Hi,
We bought a buy-to-let property last year, which needed the electrical consumer unit replaced in order to get an EICR. The property has electric storage heaters and an immersion water heater, which I assume were set up to switch on only during off-peak hours.
The electrician replaced (I believe) three very old consumer units with one enormous modern one. By doing this, I'm worried that we've lost the ability to automatically switch off the heaters in the day.
Might this modern unit have some timer feature built-in? or do we need to install a second consumer unit? Alternatively, maybe we could add on/off timers at the heater wall outlets to achieve the same at a lower cost?
We're also considering upgrading the old storage heaters. Might newer models have an electronic timer? I suppose that could also solve the problem.
I'm asking mostly for our tenants, to soften their incoming energy bills this winter.
Many thanks!
Are you a tradesperson and able to answer this question?
If you had multiple consumer units before. It’s very likely that the electrician has replaced these and built them into the one unit.
Assuming the storage heaters are still using the economy 7 tariff, they should have a separate (double-pole) main switch within the consumer unit, which should switch off all of the storage heaters in one go.
Or, alternatively, storage heaters are usually on their own circuit, so they should have their own circuit breaker (MCB/RCBO) to switch them off individually.
This is going off the average economy 7 system, though, and all can be different.
It’d be best to contact the electrician who replaced the consumer unit and approach him with these questions.
you can fit a split board but it should have twin tails
if not you no longer have off-peak
if that is the case you will require a separate unit for the storage heaters and off-peak water heater to be honest you will need an electrician to confirm
your off-peak supply
Answered8 September 2022
0
Anonymous user
Why don't you ask the electrician who did all the work? Although, if you were told to upgrade the CU just to get an EICR then maybe best not.
Answered10 September 2022
0
Anonymous user
Further to the following answer, it is possible to combine off peak and peak supply into one consumer unit. Aslong as it has been wired correctly the storage heaters could potentially still be wired onto the off peak supply.
