Great. That all makes sense - your balon will be very greedy. Are you able to break your consumption figures into hours over a day? I seem to remember we can - I got very excited when we first went over to tempo and I was monitoring hour by hour. If so, may I suggest you turn off your towel rail for a bit and see what happens? I wonder if your bathroom is the place to put clothes on it to dry? I have a small greenhouse heater (just a long bar) which is on a timer and sits under a chest of drawers to keep the bedding inside dry - seems to work well.
Seems to me that you’ve been feeling a bit powerless about your red days up until now, but in fact with a bit of playing around you might be surprised with what you can control. It’s the one tariff where we really do have control over what we are paying for our electricity, which can be a good feeling.
Not me I’m afraid, although my older brother is. More likely to be @Badger.
You may need to knock this on the head on red days, well between 6am and 10pm anyway.
That +/- 6€ on a red day.
Thing is, Tory, that this is a very humid area. Right now, the sensor under the canopy over the ‘front’ door is reading 95%! In my sitting room, with no heater 24/24, it’s 82%
The Vire runs, rollin’ and a’tumblin’ all night long [Muddy Waters et al] and all day, round the castle bluff, appears as you see in the photo, surging down the hill with white water, turns west to run parallel with our lane for the next 1km.
This in a steep, wooded valley. Water-vapour City. On cold days you can almost suck it thru’ your teeth.
The Plywood Shack being as it is … left to itself, anything/everything feels damp. My clothes and bed linen have to be aired on some form of heater. Without a blast from the electric blanket my bed feels almost wet. A towel in the salle d’eau, damp from just hands and face in the morning, not shower, will still be just as damp at bedtime.
Indeed. Looking at the consumption charts in kWh, not €, there’s very little difference from one day to the next, whatever colour. The peaks look like 1] the rad in the kitchen with what is now a thermostat that thinks 19C is 17C and “I’d better switch on”. I’ve set it to 16C and it’s off, having got the room up to 19.7C - comfortable.
… and the balon cycling all day. J-L fitted the balon cable with a plug and socket, so I could fit a timer. I took that off when I went onto Tempo. My costs went down significantly when I went from flat rate to Tempo, with the new balon but seeing charts from other folk, seems I can do better yet, with the timer back in circuit.
PS. The yellow dot on the right side of the road is one of the dozens of signs around Vire, on the course of the T de FR. Stage 6 ends here.
" Thursday, 10 July – The riders cut right through Normandy in the 6th stage. The longest race of the Tour de France serves up a tough task with about 3,500 metres of elevation over a 201 kilometres route. The finish is situated at the top of a short, steep climb."
700m at 12.5% !
I think it’s more likely it went down significantly because you moved to Tempo, which is much cheaper on the blue days, and quite a bit cheaper on white days than your old tariff. Looking at your other posts where you give a graph over 24 hours, it looks as if your water is possibly heating during the day at some point, which will cost you a fortune. The towel rail won’t help a lot as well. You need to sort out the water heater asap so it only comes on between 10 pm and 6 am. You’ll also save more all year round if you do this.
Agreed. Especially if there is only one of you - you will not be using so much hot water that you need to heat it up again during the day.
I suggest you light a fire (outside) for hot water if you really need to make some during the day.
I can’t imagine such a damp climate would be good for old people - worth selling? Orare the walls / roof of the plywood shack too delicate to install the outflow pipe of smoke from a wood burner. Your future energy bung could be used towards its cost I suspect if you change out of EDF getting it by default asap. Relative to your current energy bills a small woodburner sounds economical.
If it’s a humidity problem in the bathroom bedroom think of treating yourself to a dehumidifier they usually consume +/- 300-350W/h. Instant savings of 150-200 W/h Get the ballon on a timer & you’re quids in.
…which is precisely what it should be doing already as it’s susposed to be responding the Linky.
However, from a previous exchange I had with @captainendeavour it’s not clear whether his system is working correctly.
Yes, I read that conversation and totally agree that it looks as if something is not right with the setup. There was talk of it coming on and off repeatedly which also sounds wrong unless either hot water is being used frequently or the insulation on the balon is poor, or it’s just the way that balon operates.
Edit: Actually, I would bet the balon is on permanently. That way, it could come on mostly during the day after hot water is used to top up the tank. Not what is needed.
I have asked my neighbour to come to check it all out. He installed the new balon and connected it all up.
As he is a retired HVAC wallah - his star turn was as part of the team that completely renewed the entire HVAC and plumbing in the vast UNESC building in Paris, he knows his onions.
Jean-Luc and the Brico people got me to buy the middling quality one, rather than the cheapest. It has some attribute that they said gives it a better service life than the cheap range. I can’t remember what this is - possibly that the element is not in direct contact with the water sent to the taps? But at least it should be insulated to current standards.
