Andrew Beveridge
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- Nov 5, 2018
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Hi folks,
We moved into a new flat about 6 months ago and have realised we're being billed for all of our electricity at the expensive "all day" rate - despite having a very large "Thermaflow" electric boiler which is designed to draw tons of power heating up water overnight to use throughout the day.
The flat has an interesting wiring setup for Economy 7 which I hadn't seen before - there are two meters (one "off-peak" / cheaper rate, one "all day" more expensive rate) and a Horstmann radio teleswitch which I believe is supposed to control the usage of the lower rate electricity.
Of the two meters, the "off-peak" one hasn't moved at all since we moved in - clearly everything is going through the all day meter.
I tried to go the sensible route to get this resolved via our supplier, but I've called them a few times and they don't seem to know anything about the teleswitch and don't seem to understand the problem at all.
Pictorial wiring diagram:
drive.google.com/file/d/1fSfQ0KYlqdu55YvD941YPKE2K0KoGAVa/view
Photo:
drive.google.com/file/d/1SvlaB1YaVGVI-cbTcr4wbCMoLfYM7Www/view
My understanding of it based on googling lots and reading is that the teleswitch (controlled by AM radio signals) is supposed to turn on and off during the night - essentially opening or closing the chunky 80A mechanical relay to allow current to flow during the off-peak times.
From my testing with the multimeter it seems like this relay is permanently closed in our teleswitch, yet no current is actually going through the off-peak meter.
I don't really understand the way this is wired up - from what I can tell it looks like all of the load (consumer unit + boiler) goes through the single Wylex main switch, which is connected directly to the live load output on both meters! As such, I don't see what would control which meter the current would flow through - I'd actually almost expect it to be split between the two, though I guess a minor variation in resistance between the two paths could cause it to pick one vs. the other.
If anybody can help me understand how it's supposed to work, and what's actually happening just now, that would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!
We moved into a new flat about 6 months ago and have realised we're being billed for all of our electricity at the expensive "all day" rate - despite having a very large "Thermaflow" electric boiler which is designed to draw tons of power heating up water overnight to use throughout the day.
The flat has an interesting wiring setup for Economy 7 which I hadn't seen before - there are two meters (one "off-peak" / cheaper rate, one "all day" more expensive rate) and a Horstmann radio teleswitch which I believe is supposed to control the usage of the lower rate electricity.
Of the two meters, the "off-peak" one hasn't moved at all since we moved in - clearly everything is going through the all day meter.
I tried to go the sensible route to get this resolved via our supplier, but I've called them a few times and they don't seem to know anything about the teleswitch and don't seem to understand the problem at all.
Pictorial wiring diagram:
drive.google.com/file/d/1fSfQ0KYlqdu55YvD941YPKE2K0KoGAVa/view
Photo:
drive.google.com/file/d/1SvlaB1YaVGVI-cbTcr4wbCMoLfYM7Www/view
My understanding of it based on googling lots and reading is that the teleswitch (controlled by AM radio signals) is supposed to turn on and off during the night - essentially opening or closing the chunky 80A mechanical relay to allow current to flow during the off-peak times.
From my testing with the multimeter it seems like this relay is permanently closed in our teleswitch, yet no current is actually going through the off-peak meter.
I don't really understand the way this is wired up - from what I can tell it looks like all of the load (consumer unit + boiler) goes through the single Wylex main switch, which is connected directly to the live load output on both meters! As such, I don't see what would control which meter the current would flow through - I'd actually almost expect it to be split between the two, though I guess a minor variation in resistance between the two paths could cause it to pick one vs. the other.
If anybody can help me understand how it's supposed to work, and what's actually happening just now, that would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!