[Johan]

Hi,

I have been recently switched from Symbio to Eon next and I was offered to get a smart meter. The new meter was fit a couple of days ago and it's already showing a bill of more than £20, this is too much considering that I used to pay around £70 monthly.

I'm worried because the new meter is simply charging me too much! My heating and boiler only work during the night and that's why I have a tarrif that's cheaper at night, but the meter only shows the day tariff and only has one reading!!!

Why did you install a meter with only one tariff if I had one that had two before???

What can I do?

[theunknowntech]

Hi,

Smart Meters can support Economy 7 without needing special variants - it's simply a setting in a config file that determines whether Economy 7 mode is on or off, another one to set the switching times and a third setting to determine whether to energise/de-energise the fifth terminal for controlling storage heaters etc. It's possible that your meter didn't pull down the correct config during the initial commissioning process, but this can be fixed later once the meter has finished commissioning. Usually takes no more than six weeks if memory serves. The usage data it is recording in the meantime can also be used to fix billing issues and apply corrections for things like Economy 7 not being enabled when it should have been.

You'll probably want to flag this up with customer service as I suspect the config needs to be changed on your meter. Once that's done, it should correctly show what you've actually got.

Could you show me some photos of your meter and In-Home Display please? I can use those to double check what you've got and make sure you're looking at it correctly.

Hope this helps!

[Johan]

@theunknowntech Thank you for your reply. I have been testing different things and I would like to share what I have found.

First, I noticed that the IHD shows only one rate, but it changes at night, so indeed it seems to support both rates, it just shows the one currently in use.

Still, the bill remained too high, I was waking up to see it already charged me 3 to 4 pounds for what was used overnight. I set up my heating to the minimum and the first night after I did this, I was charged less than a pound so I thought problem solved. However, this morning (after second night with heating at minimum) the IHD showed that 18kW were used! and it already charged me more than 2.50 pounds. That's too much electricity and I don't understand what's going on, especially because of the inconsistency. I'll test again tonight to see what happens.

Could it be that the meter is faulty and clocking too fast sometimes?

Anyway it's tricky to check what's going on, because the cost comes mainly from the use when I'm sleeping, which funnily enough is way more than what I'm charged during the day. And I hate that the IHD doesn't show the hourly usage, it would be much helpful to try and understand what's happening and what could be driving the cost so high. Also, there's only one meter reading so I can't see the changes in the usage separately by day and night time.

[Johan]

@theunknowntech another update: last night I checked the tariff at midnight and it had not changed. The problem is that my heating starts working at midnight, so it was charging me the day tariff and I decided to completely turn it off.

This morning the meter shows that I've spent £0.66 which finally makes sense, but I'm freezing because I don't have any heating.

Moreover, I checked the tariff again at 7:50 and it still shows the day tariff!!! So for some reason there was one night where it changed to the night tariff but the rest of the week it has kept the day tariff all day

I'll call the customer service because I took pictures, so I have proof of this and hopefully they fix it.

[theunknowntech]

Sorry for the wait! My forum permissions have recently been modified, which means I no longer have to go through any pre-moderation or pre-approval checks. The only reason for the delay is because I've been a bit busy this week with Christmas and all that. XD

Hmm... This could be fun...

Getting an IHD to display Economy 7 stuff has always been a weird edge case and it's better to check the meter itself if possible. If you can show me photos of your meter, I can help you with that, on the house.

But if you'd like to, then I don't see any harm in performing a Creep Test and a Load Test. These should help to confirm whether:

1. Your meter is doing Economy 7 properly (or at all!)
2. Whether your meter is faulty and underclocking/overclocking your usage

The Load Test is definitely the easier one to do and photos of your meter would probably help me to confirm it as well.

For this one, simply observe the meter during the E7 Off-Peak hours and double check that the Night register is the one that's spinning - the Day register should be stopped during this period. Likewise, do the same during the day within E7 Peak hours to confirm the Day register is spinning and the Night register is stopped. If this isn't happening, something might not be working properly. Please make a note of the times you do this test as well, since it helps me to make sure it's not just a case of you getting the clocks mixed up. It's also worth bearing in mind that most Smart Meters do NOT adjust for BST, so they can appear to be an "hour out" at certain times of the year.

