OVO NEARLY CAUSED A CATASTROPHIC HOUSE FIRE

Hey ​@Faz890,

Welcome to the community! If you haven’t already please check out our newbies area. 

I'm sorry to hear about your experience. When you requested your meter upgrade, did you also request an upgrade for the tails as part of the work? If this wasn’t specified at the time, the engineers would not carry out additional work unless it was agreed upon and paid for in advance. You can find more information on the available jobs and their associated costs that can be arranged with our engineers below:

I’ve asked one of our internal head engineers to take a look at the thread to give a better understanding of what went wrong here. 

If you are unhappy with the resolution provided after raising your complaint, you can find more information regarding our complaints process and how to escalate this issue.

Hi Chris, 

This wasn't clarified at the time and I assumed that the wires would get changed alongside the meter. The charger was preinstalled and was there before the meter. When I requested the meter change, I specifically mentioned it was for the EV. 

I was told the meter tails would have been changed for free with the smart meter but I had no idea this had to be requested and it wasn't clarified. 

As part of the safety checks after install, the tails being undersized wasn't picked up which eventually led to an overloaded system. 

I was then offered £10 for the mixup after I mentioned the lack of safety awareness and confusion. The bare minimum would have been to replace the tails and an apology for the mixup. At the time, I did not want any monetary compensation, just for the tails to be changed. 

This is a major health and safety breach and could have ended differently had it not been for the fuse breaker. 

Am I missing something here?
(I may be because you don’t give any dates of what work was done when).

Surely if the particular charger requires 25mm tails rather than 16mm then they should have been changed at the time that the charger was installed?
Otherwise it would be the installer of the charger who had installed it in a potentially unsafe state.

If they weren’t changed at that time then what you describe could have happened at any time after the charger was installed. (New meter or not).

Hi Nukecad,

The tails from the main supply to the meter are the responsibility of the energy supplier. The consumer is not allowed to replace or repair these wires. This is something the energy supplier changes for free when a new meter is installed. 

All other wires are installed properly and checked for safety. 

Thanks  I was aware of all that.

And by the way, I forgot to mention before that it's good to hear that the fuse did its job and you had no fire.

The fact remains though that if the tails are not changed at the same time as the charger is installed then that leaves a potential for overheating and in the worst case a fire.

Luckilly in this case the fuse blew before things got that far. (As it's meant to do).

Maybe your experience is an example of why it may not be such a good idea to try and save on the cost of replacing the tails at the time that the charger is installed and instead leaving it until (months?) later.

PS. Some lower power EV chargers are fine with 16mm tails.

Should a meter engineer be aware of every different make/model of charger and their power requitements? Remembering that everything after the meter is the consumers property/ responsibility.

Nukechad,

I think your forgetting the main point, the safety check conducted by the engineers was flawed. When the charger was installed, it was done before getting the new smart meter. The tails upgrade were anticipated to be done with the smart meter and they weren't.

Customers aren't always aware of safety measures and the responsibility falls on the supplier. The engineers should have picked this up at the time of installing the smart meter. OVO were aware what make the EV was due to the Charge Anytime requirements. OVO should have asked or recommended tails upgrade for new EV customers. 

There seems to be a breakdown of communication with the company and the engineers installing the new meters. Maybe OVO can incorporate this into future meter installing safety precautions. 

If a service is free in certain situations, why are OVO not offering this? Why should the customer request this? It should be offered at the point of recommending a new smart meter. I really liked OVO and their customer service up until this incident has been amazing. I really like the company and they have some good rates. 

I just feel that they could have approached this better, especially when safety was involved. It's not like the customer can do this work, they're prohibited. 

I think that we will have to agree to disagree.

I will note in fairness that your posts do state “assumption/assumed”, “anticipation/anticipated”.

Maybe your expectations were more than what actually happens?

Nukecad,

One can only use assumption or anticipation in hindsight. A customer won't necessarily know what is available or different policy and processes. This is why it's important for the supplier to make the customers know in advance. 

OVO can do the right thing and fix this problem and keep me as a loyal customer. I actually recommended the company to my friends and family who all have EV's. 

Hey ​@Faz890,

I have forwarded this to our internal head engineer for his input.

Initially, when you had the charger installed, the installer should have conducted a site survey. This survey would have identified the issue with the tails needing replacement, and that work should have been completed then. The same applies to the fuse.

During our engineer's visit, we were not informed that the tails required upgrading. As ​@Nukecad has correctly pointed out, some EV chargers can function with 16mm cables; this depends on the charger and the amount of current it draws. It would have been difficult for us to determine that this work was necessary unless we were the ones who installed the charging point, which, to my understanding, we did not do.

I have spoken with your complaints handler and requested that they reach out to you to see how else we can assist you.

Hi Chris,

The installer did do the check and informed me that the tails would need to be upgraded. Having read your forum, I found that this work is normally done with the change of smart meter (free). I assumed this was the case but did not know it has to be specially requested. 

A customer will not always know this information and in my case the safety check was signed off by the smart meter installer. The system was not safe and it shouldn't have been signed-off. 

I was always under the impression that the tails had been changed, there was no need for me to consider they weren't. It wasn't until the blown fuse that I was told they were not changed. 

My argument is that the changing of tails should be offered to all customers with EV chargers (at the point of a meter change). Customers won't always know if they need 16mm or 25mm tails. In a worse-case scenario, a house could go up in flames. 

OVO as a company does have a duty of care to customers and if something like this has been raised, they need to inform the customers with EV's to get the work checked. 

All I ask for is for the tails to be changed. It would have been free at the point of installing a new smart meter. It's unfair for me to pay for something which the safety check should have picked up on.