Help please - elec bill very high

pintofbestbitter

Hello,

am looking for any help with our last elec bill from Npower which came to £540 for the quarter...usually it is about £140 and have been living in this house for nearly 2 years now. If you have any suggestions please please let me know! Thanks!


With EVERYTHING in the house turned off - at the main switch - the meter creeps (keeps turning) at a rate of about 1 rotation every 2 minutes. We 'phoned up npower, who sent an engineer around.

He tested the meter, noted that it was creeping. He then did a 'load test', which actually demonstrated that the meter was running slow by about 0.8% (within normal limits).

Npower now say we have to pay the bill as creep is 'normal'. Hmmm. The bill wasn't based on estimates but on readings.


Has anyone been is this situation before? If the meter is creeping, can the rate of creep change (ie could it be creeping faster in the past)?

Any suggestions welcome - I don't want to pay them a load of cash. Thanks!

Alan_Vickers

With the main switch in the off position there should be no creep on the meter.

What type of load test did the engineer carry out to establish that the meter was slow by .8%? If the meter is slow then I would have thought that this is in your favour.

Alan Vickers.

pintofbestbitter

hmm, he did a 1.5KW average load during test, but there's nothing on the slip which says exactly what he did

I rung one of the Gov helplines (not consumer direct but something similar, tho' the name escapes me at the moment) who scoffed at the idea of creep being 'normal' and told me to:

- write to npower
- make an official complaint
- ask for a reply in 10 working days
- send the letter recorded post

I have done all the above. Now let's see what happens...