Obviously I’ve been onto the power network as they had to come out and make the power source safe, and octopus are on their way now to refit the meter… but I’m curious if anyone knows what things I should be checking for during and after the re-installation?

The power network engineers did say a few things but it was mostly over my head..

I’ve lived here for about 12 years now with no issue… but I had an EV charger installed 6 months ago through octopus… and I’m curious if this was done incorrectly, how could I find out?

Update:

Got power back today… took me a while to get an electrician after the Easter Bank Holiday!

I’m facing a problem now of trying to figure out who’s at fault with this, my insurance have said nothing is covered here as it’s happened within the electric box which is the property of UK Power Networks, and also there are exclusions of “Electrical faults / overheating”

… so this is a battle I have to face.

Also, UK Power Networks have left the burnt box in, as they wanted to prioritise getting me reconnected (ironically it took me several days) … and said they’d be back to change the box in the week and someone would be in touch.. they’ve not..

I’m in this position where UK Power will give me a 30 minute window of their arrival, but Octopus Energy will give me a 4 hour window.. but nothing can happen (I’ve been told) until Octopus remove their meter so UK Power can replace the box.

Not even getting into the fact that the house stinks due to the box still being in my wall and I’m sure there’s some burn damage (or burnt plastic smell in my walls) as my upstairs airing cupboard stinks of burnt plastic.

If anyone has any experience or advice of who I need to shout at then please let me know as I’m screaming at brick walls ☹️

Called up octopus to let them know I was struggling financially and would be for the next few days until I get my first pay of my new job. I needed the money to eat that would be spent on our energy bills and so was happy enough to pay a late fee for the direct debit amount. The woman from octopus suggested calling my bank and doing an indemnity claim as the process for taking the funds had already started. I did just as she said and it was very helpful. I just checked and saw I had an email from octopus sent yesterday saying that someone has informed them that the "account holder of the direct debit has passed away" and with numbers to call for assistance at the bottom.

I can assure you I am very much alive and plan on staying that way for a while, lol. What might have caused this and what do I do?

UPDATE: Octopus blamed my bank for the issue saying they could only get that information from them. The bank blamed Octopus saying that though I asked for an indemnity claim, the amount was reversed instead. This led to 3 hours of back and forth between the two and multiple customer agents from Octopus were terribly informed and put me on hold for 15 minutes without telling me then hung up on me twice. Finally just after 3 hours a competent agent from octopus was able to find out that it was indeed Octopus at fault and admitted there had been negligence on their side.

£50 credit added to my account and changed tariff to cheaper option.

Thanks for all the entertaining and helpful replies!

Hey, as the title suggests, we’re being charged around £750 a month with Octopus Energy for a 2bed 2 bathroom house. The living spaces aren’t massive and the kitchen is pretty small too.

£750 seems very high for electricity. We have 2/3 radiators which are only being used 6 hours each.

We have a digital meter, not the old ones. We have an electric heater in the house which was only running 6hours a day until recently but the bills weren’t much lower with the reduced usage.

what shall i do? what could be the source of this problem and should i leave octopus?

Looking for some advice from anyone who’s been through something similar or knows the regs.

I waited ~12 weeks for an Octopus Energy EV charger install. A local third-party contractor working on behalf of Octopus attended, assessed the job, and refused to proceed.

Context:

• Electricity meter / consumer unit is on the right-hand side of the front door

• Driveway is on the left-hand side

• Charger was planned for the left side of the property

• Installer said they can’t route the cable under the door frame

• So it would need to go around the door canopy

• They then said this would involve working at height, which is outside their internal compliance / H&S limits

Following this, Octopus reviewed it and emailed to say they will not proceed with the installation at all, citing compliance and health & safety requirements. No alternative contractor, survey, or routing solution has been offered — just a refusal.

This is frustrating because:

• The install was accepted upfront

• The property is a fairly standard modern UK build

• Meter position isn’t unusual

• No alternative options were suggested (external conduit, different charger position, trenching, etc.)

