Pembrokeshire Promises

[Nick Harvey]

Here's the absolute classic line, currently on the BT website:-

"If you have no telephone provider at the moment, call 0808 100 7722."

If you have "no telephone provider at the moment", then you've got no bleedin' telephone, so there's no way you're going to dial any bleedin' number, let alone 0808 100 7722, you load of bleedin' idiots.

What an utter anagram of carp!

More on this subject MIGHT appear in April's Comment.

[Boughton]

If you have "no telephone provider at the moment", then you've got no bleedin' telephone, so there's no way you're going to dial any bleedin' number, let alone 0808 100 7722, you load of bleedin' idiots.

Calm down dear! Ever heard of mobiles? Or calling from work or a friend's place? Or even using a phonebox?

[James H]

If you have "no telephone provider at the moment", then you've got no bleedin' telephone, so there's no way you're going to dial any bleedin' number, let alone 0808 100 7722, you load of bleedin' idiots.

Calm down dear! Ever heard of mobiles? Or calling from work or a friend's place? Or even using a phonebox?

Calm down dear! Ever heard of humour? Or posting from a position which isn't up your own arse? Or even using sarcasm?

[Boughton]

If you have "no telephone provider at the moment", then you've got no bleedin' telephone, so there's no way you're going to dial any bleedin' number, let alone 0808 100 7722, you load of bleedin' idiots.

Calm down dear! Ever heard of mobiles? Or calling from work or a friend's place? Or even using a phonebox?

Calm down dear! Ever heard of humour? Or posting from a position which isn't up your own arse? Or even using sarcasm?

Well, I'm afraid I couldn't detect ANY humour in Mr Harvey's posting whatsoever - but I'm sure it's just me... Meanwhile, I suggest you go and stick it right up your own arse sunshine...

[scottishtv]

I have recently moved to a new (rented) flat and didn't understand why there's two meters and a lot of boxes in the cupboard for electricity. Turns out is some weird 'total control' system whereby ScottishPower use a radio microswitch to switch on and off the power to storage heaters and hot water depending on the weather - this is charged at a different rate to the regular electricity.

Surely this is just economy 7? With this system there are two meters which charge different rates and a radio switch which the electricity company control as you describe. Overnight, your entire electricity supply is switched from one meter to the other and charged at a much cheaper rate, then it's switched back to the standard rate in the morning. This is to make electric heating using night storage heaters and hot water from immersion heaters viable. However, it doesn't just affect your heating equipment; all electricity consumed is charged at the cheaper rate when it's in force - this was why it was so popular to run tumble dryers etc overnight in the 80's.

Even if no other supplier in your area supports economy 7, this shouldn't in itself prevent you from changing - loosing economy 7 just means that you will no longer have cheap rate electricity and will have to run your nightstores at standard rate, if you can tolerate that, then you should be able to change.

Ah, no.
That's what I thought. This one's different. It's installed with two 'rings' in your house. All the sockets and lights are on a 'standard' ring hooked up to the regular meter. The shower, hot water, and storage heaters are all hooked into the SP controlled cheaper ring. They then control the heaters as they wish so if it's forecast very cold in the evening, they'll switch them on at the lower rate during the day and you can also get cheaper hot water during the day. Trouble is, they (as distributor) control the system remotely so you can't change supplier. It's extremely bizarre. It's called "'dynamic teleswitching".

Energywatch and Ofgem both have headaches about it as customers are locked into their suppliers (or Radio Teleswitching Access Providers as they call them). I just know my bills could be cheaper but I can't change supplier.

[James H]

Well, I'm afraid I couldn't detect ANY humour in Mr Harvey's posting whatsoever - but I'm sure it's just me... Meanwhile, I suggest you go and stick it right up your own arse sunshine...

Stick what up my own arse?

...and you're right about that, it really is just you.

Now do you really have a positive bone in your body or are you just permanently miserable and boring?

[Nick Harvey]

Don't worry about it, James.

Mr B's still annoyed that God might come from Wiltshire.

He's a humourphobic, don't you know.

[noelfirl]

Don't worry about it, James.

Mr B's still annoyed that God might come from Wiltshire.

He's a humourphobic, don't you know.

This post may not be legally quoted by the member Boughton for the purposes of questioning the divinity or authority of the Wiltshire God, praise be to him, Allah, akbar humbug.

[cwathen]

That's what I thought. This one's different. It's installed with two 'rings' in your house. All the sockets and lights are on a 'standard' ring hooked up to the regular meter. The shower, hot water, and storage heaters are all hooked into the SP controlled cheaper ring. They then control the heaters as they wish so if it's forecast very cold in the evening, they'll switch them on at the lower rate during the day and you can also get cheaper hot water during the day. Trouble is, they (as distributor) control the system remotely so you can't change supplier. It's extremely bizarre. It's called "'dynamic teleswitching".

But what's to stop you taking the circuits off of the SP cheap rate meter and wiring them into the fusebox for your standard meter (replacing the whole unit if there aren't enough spare blanks left)?

Although I understand that changing would be harder and would require an electrician to do the rewiring unless you're happy to do it yourself, I can't see anything about your setup which makes it *impossible* to change in practice, it just seems to be a legal issue which prevents you from ditching SP. Which in this wonderful deregulated competitive marketplace, I'm surprised OFGEN is allowing to exist.

[Gavin Scott]

But what's to stop you taking the circuits off of the SP cheap rate meter and wiring them into the fusebox for your standard meter (replacing the whole unit if there aren't enough spare blanks left)?

Although I understand that changing would be harder and would require an electrician to do the rewiring unless you're happy to do it yourself, I can't see anything about your setup which makes it *impossible* to change in practice, it just seems to be a legal issue which prevents you from ditching SP. Which in this wonderful deregulated competitive marketplace, I'm surprised OFGEN is allowing to exist.

How would you (or a qualified spark for that matter) disconnect the incoming supply which feeds the meter?

Its not something you would want to attempt yourself.

[cwathen]

How would you (or a qualified spark for that matter) disconnect the incoming supply which feeds the meter?

Its not something you would want to attempt yourself.

There's no need to disconnect the incoming supply to the cheap rate meter. Standard installations will never connect more than one meter to a fusebox (consumer unit, to use the correct term). Therefore, all wiring which presently uses the cheap rate meter will have it's own separate fusebox. All you need to do is take the wiring out of that fusebox and reinstall it (and the fuses/circuit breakers) in the standard rate fusebox (a proper sparky would probably just connect the two fuseboxes together). Even if you can't work with the current wiring, you can still disconnect all the cheap-rate wiring and install new wiring and fuses/circuit breakers to the standard rate fusebox. As I said, if it really comes down to it, you can install an entirely new fusebox.

Whether or not the average Joe can do all of this is irrelevant, but the fact remains that any qualified electrician will have no problem in carrying out whatever work is necessary to deal with the wiring issues of changing from two meters to one; therefore my point still stands that their is no practical reason to refuse a change of supplier on the grounds of the particulars of your meter installation- it's just legal issues which prevent it, and OFGEN should have dealt with them by now.