A new smart meter is tripping RCD for 7 hours every night & I have a theory

[fearny26]

Hi guys I have this problem that I've been trying to figure out all week.

On friday I had a 5 tail economy 7 smart meter installed and every night at 2 am the RCD trips and you cant reset it until 9 am so the problem is obviously to do with the off peak supply coming on. Theres only 1 rcd for the whole circuit (i know, its an old setup) and 2 wylex fuseboards for on peak and off peak.

Now i was sure it had to be a problem with the meter setup because Ive never had faults before and I had the RCD tested on monday and thats fine. The energy company say its a problem at my end so I checked the EICR from 2018 and i saw that they didnt check the off peak board because i guess they were there in the day. So I figure maybe theres a fault on the off peak board then but why has it only shown up now? The board has been on but ive never used the storage heaters so its usually switched off at the board although I've never used any of the circuits I assumed the board functioned as the RCD had never tripped.

So, when they replaced the electric meter they also removed these old heating contactors that switched on the off peak supply and now all the meter tails come directly from the meter to the henley block and then to the RCD and fuseboards.

So my theory is that in fact both the off peak board and the heating contactor switch were faulty and so the off peak board was never live and thus the fault not detected, but with the new meter and the contactor removed the off peak board is receiving power for the first time and the fault is now present and trips the RCD for the 7 hours each night.

For reference the on peak board supplies everything in the flat bar the storage heater which I have never actually used.

There is nothing in the property switching on at that time and the off peak board is in fact switched off at the breaker, I've also tried unplugging and switching every isolator but the fault remains so I believe the faulty board could still be capable of tripping the RCD

I moved to the flat 11 months ago and had no problems previously whatsoever

I am sorry if its not explained well this is my first property and I am learning about all this for the first time and I'm just looking for some help because I'm having no power each night for a week now and the energy company cannot/will not help so any answers on here Im grateful for

I've attached a photo of the two wylex fuseboards and the RCD and henley block. Also are the old and new meters, my meter is top right with 2 tails going straight in and 2 feeding the old heating contactor that I think was broken in the bottom right

Thanks
Jake

 

[Grant1987]

Dont agree with the comment about the neutral. We have loads of THTC or economy 7 stuff up here and the neutrals are marshalled together in a Henley block.

If the RCD can’t be reset for 7 hours The issue has to surely be connected to the off peak supply in some way if that is switching on/off at these times?

I’m sure the neutral has to be capable of being isolated via isolator which doesn’t interfere with normal supply which provides disconnection solely of the off peak other than affecting the on peak supply I had similar issue couple of years ago when installing a lot of storage heaters on a nationwide contract experienced so many different types of supplies