Electricity meters in a domestic property

[Watis]

I'm asking this question on behalf of a relative.

The home in question has an electricity meter that provides normal and economy 7 electricity and provides meter readings for each. I believe that, when economy 7 was first installed, there were two physical meters.

My question: is the whole property switched between the two rates at the appropriate times, or is some of the property always on one rate, the rest always on the other, depending on which sockets are fed from which meter?

The original reason for getting economy 7 was to run thirsty appliances overnight.

TIA,

Watis

[DrFfybes]

The only ones I've ever seen had a single meter with 2 readouts, in the old days it was a dual meter and a timeswitch that flipped between them.

The whole property would be moved to cheap rate overnight, so washing machines etc were run overnight, but as all the neighbours did the same you lived with it.

You'd need to check the meter wiring for a different scenario, but as the meter generally feeds the fusebox on a single feed then it should be obvious if there were 2 outputs from the meter, and the fusebox would also need to be a double unit.

Paul

[Tedx]

Mine is a single meter / two readings on E7

I can confirm that the whole house switches between high and low rates at the pre determined times.

[mc2fool]

My question: is the whole property switched between the two rates at the appropriate times, or is some of the property always on one rate, the rest always on the other, depending on which sockets are fed from which meter?

In regards to billing, the whole property will switch between the two rates at the appropriate times.

However there is another aspect of "switched" being whether there is a solely overnight supply that is also switched on and off at the appropriate times. If there is then that supply will typically go to night storage heaters and the bottom element of the immersion heater.

This is done with what's known as a 5 port (or terminal) meter. 4 port meters have live & neutral in and live & neutral out, and the 5 port meter will also have a timed live out that is only switched on overnight. With a modern smart meter that's easy to see, with old installations with mechanical meters and adjacent time switches it may not be so clear. However, as DrFfybes says, if you have an old style fusebox there will be two separate units, and with more modern consumer units the two supplies should be labelled.

Note that the two points above are separate. You can still be on Economy 7 with a 4 port meter, with the billing changing between the two rates at the appropriate times, but you just won't get any appliances (heaters, etc) turning on automatically at night; you'll need to have timers on them for that.

[Watis]

Thanks all for the replies.

I now know what to look for when I next visit the property.

Watis