Meter problems

md.ford

This may not be the right place for this post, as its as much legal as electrical, but as I cant sleep due too stress levels, So I thought someone may be able too offer some advice.
Around 4 years ago I had a new boiler fitted under the warm front grant program, during the installation, I was informed my “existing wiring was not suitable”. So they installed a new fuse box and ran everything from there, this is a gas boiler btw, the electric was just for the timer and boiler electrics.
Now around 2 years ago I got a letter from Scottish power saying my meter was getting old and needed changing. I arranged this as it stated it was important. The man came looked at the meter said something about the fact it had an old style fuse that needed replacing and he couldn’t do it. Over the next 12 months and loads of emails, phone calls etc I had 3 more people come out shake there heads and say they cant do it, until finally someone turned up without an appointment too basically say the electric meter was wired wrong and that I was bypassing it!. It turns out apparently that this fuse box for the boiler was wired into the wrong side of the meter and the electricity it was using wasn’t going through the meter, but shouldn’t be a problem as only the timer which hasn’t even worked for 2 years now was wired too it.
Today I got a letter from Scottish power saying there charging me £682.69 because of this for assessed units used between 2007 and 2009.
Can anyone suggest anything I can do about this? Am I actually responsible? And how could they come up with such a stupid figure especially since they corrected the meter, my usage hasn’t gone up it’s gone down!. There is no way I can pay this amount. Oh and they STILL havent replaced the old meter !

Thanks in advance.

spiro

Do you have any paperwork from when you had the electrical work done? Does the company that did it still exist?
You should ask SP to monitor your useage over a period of time to confirm the estimate they have used to determine the bill. You need to bear in mind that if the meter has been bypassed that if theft and they could take you to court.

dogshome

Hi md.ford - A really strange tale as fitting wiring to supply the house, at a point before the meter, is quite difficult as it involves removing the main fuse which is sealed, and with all the inspections that have been made, it's amazing nobody has noticed before.

However, you still have to deal with the problem
1) Get onto Scot. Power by writing a letter and insist that you have a written report setting out the findings of the inspector who diagnosed the pre-meter wiring, pointing out that you require this urgently to take the matter up with the Warmfront boiler installation contractor.

2)Armed with this report, write to Warmfront as they are the one's who appointed the installer - In a way you are fortunate as Warmfront are a quasi Govt body - Head the letter Complaint ,enclose a copy of SP's report and demand that they correct the wiring error within 14 days

3)Send a copy of the Warmfront letter to Scot. Power, which just might stop them going into wolverine collection mode for their £682 - Your biggest problem is that if you are paying by D/debit, SP could just snatch the money from your bank

4) As you say, £692 worth of power is a huge amount for just Gas boiler controls. So 2 weeks after you have sent SP a copy of the Warmfront letter, write to them again demanding an itemised bill for their £692 demand, which I suspect includes a 'Punishment' factor
But all these controls have a known power consumption, and it is not beyond SP's resources to come up with an informed guess at what the figure would be over 4 years.

Reach out amongst your friends to see if you can get a qualified sparks to look at your wiring for a small fee, to confirm if the meter has indeed been pre-wired

All the best

md.ford

Thanks both, regarding paperwork I have a work order stating what was done and an "NICEIC elecrical installation work certificate of compliance" which also states notifiable work done. I do understand that bypassing a meter is theft and I am quite willing to take this as far as court to get it sorted out, These companys get away with far too much and the letter more or less implies im a criminal and there going to be monitoring my meter to make sure I dont do it again :mad:
one funny thing is I dont trust them so prior to the first time they came to change the meter I actual took quite a few photo's of it myself, which i have just dug out!
I also cannot understand how this "mistake" could have happened, the fuse wasnt touched and still had its seal as did the meter. and they seem to be implying that the new wiring was put into the meter on the input side instead of output, which I would have imagined would be impossible to do by "mistake". Of further note as I said my electric consumption has gone down since then, so how they come up with £682 is beyond me. And that isnt for 4 years, its from 19/june/07 to 11/Dec/09 -
19 months. Anyway Dogshome`s sujestion seem a logical way forward for now so i'll follow that for now and let you know what happens.
Thanks

albyota

Excellent advice there from dogshome, but Just a point....your electricity consumption would have gone down if something has been wired into the unmetered side...so don't use this as part of your ammo. good luck.

md.ford

Sorry I meant my electricity usage has gone down now. before when they said it wasnt all going through my meter i was using more electric than now. So too clarify my bills are cheeper now (with it all beeing paid for) than they were then (When some wasnt beeing paid for)