Electricity meter reading too high

clarrie8466

I had a new meter installed not long ago in my holiday home in Wales. The first bill came and the meter reading is horrifically high, especially as the house has only been occupied for about 26 days. The bill works out at £877.

I have checked the bill with the meter - it tallies.

I was present when the meter was installed and checked the reading - it was originally at zero.

We do have a wet radiator central heating system using an electric boiler - but it is usually only on for 2 hours a day during winter months when we are there. I would have noticed if it had been left on.

I have not left the emmersion or any other appliance other than a fridge and a telephone cradle on.

The only irregularity I can recall was that one weekend when we were there we had a hell of a storm. At 10pm most of appliances would not work and all the lights were very dim. We went to bed. In the morning we still had the same problems. Before I realised I had gone downstairs and tried to boil a kettle. It was taking forever. Then I remembered the storm the night before! During this time the heating system had also been on.

I called out the company, and a man had to go up a hill where he discovered mains feed wires crossed between poles and sparking/arcing. Once he had fixed this we were okay.

Is it feasible that consumption of power could be incorrectly registered when the incoming supply is compromised like this?

Thanks
Richard

spiro

Have you tried switching everything off, check meter stops. If you have something like a 2kw electric fire, put that on and check (roughtly) if the meter is running as expected. If in doubt call your supplier and explain things ideally having dates, reading etc to hand. They could arrange an accuracy check but normally they will get you to read it every week or so for a period but this may not be very practical if you are not there very often.

Premier_2

clarrie8466 wrote: »

...Is it feasible that consumption of power could be incorrectly registered when the incoming supply is compromised like this?

Thanks
Richard

The meter registers the amount of electricity that passes through it. What happens before the meter is irrelevent.

clarrie8466

Premier wrote: »

The meter registers the amount of electricity that passes through it. What happens before the meter is irrelevent.

Is this true in all cases? I imagine that maybe different phases could have been crossed, or the voltage had perhaps dropped causing the appliances to suck juice harder. I understand meters are supposed to only measure kilowatt hours, but being a computer programmer I also understand only too well how unexpected things happen when you input garbage data to a system.

I don't know enough about these things - is your reply made as an expert on the subject?

thanks
Richard

mikey72

Premier wrote: »

The meter registers the amount of electricity that passes through it. What happens before the meter is irrelevent.

Only if the meter is still connected to a 50hz single phase. If there is a short between phases I wouldn't bet the meter would perform correctly, could be high or low.

clarrie8466

Scottish Power have checked the meter, acknowledged it is faulty, and put my account into observation for a year.

They have refunded £1100, and now I am clocking up about £15 per month on average.

Thanks for the help everyone.