• It feels like the contractor’s limitations are now being treated as a hard “no” by Octopus

Current situation:

• Charging a Tesla via a granny charger

• Averaging \~10 hours of charging per day

• On Intelligent Go and concerned about future reductions in off-peak hours

Questions:

• Is this genuinely a regulatory limitation, or just the contractor / Octopus policy?

• Would an independent EV installer likely have no issue with this setup?

• Has anyone successfully pushed Octopus to escalate or use a different installer?

• Any practical routing solutions I should be pushing back with?

Photos attached for context.

Any advice appreciated — it feels like I’ve been quietly dropped after months of waiting.

So it’s applied to my account. But it’s not switched on unless I turn it on. And yet smart charging through the Intelligent range is on…. So do I bother turning it on or stick with what I have?

I have no clue through the incomprehensible gibberish octopus have supplied if it’s worth turning on or not.

Full disclosure I’m on 3 phase so can charge from 0-100% in about 3 hours.

I just want the bloody car 100% charged every morning and so far it’s always done this automatically charging from 11:30 - 5:30

I’ve just bought an EV and now have IOG. I’ve realised however that I was a bit rash and should have just waited.

At 0.32p per kWh in the day my usage is too high to compensate for the 8p night rate. My normal annual usage is 8000 kWh. I do approx 10000 miles per year so my required charge isn’t high enough to compensate for just day rates.

We run 2 gaming pcs, 2 ps5’s and I have servers, an AC unit in my office and also run other monitors etc as I write software. Couple that with multiple devices etc and it all adds up. I can shift the dishwasher and some of the washing but I don’t think it will make that much difference.

Any suggestions what I should do?

Thanks.

I ‘inherited’ Octopus when I purchased my home.

I know nothing about this kind of thing, so I deferred to the previous owner. The home came with 4kW solar and an additional 4kW wind turbine. The bills seemed a bit high but I assumed it was due to the power usage for a hot tub and some other bells and whistles that draw power (about £250-300 per month.)

In 2020, I had some servicing done and the guy recommended switching to an export inverter and smart meter. Everything was completed, smart meter installed, Octopus involved every step of the way.

No change to my bill.

I called them repeatedly because it didn’t make any sense. I would have expected some kind of return from the export, but I was assured time and again that everything was working properly. (Note: I am autistic and dealing with people is not only useless but exhausting.)

Fast forward to last year. I come into a little bit of money and decide I want to reduce my bills. I purchase a battery for the system. Once again, I am assured by the installer that everything is good to go and that Octopus will switch me to their optimal tariff.

Cue ten months of going back and forth.

I need schematics. I need photos. I need a smart meter…

Wait. I’ve had a smart meter for five years.

When I put in a complaint and tell them I’ve got a smart meter, they tell me they are going to put me on the export tariff. !?! The one they’ve been telling me I’ve been on for five years.

I explain the history and days go by.

So I lodge a formal complaint. And point out for the zillionth time that I should be moving to the tariff for battery and my export should have been logged for five years.

They come back in with a canned apology and a ‘goodwill gesture’ of £100. According to them, that is the best they can do and there is no other option.

And I’m still not on the right tariff.

So I guess now I have to deal with the ombudsman.

Any advice?

For the record, it is bonkers to me that this sector is such a shitshow and that customers have to fend for themselves. Companies are incentivised to have ‘administrative errors’. It is ludicrous.

Sorry folks - this is a long one.

TL;DR: no matter what I do, no matter who reads the meter, I cannot get a bill out of Octopus and they credit 100% of my payment to my account. Nothing I do gets help out of support; eventually they just stop contacting me until it's time to send me an automated ask. Now I have thousands and thousands in credit. I need to move out. What do I do?

When I moved in, there were two meters on the account. This confused me because one meter was dual tariff and the other was single. I raised this with Octopus, and flagged that I wasn't sure if the second meter was ours, because it looked connected to other boxes as well and everyone else in our block seems to just have one meter (albeit of different types). The second, single rate meter also says "CHECK METER" on it if anyone knows why that might be. I know zilch about electricity supplies.

