year contract with your current arrangements, even if you aren’t planning to move out it’s just too risky. If you stay with EDF, it’s likely a case of having to pick the best from a bunch of bad options - and the best is waiting for them to eventually get you a Smart Meter upgrade.

To get a better idea, I just went on their site and threw in a random postcode into their quote tool and it threw 10 different tariffs at me. Admittedly, I did lie to it by putting in completely fake details, but even then 10+ tariffs from one supplier is excessive. I gave up after I noticed that their website was trying to spy on me using SessionCam (I HATE overly privacy invasive analytics like that) so it’s a good thing I have my UDM set to block that junk. To make things worse, Octopus presented me with 60+ tariffs when I punched in the same details into their website. Too much choice!!!

The Sep24 reference is basically the month and year that the tariff will end if you were to sign up right now, unless otherwise specified. And this just makes it even more complicated than it needs to be. Because I’m pretty sure there’ll soon be yet another version of the same tariff with a new name and rates.

I never really see any valid reason why there needs to be so many tariffs. OVO only has a handful which mainly consists of a Standard Variable, One Year Fix, Two Year Fix and a Smart Meter Special. The names always stay the same, while the rates quoted are based on what’s available to you at the point you generate them. That’s realistically all it needs to be and makes my life so much easier. Especially because I also rent my flat.

But luckily for me, I’m on a simple bog standard Single-Rate setup with my S2 Aclara SGM1411-B called Raichu doing a brilliant job of getting my readings sent to OVO reliably, and two Chameleon IHD6-CAD-PPMID IHDs that I call the Kecleon Brothers doing a pretty decent job of letting me track my usage whenever I get them close enough to Raichu to pick up the signal (fire rated walls do not help with that!).

But yeah, I’m seriously glad you stopped by to ask for help because this not only gives us even more useful forum content for other visitors (we get over 60k hits a month on here!), but it also means you’ll have a much better idea of what you can do without the risk of gambling in the dark. Even if that means you don’t switch to OVO, I’d be much more comfortable with you getting the advice that helps you out anyway and I obviously don’t get any reward out of helping out here… Other than racking up loads of points on the forum leaderboard (which is more just for fun than anything else).

Personally, I’d feel pretty bad if I was in your situation and moved out to force a new tenant to have to deal with the mess - especially if they don’t know anything about this stuff and have no idea what to do. The actions you take to upgrade the meters and heating/hot water now will have an impact on your landlord and future tenants. I absolutely applaud you for doing the right thing and I think it’ll pay off in the long run.

Hi all. Thanks for all the info again, very helpful!

Thanks so much for looking into that @Jess_OVO, regardless of the outcome! I believe my DNO is SSE, from what I checked on a couple of websites. Can I ask what the complicating limitations are? I’ve read a bunch of the links you have both posted and somewhat understand some things.. but if possible, it would be useful to have a condensed version of what is happening here that is preventing someone like me from getting my meter system updated and thus being able to choose a better tariff, especially since, as mentioned earlier in the thread, at least one of my meters is past it’s certification lifespan and these meters are due to be phased out any time now. Should this meter be changed now legally? Whose responsibility is it to change these meters? And a related question, why can’t OVO bring me over and change them?

I know you said that you don’t recommend going on one of their tariffs @Blastoise186, but one option I’m considering is staying with EDF, going on the 3 year tariff they suggested and just paying the £15 exit fee when I move out. Though, @Jess_OVO, you said they can’t charge me an exit fee? They did say in the email I received there is this exit fee. Could you give me any sources I can show them that confirm this? Even if they did charge me an exit fee though, it would probably cost less if I stayed for around another year than if I didn’t go on a tariff at all. I’m at least going to wait and see what they reply about tariffs and smart meters. I’ll update here about that as I go along. This tariff option will be more expensive than last winter, so I’m obviously not happy about it, but if that’s all I can do regarding the tariff that’s how it’ll be I guess.

I’m talking about ‘one option’ here like I have any other.. It’s quite frustrating that I appear to be locked into whatever EDF offer me. From what you’re saying, I can’t shop around, I’m stuck with these meters and this tariff until EDF choose to do something. So.. where is the incentive for EDF to actually do anything there? I’m not arguing that they are unscrupulous as I have no idea, but if they or another company were to be of that ilk, they wouldn’t prioritise installing smart meters, as that enables customers to leave, and therefore they could lock customers into this high-cost system indefinitely. That’s a really naff situation for someone like me to be in and surely breaks some legislation somewhere..? I was under the impression that everyone should be able to change provider without constraints. And who decides what a duty of care for them even looks like until they fit a new meter and a better tariff? How do I even aim my frustration somewhere practically useful here?

I’ll definitely start putting more of my energy into looking into modern storage heater solutions, if there are any grants for that, and asking if the landlord will fund one, or at least getting my current one checked, thanks! I read on a tenant information website that ‘The minimum heating standard is at least 18°C in sleeping rooms, and 21°C in living rooms, when the temperature outside is minus 1°C and it should be available at all times.’ The website cited the Landlord and Tenant Act (1985) but I did not find any specifics around temperature on it unfortunately. I just worry that my landlord will not agree and I will be stuck in an even worse position than last winter in terms of temperature and cost.