When J-L installed the cable I got him to split it, with a plug and socket, so that I could fit a timer. Since being on Tempo the timer has been removed because the bills I got subsequently were a decent saving on the previous tariff
But …
This where I’m totally foxed. Is it a malfunction or an incorrect setting?
In terms of kWh the consumption is at least consistent whatever colour the day, although the increase in the past week is, I believe, down to the thermostat of the rad ‘thinking’ 18C is 16C and switching the rad on and keeping it on
The Linky looks like it’s switching on the balon at 22:00+
During the day it’s not possible to judge which spike is the balon and which the rad. The rad is set to come on at 07:00, so that’s what those spikes are.
A red day shows the same pattern. Anything between 22:00 and 07:00 must be the balon.
For the last couple of red days I switched the rad off last thing and turned it on again at 11:00. Anything before that must be the balon.
From 11:00 the 'stat 'thinks 19C/20C is still only 16C so does not shut the rad down.
Vamos a ver.
If it’s been wired correctly then once it’s set to Auto you have nothing else to do. It will only ever come on during the HC period.
Here’s a quick lesson about how it works…
Inside the Linky there is a pair of dry contacts/a switch i.e. they have no electrical connection to the Linky itself. If you take the green cover off the Linky you should see two terminals labelled C1 & C2, & they should have a single wire connected to each one. I cannot guess what colour your installer has used but they should both be one of the allowed live/phase colours as they are, indeed, live. However, it’s quite common to use 2 core R2V cable for this task, in which case they’ll probably be brown & blue, ideally with the blue marked with a live colour.
At your end of things, at the main tableau there should be a separate 2Amp disjoncteur which sends a live supply back to the Linky, via one of the two wires mentioned above. If I had wired it it would go to C1, but it doesn’t actually matter, but I like logic.
When, at 22.00, the Linky receives the network instruction to switch to HC the dry contacts/switch across C1 & C2 closes, which sends the power arriving at C1 from the 2A disjoncteur back down via the wire connected to C2. It’s just a simple switch.
The power now flowing back from the Linky then arrives at the special contacteur HC/HP. I would have wired it to A1 on the contacteur, with A2 connected back to neutral but, again, the orientation isn’t actually important.
The above now means that the coil of the contacteur inside the module is energised, which then closes a pair of higher rated contacts inside the module, through which the live & neutral of the chauffe eau circuit can then flow.
If the contacteur was already manually forced on (as you needed to heat up the water outside of the HC period) then the mechanism inside will physically move the three position switch back to the Auto position.
Once the HC period is over at 06.00 the contacts/switch in the Linky opens again, & the coil of the contacteur is de-energised & opens the live & neutral circuit to the chauffe eau i.e. it stops drawing power.
What is important to realise is that if the 2A disjoncteur is not on then no power can flow through the Linky contacts & thus the chauffe eau will not come on. Equally, if the 2A circuit is off you can force the chauffe eau on & it will stay on until you intervene, as it will see no power from the Linky to flip it to Auto.
You can check that all is as it should be by waiting for 22.00. At that time one of the screens on the Linky should say ‘Contact Sec Fermé’ or an abbreviation of that phrase. If that is the case when you try to force the chauffe eau contacteur on it should automatically spring back to Auto.
A double check can be made by turning the 2A circuit off, forcing the contacteur on (it will stay in position ‘I’), then switching the 2A on again, which should make the contacteur revert to Auto again.
If things don’t work as I’ve outlined there is something else going on/wrong, & I await your report…
Many thanks for that, Badger.
I watched as 22:00 came and went. There was a click and a low hum from Linky. Nothing came up on the screen and the switch on the board did not move from the ‘intermediate’ pos’n.
That’s sounds OK. Is your Linky adjacent to your tableau with the contacteur in it?
It wouldn’t have. The screen info I mentioned is only visible if you scroll to it using the +/- buttons on the Linky.
…which is also correct.
Did you take my advice on how to test it by trying to force it on &/or the method of turning off the 2A control circuit?
As this thread is no longer about weather, I feel able to pose my own question re Linky.
Since our electrics went “modern” I wake at around 2.30am every day and I’m wondering if there is a link to the Linky, as I think they transmit info (?) and perhaps I’m sensitive to their vibes 
Yes, they are +/- side by side.
No. One thing at a time, being +/- clueless about this stuff. Well - the FR stuff, that is!
Badger will confirm but I think the signals are not wireless and the commands are sent at 22:00 and 06:00 for the split hours.
It is, as far as I’m concerned! Friends are returning to Valecia after 2 months in Italy. Now this is weather!
They do mention that, in common with many Spanish buildings it’s colder inside than out and they only have a ‘dear little electric heater’.
Out looks lovely! And, barring floods, it’ll get better and better.
It’s really sunny outside, with whispy cloud in the sky, I must go and ask Linky if I may go out with the dogs for a while. 
Calvados is making a feeble attempt. It is a paler shade of grey.
A Whiter Shade of Pale almost then?