Total Control heating tariff phaseout

[Crofter]

SSE haven't contacted us yet but apparently other areas in Scotland area being told that the THTC tariff is coming to an end.

 

This is a bit of a problem for us because the house cannot simply switch to another supplier. The storage heaters have no timers and rely on SSE to turn them on and off.

 

Are SSE going to offer any compensation for the wiring changes that people like me will need? I.e. timers and a second immersion on the tank.

 

Wondering if @ProDave can shed any light on this?

 

(Ideally I would go straight to ASHP/Rads but I'm not actually in the country right now so would want to leave that until I get back).

[TonyT]

Maybe they will call it something else

 

wasnt this the original E10,  then there was E7

probablt best to contact SSE direct 

[ProDave]

Good riddance to the THTC tariff.  It was a good idea in it's time, the chief advantage being the "total control" circuits being metered 24/7 at the cheap rate.

 

But it became a very expensive tariff and with only SSE offering it there was no competition and you could not switch supplier.

 

To convert, all you need is a simple Economy 7 or economy 10 supply with a 5 port meter, the 5th port being the SWITCHED off peak output.  Economy 10 if you can get it is the best match to the old off peak times of THTC.

 

The only thing you will need an electrician to do is then connect the total control circuits to the normal permanent supply.

 

You will miss out on the 24/7 cheap rate which could have powered panel heaters or showers.  Did you actually take advantage of that, or were you just using ordinary storage heaters?

[joth]

26 minutes ago, ProDave said:

You will miss out on the 24/7 cheap rate which could have powered panel heaters or showers.  Did you actually take advantage of that, or were you just using ordinary storage heaters?

Out of curiosity, how did they enforce it was only showers and panel heaters on the 24/7 cheap rate output? Seems an invitation for abuse (intentionally or not)

 

[ProDave]

I guess if there was nothing registering on the normal meter?

 

I once connected an electric boiler to the total heat board for a customer, it certainly seemed to fit the description of a heating appliance.  In that situation getting 24/7 cheap rate almost made an electric boiler make sense.

[SteamyTea]

Won't we be moving to individually controlled loads, managed via a smart meter?

So you will wake up to a cold house, with no hot water and your car battery flat.

[Crofter]

On 22/05/2023 at 14:39, ProDave said:

Good riddance to the THTC tariff.  It was a good idea in it's time, the chief advantage being the "total control" circuits being metered 24/7 at the cheap rate.

 

But it became a very expensive tariff and with only SSE offering it there was no competition and you could not switch supplier.

 

To convert, all you need is a simple Economy 7 or economy 10 supply with a 5 port meter, the 5th port being the SWITCHED off peak output.  Economy 10 if you can get it is the best match to the old off peak times of THTC.

 

The only thing you will need an electrician to do is then connect the total control circuits to the normal permanent supply.

 

You will miss out on the 24/7 cheap rate which could have powered panel heaters or showers.  Did you actually take advantage of that, or were you just using ordinary storage heaters?

 

Yes it's a strange tarrif. And has cost me thousands over the years.

There's nothing in practise to stop you from adding a few sockets to run off the cheap rate supply, but you're breaking the T&Cs and if you started getting greedy I'm sure they'd cotton on.

 

The storage heaters are currently just hard wired to the THTC CU, with only their individual thermostats to control them. SSE choose when to energise the heaters. If I just wire them in to an E7 meter then won't I also need a way of controlling when they turn on and off?

 

The UVC has a single immersion fitted. I presume I'll need to add another, so that one can be on a timer to use off peak rates, and the other manually controlled as a boost. That's how the cottage is set up. Although I suppose you could run the timer and boost switch in parallel to a single immersion??

 

 

[SteamyTea]

2 hours ago, Crofter said:

The storage heaters are currently just hard wired to the THTC CU, with only their individual thermostats to control them. SSE choose when to energise the heaters. If I just wire them in to an E7 meter then won't I also need a way of controlling when they turn on and off?

My E7 has a secondary switch that is controlled by a radio signal.

[Crofter]

6 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

My E7 has a secondary switch that is controlled by a radio signal.

You'd presumably still want a timer on each appliance though, unless you're quite happy to have everything on for the full off peak duration?

[SteamyTea]

35 minutes ago, Crofter said:

You'd presumably still want a timer on each appliance though, unless you're quite happy to have everything on for the full off peak duration?

Yes, I have that.

Means I can limit when the stuff comes on.

[ProDave]

12 hours ago, Crofter said:

The storage heaters are currently just hard wired to the THTC CU, with only their individual thermostats to control them. SSE choose when to energise the heaters. If I just wire them in to an E7 meter then won't I also need a way of controlling when they turn on and off?

 

The UVC has a single immersion fitted. I presume I'll need to add another, so that one can be on a timer to use off peak rates, and the other manually controlled as a boost. That's how the cottage is set up. Although I suppose you could run the timer and boost switch in parallel to a single immersion??

As long as you get a 5 port or 5 terminal meter, it will do that.  The 5th terminal is the output that is only energised when it is at the cheap rate.

 

But Smart meters have come along and messed things up.  You can aparently get a 5 port smart meter, but not all suppliers seem capable of actually making them do what it says on the tin, and lots of horror stories of the 5th output not turning on and off or the metering times matching the switching times.  So if you do switch, ask for Economy 7 or preferably Economy 10 if available and don't mention smart meter and if that comes up in discussion say you don't want one.

 

You will ideally need 2 immersion heaters one to come on whenever the cheap rate is available at the bottom of the tank, and another you can turn on at any time for a boost.  If your tank will only take 1, then Horstman do a clever gadget that will let one work from the off peak supply with a manual timed boost.