electricity meter, number of dials/digits - a little help please

AbbieCadabra

can anyone confirm if this is a 4 or 5 dial meter, i think it's 4 but our landlord is billing us on 5. 1 digit makes a heck of a difference, we've been billed for 5600 units when i think it should be 560?!

photo isn't too clear, sorry, hopefully you can make out that the last dial is the 'recording' one (tenths?) so i don't think it should be used in readings



thanks

molerat

Looks like a 5 digit to me, the last digit is not in red, a small box or marked in any way. I assume it is a landlord sub meter. What period is this bill for, how often do you check the meter, how many units are you using a day ?

AbbieCadabra

the last digit is marked along the right side, little white marks like on a tape measure, but no it's not outlined or in red like our home meter. & yes, it's a sub meter.

the whole period we've been billed for is 5 months, based on their readings it's 5602 units used. our average daily fluctuates greatly as its business premises with machinery running, on the readings as billed now it can be anything from 16 up to 45 units per day.

we've got nothing to compare the usage to either as this is the first time we've ever been billed directly for electricity (we sub-let premises before & there was just an amount inc. in the rent for electric, we never had a meter or saw any bills).

i've sent this photo to e.on who are the suppliers to see if they can help.

victor2

5602 kWh over 5 months is about 37 kWh per day, which sounds to be within your quoted usage.
560 kWh would be less than my house uses, never mind a business!

dogshome

Hi AbbieCadabra - As molerat has posted, this looks like a 5 digit meter and a private meter at that - To be sure a sharper photo would help

You don't say how long a period this 5600Kwh bill covers - For a domestic meter that would be well over the average use for an entire year, unless it's serving a lot of heating appliances - Or perhaps this is for a Commercial supply?

Private meters are always a worry whether it's Business or Domestic, if it were mine I would turn everything off and plug in a 1kwh fan heater for an hour to check that the meter recorded no more than one unit used.

AbbieCadabra

hmmm, after your replies & a bit more thinking about it, i guess it is a 5 dial - i've just looked at our home electricty usage & we used 1681kw in a period of 4 months. so for us to have only used 560kw at the business in 5 months, just can't be right!

oh well, that's my bit of wishful thinking & hoping for lower overheads done with for today, back to reality!