Utility meters should be changed every 7-10 years

holeintheriver · 19 January 2006 at 12:11PM

I had my elec meter changed yesterday because i complained of the dial spinning very fast when i only had my lights & tv on. The British Gas Man told me that all meters should be changed every 7-10 years as they become faulty and do not give accurate readings. The light on the meter is now pulsing quite slowly so i am hoping for a reduction in my bills.

Bri_2205 · 19 January 2006 at 7:24PM

I'd challenge his comments tbh, I'm calling bs on that one

Cagey · 19 January 2006 at 10:43PM

All depends on the make & type of meter . I didn`t think there were any that had to be changed in less than 10 years,Commercial meters are usually changed more often but non less than 10 years that I know of.

overworked_underpaid · 20 January 2006 at 9:33AM

It has always concerned me that my electricty meter dial spins extremely fast. Who should I contact to investigate this?

paul_h · 20 January 2006 at 10:11AM

overworked_underpaid wrote:

It has always concerned me that my electricty meter dial spins extremely fast. Who should I contact to investigate this?

Contact your supplier, who will contact the company who does your readings and provides meter maintenance.

The company that looks after the meters here, Siemens, change them as a matter of course every ten years they say, although they did want to change ours after 2 years - they had mixed us up with another property with a similar address... :rolleyes:

wealthsaver · 25 February 2006 at 1:49PM

holeintheriver wrote:

I had my elec meter changed yesterday because i complained of the dial spinning very fast when i only had my lights & tv on. The British Gas Man told me that all meters should be changed every 7-10 years as they become faulty and do not give accurate readings. The light on the meter is now pulsing quite slowly so i am hoping for a reduction in my bills.

Makes me wonder how accurate electricity metering is. When you have a range of appliances from Washing Machine and Vacuum cleaners to phone chargers that are drawing mA. My guess is that more modern or perhaps just newer meters may read more accurately. I bet they always replace meters more quickly that are in the consumers favour and are slow to replace ones that benefit the supplier.

If you had a 1000 devices drawing 2 mA or 1 device drawing 2A would the meter go around at the same rate? Probably yes. But due to friction etc would a few devices with low current requirements mean the meter is not recording it.

The Gas meter in our house has been changed fairly recently - From an old grey imperial meter to a creme metric one.

However the Electricity meter has not been changed since we moved in over 9 years. After reading this thread I looked for any stickers regarding install date and I found information that it was changed in July 95 as part of Manweb meter replacement program. (It is a GEC manual wheel with no light pulsing on it-perhaps leds weren't invented then)

Any thoughts from Electricians or knowledgeable Electrical/Electronic Engineers?

alkip · 27 February 2006 at 9:27PM

We had a letter before Christmas that our gas meter was due to be changed and that an engineer would be in the area between certain dates (covering about a month) or, if we wanted to make a specific appointment we could ring and pre-book. We didn't ring thinking that within a month we would be in on one ocassion when the engineer called ............ nope.

We received a letter about a week after the month had expired to say that as the meter hadn't yet been changed there would be an engineer calling on a specific day and that there needed to be someone in between 8am and 8pm. I contacted United Utilities to inform them that under no circumstances could myself or my spouse be expected to be in all day on the date that they had given to which the guy, who was very pleasant might I add, replied he could book us an evening appointment I resisted the temptation to say that if this had been explained in either of the letters it would have been much easier, and booked an evening appointment for a week or so later annnnnnd no one turned up :mad:

I rang UU to explain that no one had been to change the meter and the girl, again very pleasant, put me on hold for a second or two and came back and told me that someone had been to a house with a red door and there had been no-one in. I explained as calmly as I could that (a) we don't have a red door (b) our front door has the number on it and (c) that if someone comes out with a statement like "we went to a house with a red door" they are often blagging. I was told that the information submitted by the engineer would go back to BG who would send out another letter to us containing a date for an engineer to call and change the meter and that if we weren't happy with that date or time we could ring UU and they would give us another appointment time and as a mark of apology they could narrow the call time to within 2 hours rather than the previous 3.

Why do people have to make life so difficult? The report stating that no-one was in makes us like fools to BG, the fact that the statement is based on fabrication makes the engineer look like a fool to me and the whole debacle, which should be a simple matter taking 30 minutes tops, is a pain to UU.

Sorry to rant on but just needed to share

blu_3 · 28 February 2006 at 2:16AM

What would can be done if thought your new digital meter was wrong. Then the company won't come out without you paying for the meter to be checked for faults. Is this justifiable daylight robbery, or is there another way to get it checked for nothing. Even if less than fours months since it was installed.

Utility meters should be changed every 7-10 years

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