As for the Creep Test, I'm actually going to copy/paste this one from another thread I was in recently. It's a lot of typing otherwise and I'm short on time today. Normally I like to type it up manually each time and mix things up a bit to keep it fresh, but I hope you're OK with this anyway.

Before you get started, I strongly recommend only doing this test during daylight hours for your own safety and you may want to have a torch handy just in case. Please also make sure to safely shut down and turn off any sensitive electronics and gadgets like your computers, TVs, games consoles, Wi-Fi Router, Smart Home gadgets and anything else that might be affected by having the power suddenly go off. You can leave the fridge/freezer on though and keeping a couple of lights on is helpful so that you know when you're done.

If you're happy to go ahead, here's what to do. These steps might sound a bit tricky as I generally copy/paste them directly from what Blastoise186 gave me, but they should work.

1. Locate the electric meter and fuse box/consumer unit
2. Take a quick meter reading and note it down - you'll need it later
3. As you're on Prepayment, please make sure you've got some credit and you're not in Emergency Credit - otherwise it can disrupt the test. If you don't have much left, now is a good time to top-up!
4. Turn off the power to the entire house using your consumer unit - it'll only be for a few minutes so don't worry about being off-supply for a long time
5. Observe your electric meter for about five minutes. the red metrology LED (or the spinning disc in older meters) should stop completely and the meter should not clock any usage after the first 30 seconds or so
6. After five minutes, take another meter reading and note it down
7. Turn the power back on
8. Compare the two readings you took at the start and finish of the test

If the meter is not faulty, the two readings should be about the same. However, if they're massively different and/or you noticed the metrology LED (or spinning disc) continue to run and/or the meter was still clocking usage despite the power being off, then there's almost certainly a fault with the meter itself. In this case, you'll want to request a Meter Accuracy Test. It'll cost around £160 upfront and you'll get this back if the meter is confirmed to be faulty, as well as having the meter replaced and a refund issued for the lost credit once E.On has managed to figure out how much it's thrown into a black hole. Please bear in mind that the test fee is not refunded if the meter is found to be working correctly. With that being said, if it failed the Creep Test then that's already a very good sign that the meter probably is faulty - the MAT is still required to make it official but doing the Creep Test first might save you wasting £160.

And now it's back to me actually writing this directly.

As for the other points you've mentioned, I'll have to go away and think about those some more. It sounds like there's several issues at play here, and pinning it down may be a little tricky. I'll let you know if I can think of anything else.

Hope this helps. Let me know the results of the Creep Test and Load Test and I'll try to advise further.

Oh, and sorry the reply is so long! Blastoise186 is an evil genius and knows a lot about this stuff, but he's not exactly brilliant at condensing it down and I'm still learning so I've not yet tried to do so. We're working on it though! XD

[Beki]

@johan - Heya it's Beki here! Back from a well earned rest over Christmas/New Year!
I have located your account and I can see that you have been in touch with customer services.

I have had a little look at your most recent bill and also your usage. You are definitely set up on an ECO7 tariff with 2 different rates. Up to the 28th December, your day usage was 112.15 and your night usage was 330.4. Since then you have used 20 day time units, and 100 night units - which seems about normal.

Would you be able to pull out an old bill and see if you can spot your estimated annual usage somewhere please?

[Tinat]

Hi. My smart meter is always in the red late at night. I have come to bed and it is in the red yet hardly any electric is being used. I have raised this before with eon but it has never been rectified. Any ideas why this could be ? I can be using the washer , dryer in the day and it’s not in the red yet night time it shoots up ???

[theunknowntech]

Hi @Tinat ,

I can fix that in a jiffy but the instructions vary depending on your IHD. Please could you show me photos of what you have and I'll guide you through the process.

Thanks