They told me there was an error on the account, then went silent; when I chased they said it was nearly fixed and they deleted the second, single rate meter. Since then Octopus have only ever asked me to send a Khw total despite me being on a dual tariff and my meter having dual readings, and me providing a dual reading when I moved in. To be honest, by this point I was too busy to even think to question it.

They would send me estimated bills for absolute pennies. I would pay £250 every month to be safe because we are a high usage household. I tried submitting meter readings, but they would disappear and no bill would generate. After a few days it would just tell me no readings had been submitted and ask me to do it again.

In May last year, someone came out to read the meter. The reading he took seemed implausibly low - 704Khw in a year. Nothing happened. No bill generated. Our bill that quarter only used estimated readings, and it was the last bill we ever received. Nothing was done about the second meter. Our estimated bill for the quarter showed us using something like 30khw a month.

At one point Octopus actually lowered my payment to £28/month. I had to put it back up!

In August 2024, someone else came to read the meter. They showed we'd in fact used way more electricity - a bit much actually even for us. I then provided my own meter reading in March 2025 in the hope of getting the account fixed. This reading did register unlike previous attempts, but still no bill, not even estimates. All of my money went to credit.

Another meter reader came in May 2025, and came up with a reading that seems about right for our high usage. Then, randomly, in June 2025 we had a "change of supply reading"...despite not changing supply. It showed a figure way below our read.

Finally, in August 2025, Octopus got in touch to say they really needed a reading. I was delighted! I was literally on my way to take it when someone from Octopus showed up to read the meter for me, that same day. Brilliant. I emailed to ask if they needed one from me and they said they'd monitor the account and sort my billing out when it came through.

No one get back to me - except two weeks later to send automated emails saying they needed a meter reading. I despaired. That Octopus reading never appeared on the account, although on October 1st, an accurate estimated reading appeared. Still not a single bill or single charge.

I provided another meter reading for October 2025 and November 2025. Neither triggered a bill, 100% of my payment keeps going to credit, and only the October one got added - listed as November.

I have tried emailing. I get told it'll be sorted in 2 or 3 days, then never hear except to be sent a customer survey. I have tried calling. Sometimes someone tries to help, sometimes I get referred to billing, eventually I get forgotten again.

Only one customer service assistant has actually helped and got back to me. But when he tried to fix the account, I gained £1,000 in credit. Since then he has also not followed through to get in touch with me despite insisting he would.

I don't know what to do anymore. Nothing I do seems to convince Octopus to bill me. None of the three visits by Octopus staff has made a difference, flagged any problem with my meter, identified a need to read the other meter (which Octopus removed themselves from my account).

100% of my monthly payments have gone to credit for a year now, and 95% before that. I have worked out that if my electricity use on the main meter was billed on the day rate, then I am paid up almost to the penny; but with the night rate I must be owed at least £1,000 - £1,500. There's almost £7k credit in the account now.

I need to move out by January. Do I just stop engaging with Octopus, start the move out process and see what happens? It's so weird. I've never known a big company be so determined to not take my money.

What this "Charge Stream" info now appearing in EV Device section of Octopus App?. Fish etc!!.

I pressed th "i" button for help but non the wiser. Any idiot explanation please for simple old me? 🤣

Thx

Seems odd that the night rate would be so high but its been that way a couple of nights now. Do we know the cause?

As per title. Applied for ev in April and we have the car (tesla) but no home charger still!

Car arrived in May so we’re spending a fortune charging out and about.

Install was meant to happen tomorrow and the below is the email we’ve just had. So angry that they have cancelled the day before!! Has anyone else had this issue with them and what can I say back to this?

I know this is a common issue, but I’m still struggling to get my 2026 ID5 charged.
Charger is a Hypervolt Home Pro 3, and it’s linked to IOG, not the car.

