Eon and electric supply query

jaynemaria

Hi this is for my ex Brother in law hes later 60's. He lives in a one bedroom flat on his own, no fancy gadgets tv,dvd,small fridge freezer, no washer dryer. He lives above a pizza takeaway which the flat is leased off. His monthly DD has just gone up to £130 a month which is a ridiculous amount for the size of the flat, bedroom bathroom and small kitchen.living room
. Eon say its right and when asked if they could be accessing his electricity downstairs he has been told that it is his responsibility to pay to get the meters checked out. Anyone know if this is right?

thanks in advance

molerat

The supplier will charge to test the meter. If the meter is faulty they will refund the charge. Before going down this route he needs to do some investigating himself.

Switch off the main switch at the consumer unit (fusebox) and check if the meter still clocks up. If it does it means that something is connected between the meter and the flat's fusebox. If it does not move and you get screams from downstairs then you know what is happening. Unplug everything in the flat and see if the meter still moves. Plug something with a known consumption, a 1Kw fire for instance which will use 1 unit in 1 hour, and see if the useage corresponds. Take daily meter reads to check consumption, what is his consumption, are the bill meter reads actual or estimates. Does he have storage heaters and E7, are the reads the correct way round? Does he have E7 and not use storage heaters?

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

Hi jaynemaria

Not much I can add to molerat's excellent advice. The only thing I would mention is to check the meter serial number on the bills matches the ones on the meters.

The Direct Debit will be based on past bills and if the usage is coming from the wrong meter the amount proposed will also be wrong. However, I suspect a pizza takeaway will use a lot more than £130 a month. Still worth checking, though.

Malc

eurmalian

Just to add to that, even if the supplier checks the meter, it will just be the meter itself that they check, nothing else. The shop downstairs being wired into his house wouldn't be something that they'd discover at all as that's not any kind of fault with the meter. Everything to do with the internal wiring (which is where any connections going downstairs would be) is the responsibility of the home owner rather than supplier.

Basically, even if he finds out that someone else is wired into the supply, it's something that he needs to sort out with them. The supplier looks after their equipment (the meter) and ensures that payment is made for electricity used. Who is responsible for that payment is a third party dispute and not something that they'd be able to help with.