Economy 7 Problems

Talk Electrician Forum

Help Support Talk Electrician Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

tjw77

Member
Joined
Apr 30, 2016
Messages
9
Reaction score
0
My economy 7 has not been working properly for some time - both storage heaters and the hot water system stopped working for a while, then suddenly came back intermittently. One day I will get up and will have no heat/hot water at all (so have to use the boosters), then the next day it will be working.  Somedays I can feel a very faint heat coming out from the heaters, i.e. they are not completely cold, but also not providing heat.

I contacted my supplier and they changed the meter, which did not resolve the problem. They then said that it was my issue to sort. I hired an electrician who has changed the contactor, and I am still having the same issues.

I am now at a loss as to what to do next - everyone that has come out I feel has not really known for sure what the problem is - my supplier said its not them, and the electricians have said that I need to go back to my supplier! In looking on the internet, it also seems confusing as to whose responsibility it is to maintain contactors, as I have seen it sometimes say it is the consumer, but other times the supplier. Even if it is my responsibility, I just don't know now what to do, given that I have had the contactor changed, but to no avail. I haven't a clue about electrics, and haven't really had much in the way of explanation from the people that are meant to know!

Please can anyone help - I am really getting to the end of my tether with this, and whilst the heating situation is becoming less of a problem now, as it is getting warmer (on the whole!), I still don't want to be using the booster to heat my hot water over the summer, which is what I currently have to do. And I want to get this issue sorted before the weather starts to change again

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

 
Welcome to the forum. The problem you describe may not be a single problem, it could be an accumulation of several problems. You need to prove each individual item is working independent of the other items.  e.g  you have an immersion heater element with its associated thermostat. you have storage heaters with their heating elements and thermostats, you have a time clock and contactor for energising the overnight economy 7 supply, you have a boost control, which probably heats a second element (and its thermostat) in your hot water tank etc..  There are numerous items that all need to be working correctly to solve your problem. Any competent person with suitable test equipment should be able to prove if each component is actually working or not. e.g. continuity tests of heating elements, thermostats. Temporary supplies could be connected to heaters etc, etc.  It is too easy to fall into the trap of assuming you have a single fault when you haven't yet proved or isolated any parts out of the equation. What part of the county are you in?

Doc H. 

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Thank you Doc. I am in Birmingham, West Mids.  So in order to rule out each of the issues you mentioned, should this be an electrician, or my energy supplier? The boost control is working, as I am relying on that for my heaters (when it gets a bit chilly) and to heat the hot water.

 
Having a contactor to switch the E7 circuits on and off is unusual though not unique.  There is a heavy duty switched contact in the suppliers E7 time switch so there is really no need for a contactor.

What setup do you have? pictures?  In the old days the meter and the suppliers E7 time switch were separate items.  These days it's all built into one, the meter and time switch are all one unit. As they replaced it, is that what you have now?

My money would be on the contacts of the contactor being dodgy, sometimes it closes proplerly, other times not.  This is something a decent electrician should be able to test.  Now that contactor is only energised at night, so I am sure your electrician doesn't want to work a night shift to test it, so he will have to temporarily arrange to energise it from a daytime circuit so he can test it, and turn it on and off several times and make sure it actually turns on every time reliably.

The fact you boost heaters work is irrelevant. They wil be completely separate convector heating element and not related to the storage heaters, other than they are in the same box as the storage heater.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I've tried to add a picture attachment, but it wont let me.  I basically have a main RCD and a separate one for off peak.  The off peak unit consists of a contactor, and on/off switches for the 2 storage heaters and immersion heater.  Within the main RCD there are on/off switches for the off peak contactor coil and off peak c/u supply.  I remember when the energy supplier changed the meter they mentioned that the meter links to the contactor (which they said was probably dead).  This is why I got the contactor changed.  So when you say the contacts of the contactor being dodgy - is this something separate to the actual contactor?

Excuse my ignorance, but I really don't know anything about this, and when I tried to find out from the energy supplier and the electricians that I have hired, they have all been vague as to what the problem is, or said they don't know!  The issues mentioned on this forum so far, have never been mentioned by anyone thats come out to my property.

 
This is the main RCD.  As for the electricians, I went with a company and not an individual electrician as I thought that would be better.  Guess not...