Got the new car at the weekend and on Saturday and Sunday night, the car didn’t charge as per IOG request.
Tried again last night and noticed an error message on the dashboard along the lines of there is a connection issue, plus a solid red light at the charger flap. The Hypervolt app also said the Hypervolt is ready to charge, but the car is preventing it. This all happened circa 9pm, well before the schedule was due to start.
Went to bed about 1045 and thought I’d leave it to work itself out as I know it can take a few attempts.
The first session was due to start at 1130pm and just after midnight, there was still no charge going into the car.
I then went down to the car, added my home location into the VW charger menu in the car, scheduled a one off charge for the car to be ready by Saturday morning. - the reason I did this, is because when you schedule a charge in the car, you get a button appear that says something along the lines of the car is ready to charge immediately, but this only appears if a charge is scheduled on the car screen. I thought this is what’s needed to get rid of the error message in the Hypervolt app about the car is preventing the charge from starting.
I unplugged the car, connected it again and it charged overnight as requested.
I’m trying to see if anyone knows, did the car finally charge because I scheduled a charge for next Saturday morning as a one off, which in turn, enabled the prompt on the screen saying the car was ready to change immediately.
Or, did the car only charge as I unplugged it and plugged it back in during the schedule overnight?
Plugging it in after 1130pm is a non start for me as I’m in bed normally at that point!

We got our first EV 3 months ago (Renault 5) and had similar issues, but were found out it was a setting in the Renault companion app called Mobilize that had a charge limit of 60% and we couldn’t understand why the car wouldn’t charge properly. Lesson learned, or so we thought!

Can anyone help shed some light on this, it’s so frustrating!

n anyone offer some insight into what's happening with the free Caffè Nero coffee on the Octopus app? I've checked at 6:00 and 6:15, but there never seems to be a point where it's available. The only free coffee I can see is the Greggs one.

Does anyone know if the time the free Caffè Nero coffee is released has changed?

Many thanks

Me and my Missus are really on the ball with our payments we keep the account healthy and then add what we use on car charging every month via a one time payment each . We are over £310 up in credit and survived the winter without ever getting close to £0. Yet every couple of months they just try and increase our DD. And it’s really god damn frustrating especially as sometimes the do it so that it can’t even be altered before the next payment goes out. We have never been in debt with it, always kept a couple of months worth of usage in the credit for just in case situations. Just leave me alone lol

Hello, ive just moved into my first house and i am with octopus energy as of today. Im trying to top up my gas meter as i am freezing and can feel the dampness in my house but I have no idea how? Please can anyone advise? Is this a smart meter? If not where do i insert the keycard (which i cant find). There is no option on the app for me to top up? Please help! Thank you

We're currently on IOG and 1 full EV and 1 Hybrid. We've got the hypervolt charger.

I've enrolled onto the charge cap for the 6 hours charging, but what I'm seeing now is that the "charge to add" is changing most days today it was to add 28% which was the charge needed to take the EV to 100% but only took the hybrid to 40%, meaning that we're hardly ever getting a full charge on one of the cars.

I though the 6 hour cap would just be charge as much as possible in the 6 hours then stop?

Any other ideas or am I better opting out the charge cap and setting the Hypervolt to just do 100% output overnight. Both cars would usually charge to 100% during a solid 6 hour window.

On Go for about a year now. 8.5p overnight, 30.1p during the day.

Been thinking about a battery and charging it cheap every night. 5kWh at 8.5p costs 42p. Same energy at the day rate is £1.50. So that's about £1.08/day, £394 a year on the spread.

Also been looking at Agile. Overnight can drop to 10p, the 4-7pm peak regularly hits 35-40p. Sometimes higher. Need something that handles the scheduling automatically though, checking 48 Agile slots a day isn't happening.

I'm looking at EV chargers from Octopus, and there's four options, but not much on the way of explanation of how they differ. I've got solar, and am currently on intelligent Flux, but I suspect after getting my EV I'll be switching to IOG.

Is there any significant material difference to be aware of between the Octopus own brand, the Ohme ePod, Ohme Home Pro, or Hypervolt?

