Moving Electric Meter.... £2000!!!??

metermover

Having enquired about moving my ugly electric meter from the hallway to under the stairs (about 2-3 meters) I was quoted by my provider (EDF) £2000!

Is this justified? Apparently it involves digging up roads to lay brand new cables etc. Seems a bit excessive to me. Don't think i will move it any more. I feel some 'boxing in' coming on!

undaunted

Sounds like nonsense to me. There would be a cost but not £2000 & almost certainly no need to dig up the road to move a meter internally. They just don't want to do it!

KimYeovil

I have never encountered boxing that was not far, far uglier than the naked meter.

Annio

we recently arranged to have this work done- the quote is £1200.00.
It is an outrage but they appear to have a monopoly on this work as the supplier.

This is what the consists of-
The do a site visit, quote and then send you basic drawing and specifications of what you must do
you will have to arrange the cost of the electrician to lay the temporary cables to the new location and lay all the cabling ready for them.
They will come and dig a hole at the front of your property(or whereever the supply comes into your property) this took 1/2 hour and then return to put supply through your cabling (in this case this will take them an hour)

So there is the additional costs of electrican time; and cabling!

seems like a lot of money for a few hours work.. but we reluctantly decided this work needed to be done as renovating our property and boxing the current meter etc in the middle of our lounge. But my other half would have favoured boxing in!?

Terrylw1

Unfortunately, only the appointed Distributor is allowed to do the work. Despite the free market, these Distributors are appointed by the builder who approaches them on a new build or the old boards if the property was already there in 1997.

You need to haggle.

They know they have this monopoly hence will be tempted to charge unfairly.

seafarers_wife

my dad built a cupboard round our meter in the hall, instead of paying to have it moved. its done the job for god knows how many years and looks much nicer than the white box on the side of my current house.

Gurn_2

undaunted wrote: »

Sounds like nonsense to me. There would be a cost but not £2000 & almost certainly no need to dig up the road to move a meter internally. They just don't want to do it!

If they are moving the service position then of course if its fed underground will involve laying a new cable from the mains in the road to the new required service position.

gatita

We had our meter moved last month, from the back of a cupboard ,and involved acrobatics to read the meter. I telephoned the Grid supplier for our area (Western Power in our case Devon) They did a site visit, no charge. He gave me 2 prices, 1. if they did all the work total amount £800. The second quote was for £164.38 which included the box and hockey stick,
I was to arrange for the hole to be dug, get a qualified electrician to prepare the cables and be there when they arrived to connect. My husband dug the hole! and the electrician cost £400. He moved the new fuse box from a kitchen cupboard, to the hallway.
£2000 seems outrageous!