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We realise that now, but they are a largish firm in the town, and are recommended by a number of housing associations - or at least they are on their lists - and we have not seen any negative comments about them - until now. Well you live and learn as they say. As an addendum, I still have not...

When I visited mum at the weekend she presented me with a bill from the electrical contractors (see the attached.) It is very badly worded and some content ('no looking at the heater') make no sense at all. The most interesting part of this bill is where they say 'It is believed that the...

Mums fuse box has to sections using different mains fuses. The meter box has split tails feeding the two sides of the fuse box. One is for her ring main, immersion, cooker, lights etc and has power 24 hours, the other is for her storage radiators and only has power during the off peak periods...

You are right SS - Mum has one supply from a single dual rate meter. On the other hand, in our house (an old cottage) we still have 2 meters, A standard meter and the old 'Off Peak' meter. We were going to change to economy 10 but calculated that it is cheaper to leave the Off Peak meter. Our...

Hopefully the installation will outlast her stay in the flat. Although she has not used it for some time - and probably never will - I guess I should replace the top immersion when I have some time. Thanks for your input guys.

@Special Location That's the beastie. The immersions are connected directly to the controller (as per the details shown in the booklet you linked to). The controller is wired directly back to the fuse box which has the 'normal' arrangement of individual trip fuses for each circuit and a...

By E7 I meant it was a controller for Economy 7 use - although my mother has Economy 10.  A Sangamo Dual Flexi with multiple programmes would probably be a more flexible solution for her economy 10, but at her age she hates anything 'new and unfamiliar'. I bought the replacement at Screwfix  -...

NozSpark I don't have enough technical expertise to disagree with you, but did you read what Horstmann said when I spoke to them? They said that a spike from a faulty element appeared to have destroyed both 'circuits' - they never used the word 'switches'. The switches may still be intact (I...

ProDave. Not sure which is the one you are referring to, but it has a one hour rotary dial on the front, and inside there is a circuit board with various components on it. I spoke to Horstmann about it when I took it out after the problem. I explained what I had done to test both the off-peak...

Just to clarify. The timer has a single feed from the mains. There are 2 switches inside. One is for an immersion at the bottom of the tank and is timed, set to a fixed period off-peak. The second switch is connected to the upper immersion and is powered when a 'boost' dial is turned on the...

Thanks ProDave. The job was actually done by a local family firm of 'Electrical Contractors' of a reasonable size. The reason my mum called them was because they have a card up in her block of flats (housing association for the elderly) and she, along with a neighbour, had had them in 6 years...

Thanks guys - The incident related to my mothers flat and was spread over 3 visits on 3 different days by 2 separate 'engineers'. I am no electrician but my view of the situation is that neither of the 'engineers' were very diligent. - perhaps rushing to get off on holiday! Here is a copy of...

For the professional/experienced guys out there I wonder if you would like to suggest what you would regard as the correct fault finding procedure that would/should be followed in the following scenario. - You receive a call from a woman who simply tells you she has electric heating and her hot...

Our property is in the country and the supply is via overhead cable off a transformer supplying only 2 properties (us and next door) off a single cable which SW Electric tell me is single phase :)

As there is only one supply to the property the phasing is not an issue. The supplier is EDF, and they have confrimed we can have it. They say the changeover would be free of charge too. At the moment it looks like that may be the best way for us to go - a few more readings and cost...

ProDave: Andy: I think I see where the confusion is coming from. There would in fact only be 1 CU and one circuit. The main supply comes in to the house to the suppliers 100amp fuse on one cable. The fuse acts as a 'splitter' with 2 sets of tails going to the 2 meters which in turn feed 2...

Sorry for the delayed response - have been away for a couple of days. Can you explain why you made the comment about the heat pump. An industrial electrician who deals with contactors regularly and even makes custom control systems advised the opposite - saying it would be better to have the...

Thanks for all the feedback. I have now located a contactor which will do the job required and have installation covered. One final question. Whilst researching this project I see that there are various oprational ratings for contactors which range from AC1 to AC4 etc. I have the choice of 2...

No problem - I totally understand. I have now spoken to 4 electricians local to me (not easy to find as we live in a rather remote location.) One said he would not get involved in my situation. The second pointed out that using a single contactor on its own to switch between supplies could be...

In our case the difference between daytime and nightime cost is 10p. Potentially we will have the following running overnight: - an airsource heat pump at 4KW on for 7 hours per night for up to 6 months of the year. Say running at full power for an average of 2 hours per night for an average...