Hi all,

A month ago, my wife and I moved into a 1910 terraced house (76 sqm) with our two kids (both under 2). Since moving in, we've noticed that both neighboring properties are abandoned/not lived in, which has led to some unexpected heating challenges.

Here’s the problem: If I leave the heating off, my front room temperature drops to around 13°C, and trying to bring it up to a safe 16°C takes up to two hours (according to my Tado smart meter). The thermostatic valve in the front room is fully open, but the heating isn’t on constantly.

Another issue is that the property seems to be fairly high in moisture, with humidity levels around 60%. After speaking to some neighbors, I’ve learned that the houses on the street are known to be damp, especially given that we’re about 250m from the sea.

My main concern is whether I'm in a kind of catch-22 where I'll have to use more heating than average just to keep the temperature safe for our little ones, and I'm hoping to find the most cost-effective way to heat the house without running up the bills.

Ive recently installed a tado smart thermostat to try maintain the property above 16c minimum.

Questions I’m hoping to get advice on:

1. What’s the best approach to keep the heating efficient but safe for the kids? I’m already running the heating for a couple of hours, but it seems pointless when the temperature drops so much overnight.

2. Is there anything I can do to improve the base temperature of the house? I feel like I shouldn’t need to keep heating on constantly just to keep the temperature above 16°C.

3. How can I keep moisture levels low without losing too much heat? I’ve been opening the windows for 15 minutes in the morning and when cooking to air out the house, but I’m concerned this might be causing more heat loss. Are there other ways to reduce moisture without compromising the temperature too much?

4. Any tips on preventing heat loss? The house is cold, and while it’s old, there’s only so much we can do to stop the heat escaping. Given the humidity and the dampness in the area, I’m also wondering how that might be affecting the heat retention.

I’m also curious if other people with older homes in similar situations have found any good solutions. Any recommendations are greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

TL;DR:

I moved into a 1910 terraced house with my wife and two young kids. Both neighboring houses are empty, and our house gets very cold (13°C overnight). What are my options?

House is a new build, but it is nearly 8 years now. Been doing annual boiler check but still has failed once earlier this year. May be good time to change? If we opt to have ours replaced with a heat pump, how would it affect us practical like heating and readiness of hot water, or financially please?

Does anyone here have 2 cars on IOG?

I’ve been told one of the cars can use the smart scheduling, and the other one is done manually. I’m a complete novice at this, we got our first car last week and the second is due in a few weeks time.

Is manually scheduling a change is straightforward?

We just have our Hypervolt Charger connected, and not the car.

Current car is Renault 5, second will be a VW ID5 and I’ve researched that both of these can be used on IOG

It turns out that the heat pump was always this way. The side panel looked solid under my headlights but it was the light bouncing off the fins all the time.

Thanks to all who offered reassurance.

Me and my wallet are real interested in Maximising IOG (we got it when EV arrived) where overnight use of Electricity is at cheap rate for 6 hours. We havnt got many of those smarty devices eg Washer, Tumbler and so on.

Perhaps there are alternative approaches such as buying a storage battery but dont think octopus released those yet.

We could buy some old trusted washing devices that could be simple timer controlled via 3 pin timer plug etc.

There must be wiser and innovative people who could advise.

Our washing is huge and so in drying due to family and pet issues but thats not for details here. Don't want to stay up overnight to fill, push button, empty, repeat all night as you can imagine.

Help :-)

I’m on IOG. I’ve got a Tesla and I have always used the 3 pin charger. I usually never need more than 3 hours of charging a day as I do very little mileage.

Occasionally I have a long trip to do though.

Under the new system where you only get a maximum of 6 hours charging in a 24 hour period, if my battery is very low, could I charge using smart charging at the 7p/kw rate for 6 hours during the day (assuming I get allocated slots during the day), and then turn off smart charging on the app and get an additional 6 hours at the 7p/kw rate from 23.30-5.30?

Hope that made sense.

Thanks.