Help with rent storage heaters please

[ryoko]

Moved into a rental property in Sept with three storage heaters. They are Newlec ones (Image) with digital controls and were only turned on last month. Discovered yesterday when taking meter readings that rather then storing over night they had been asking as 'normal' heaters on the day rate as the boost mode was on auto. Turned boost off last night on one heater to see what happened and now heat at all this morning. There are two switches beside each heater that are both on. They are set quite low if that would effect it. Also my meter is what I was told by supplier is a complex meter with two tariffs, one just for the heaters, that one has lot chanced since that reading which is why I realised something was wrong. What am I doing wrong?

 

[Murdoch]

Turn off the daytime boost ……. On all 3

 

[ProDave]

If you really have the "complex metering" which usually means Total Control Total Heat (THTC) then you will have a permanent feed that is always metered at the cheap rate 24/7 and is only supposed to be used for heating appliances.

If your storage heaters permanent feed is connected to this, it will not matter one jot whether you are using the storage or real time functions of the heater.

You will have one dual rate meter and one single rate meter. Take all 3 readings, turn on a boost heater for say an hour and read them again, and see which one has counted up.

 

[ryoko]

Turn off the daytime boost ……. On all three

Tried that and woke up to cold house

 

[ryoko]

If you really have the "complex metering" which usually means Total Control Total Heat (THTC) then you will have a permanent feed that is always metered at the cheap rate 24/7 and is only supposed to be used for heating appliances.

If your storage heaters permanent feed is connected to this, it will not matter one jot whether you are using the storage or real time functions of the heater.

You will have one dual rate meter and one single rate meter. Take all 3 readings, turn on a boost heater for say an hour and read them again, and see which one has counted up.

That is what meter looks like. When you press the blue display button it cycles through Element 1: Rate 1 and 2 then Element 2: Rate 1 and 2. Element 2 rates are 00000 and 43682 so was told that was the storage heaters, but that rate has not changed in a month and Element 1's rate 1 went up a lot.

 

[monkey5]

Where do the grey tails on the right go to? Consumer unit? Looks like th E7 isn't connected and terminated in fuse holder.

 

[Sparksfly]

Have you got a pic of the consumer unit/s ?...If it is E7......you normally have two - one peak rate , one off-peak
Looking at your pic of the cut out I wonder if the Fuse on the right was E7 but has been disconnected !!....or you do have THTC

 

[Murdoch]

Tried that and woke up to cold house

In which case it must be a lot 20 compliant storage heater that needs dual supply and the day time supply must be on all the time.

Do you have the instructions and the complete model number?

 

[Sparksfly]

They are rebadged dimplex .... eg Creda TSRE
Fitted one last week.

 

[Murdoch]

Imho LOT 20 needs to be reversed.

Too many of the products are too complicated and often defeats the object of them

 

[Sparksfly]

Well....agreed... -Lot20 or outside the regs.... There are too many heaters let down by difficult programmers. Hence I avoid these, however the Dimplex/Newlec/Creda and some others are user friendly. The new stg heaters do hold the heat better then blow it out when needed.

 

[ProDave]

So you have an ordinary dual rate meter NOT THTC as I thought earlier.

And the house is not wired properly, so the switched off peak output that would normally energise the storage heaters automatically at night is not connected.

It is not your house, you are renting it, so you can't alter it, so honest advice is look for a different rental before next winter and leave the problem for someone else. If the landlord asks why tell him the heating system is carp, it;s not set up to use the cheap rate properly and costs a fortune.