Edit: is it possible for the landlord to change the meters privately? How much would that likely cost?

Hi, thanks!  When you say only my supplier is permitted to change the meters, do you mean my current supplier, EDF? Or the original people who put them in (SSE I think?) I’m getting in touch with both of them, CAB and emailing about the Warm Home discount too. :)

I fully appreciate the confusion around these limitations - I’m not sure if I’m in the best position to condense the situation for you but this is the information I’ve been advised by our expert:

“SSEN, who define the tariff regimes we can use on their network, have declared, under the DCUSA Schedule 8, that we cannot change the structure of the tariff a customer is on in a Load Managed Area (LMA). That is if they have a Radio Tele-switched (RTS) arrangement - which this customer will be if they have a Twin Element THTC Supply. We must maintain that, even with Smart. We have been working for quite a while to find out how we can do this and have engaged Ofgem and Energy UK to assist, as things stand today, customers with RTS, in a published LMA, are currently ineligible to have a Smart meter “

Worth mentioning here that your meter (as with all meters) are the responsibility of your current supplier. They will let you know when the meters are due for re-certification and it’s their duty to ensure that these meters are replaced at this point - There are still stocks of traditional Radio Tele-switch (RTS) meters which can be used for these replacements. 

That’s right, @BrightEyes161. No exit fees can be applied by any supplier for a house move, as this can obviously be for reasons beyond your control. The exit fee they are referring to would be applicable were you to end the plan early, either by switching to another supplier or another contract at the same address.

As you mentioned getting in touch with SSE, I’d recommend speaking to their team responsible for advising on these type of metering set-ups. You can reach them on 0345 071 7972 - they may have more knowledge about the possibility of switching to SSE and the tariffs available to you if you were to switch.

Once again - I’m hoping this helps in some small way 

No worries, you’re most welcome. I’m glad we could help in at least some way!

If you ever need a hand with your research, feel free to let us know. A few volunteers might be happy to help and I definitely would be.

As for keeping the thread unlocked, sure thing! We actually keep threads unlocked indefinitely here, even after the question has been answered - marking a Best Answer simply sets the status to Solved and highlights the chosen answer. :) We like to keep them open because it’s a lot more helpful in case anyone else needs help or wants to contribute further. Feel free to use this thread to post updates anytime. We’ll definitely be happy to hear from you!

Hi!

I got an email from EDF so wanted to update.

They offered me a “Daily Standing Charge of 27.4p per day + Unit Rate: 20.49p per kWh = est. £545.55 per year for the standard meter, and a 13.65p per kWh = est. £837.97 for the Single Heat meter. Total est. £1,383.52.”

Though they also said, on the day they sent that email, that the tariff for the standard meter is for 3 years with a £15 exit fee and is being removed today, which seems ridiculously short notice and I’ve already missed that deadline.

Interestingly, they also said that “a 5 terminal SMETS2 Economy 7 meter is what you would need because of your storage heaters, however they are not available in Scotland at this time” and “The only other meter type we can offer you is a 5 terminal legacy Economy 7 meter (not SMART at present) which would give you 7 hours of cheaper usage overnight. As you are in Scotland you may get 7 to 8.5 hours due to the weather. On your current heating meter you get between 5 and 12 hours regarding the heating dependant on the weather in your area, so going to Economy 7 you would lose a few hours of heating.” and that the price would be “Daily Standing Charge: 27.48p per day, Day Rate: 24.15p per kWh, Night Rate: 12.72p, total est. £1,406.16.”

So… going to this, at least with them, is estimated to be slightly more expensive than not changing and potentially even with less heat.. Really not sure what to do here. It might open up more avenues to change company and get better rates? But then, it being a legacy 5 terminal meter, I might still be stuck in the same place?

Maybe just staying with these meters and seeing what tariff they can give me now is best.. Though as I said earlier, the one they originally offered has apparently expired. What a mess..

We’re a bit surprised to hear this, @BrightEyes161  - depending on exactly where you are in Scotland the limitations in switching away from your current set-up to an Economy 7 meter would still apply even if the meter was traditional rather than smart. This might be worth double-checking with EDF, who can confirm whether you’re within the ‘Load Managed Area’ which is affected by these limitations.

That’s really frustrating to hear - whilst we can’t comment on other suppliers policies, any tariff offers OVO send out via email would be guaranteed for 7 days from the date the email was sent. It might be worth giving EDF a call to check this point, I’d have thought they should allow you time to consider your options before you settle for a plan.

Obviously this is quite a big and costly decision (for your landlord to make) and it would depend on whether your home is on the gas network (there are areas in Scotland which aren’t supplied by the gas network). Again it might not be the news you wanted to hear but just wanted to make sure you’ve got all the information before you consider your options.

As ever, keep us posted on any further developments - we’re interested to hear the outcome for you. 

Some really brilliant advice there, @BrightEyes161 - so good in fact, I think that deserves some ‘Best Answer’ points. 

Do keep us updated with how things go with the meter replacement. It’s good to hear you’re making progress with your current supplier and hopefully getting things sorted before the colder winter months.