WP_20160122_07_19_10_Pro.jpg

 
Rather depends on who the company sent. To maybe put somethings into context, within the electrical industry there are numerous skill sets needed.  Those who can design installations. Those  who can follow plans and drawings and fix cables. Those who can inspect and test installations. Those who can investigate and work out how an existing installation is wired. Those who understand current wiring regulations. Those who understand previous issues of wiring regulations. Those who can fault find on existing installations, such as competence to establish the difference between fault symptoms described and how an installation is actually configured etc. Not everyone who calls them self an electrician has all of these skills and not all of the skills are needed on every job. Your company may have sent an employee who has limited fault finding knowledge or experience although they may be red hot at running cables in a new build property. Also some larger companies have very tight time limits and targets for their staff to get in and out of a job and onto the next one, which means they can sometime overlook a few points during their investigations. Possibly they didn't even test the previous contactor to see if it was faulty and just changed it on a guess and hope pot shot. You need someone who is good at fault finding and can test more of the individual components related to the cause your possible fault(s). We do have some members around the Birmingham area. Not sure if any of them could help resolve your problem.

Doc H 

 
Last edited by a moderator:
So.... I'm guessing that you also have a time clock of some sort that sends a signal to the contractor to tell it to operate?...

At the moment it should operate between 1am and 8am,,, you should be able to hear quite a "clunk" when it operates..

other than that, you need someone who is a competent tester to look at it and test the entire E7 system and components

 
There is a time clock in the meter I believe, but the meter is not within my property, so I don't hear the switch

 
the first thing you need to establish is whether you are getting the E7 and for how long. 

I would change the outlet for a storage heater to a socket And plug in a mechanical timer, set to 12. The following day you will be able to see if you are getting E7 and for how long.

Unless you establish this you may as well be looking for a needle in a haystack.

 
Thanks Murdoch. Apologies - do you mean an electrician should do this, or this is something I should do before calling one out? If so would you mind explaining what I would need to do here?

 
Thanks Murdoch. Apologies - do you mean an electrician should do this, or this is something I should do before calling one out? If so would you mind explaining what I would need to do here?


If you need an explanation then I would suggest you get a decent spark in

 
There is a time clock in the meter I believe, but the meter is not within my property, so I don't hear the switch
Can you exolain that? Why is the meter not in your own property?  You do have your own metered supply don't you and pay your bill to an electricity supply company?

the "clonk" will come from the contactor in yourr off peak consumer unit at about 1AM when the off peak turns on.

As has been suggested you need a better electrican.  The trouble with employing a company is you don't now who they are going to send.  If you contact a sole trader, you can talk to him on the phone about the problem and find out if he thinks he is able to fault find it, and then you know that the guy that turns up is the one you spoke to.

Fault finding a system like this is just a logical process.  No 1 would be to temporarily rig it so you can turn the contactor on and off locally and test that all the off peak circuits come on when the contactor is energised.  If that worked, then I personally would temporarily connect something with a neon light, e.g a fused connection unit so it lights up when the off peak circuits are energised.  Then get you to look at it at night or early morning and see if it is light up or not.

If your metering grear is in another property that complicated things, but presumably you have access to it?

 
Thanks ProDave. Yes I have my own metered supply; I live in an apartment block and all the meters are in a cupboard downstairs, but we all have access. Sorry, I'd thought that the clunk came from the meter itself, not the consumer unit. I've never noticed a noise from it, not even when everything was working ok.

Well I will get on to finding another electrician then. Thanks for everyone's suggestions.

 
You have a standard set up for apartments nowadays.  You will have a duel rate meter downstairs that puts ALL your electric to 'off peak' rate at night, normally midnight till 7am ( but not necessarily). This time is set by the supplier and you can not change it. 

You should also have a time clock of some sort in your flat that operates the contactor to switch your heating and water, it could  be that not working correctly. On the other hand i could be wrong and the suppliers timer sends a signal up to your contactor, but doubt it.

 
The consumer units are in my flat.  I could be wrong but when the supplier sent someone to change the meter I think they mentioned that the clock was in the meter, which sent a signal to the contactor

 
Exactly how it works is something a competent electrian can tell you.  The thing is, in theory there is no need for the contactor as the switching is done in the suppliers meter or time clock. But in your case with the meter and your flat being separated, it is probably a question of what cables are available between the meter and your flat. If there is only one power cable they might have installed a signal cable to switch the contactor instead of another power cable.  If that is the case get your electrican to check how it's connected and what overcurrent protection is provided.  I encountered one with no protection at all which failed the EICR.

 
Top