Electricity Meter Changed, now facing charges

ValHaller

spacey2012 wrote: »

You have no contract with them.

Why has everyone missed this ?

Largely because the contract issue is not relevant.

It is an implied condition of the supply contract - may be an explicit condition that - you consent to placement of metering equipment in the premises. So the equipment is there by an implied licence. A fee to replace a seal is justified as it is damage to the equipment which is there under licence.

That is a civil law perspective - it only depends on the supply contract. Additionally, the matter is probably addressed by statutory law, in which case the question of contract will not arise.

The argument to be made is that no work has been done which would not have been done if the seal were intact.

[Deleted User]

I would like to know what a "calibration" seal is I ve been out all day today reading electric meters , have seen quite a few today without seals on the electric meter lower cover., more on prepay than credit meters One lady said she had no idea it ever had one on, said a council electrician was the last person to come and work on the electrics. that sort of response is the usual answer. I think Scot Power have no justification whatsoever in going for a £60 charge for a replacement seal as its so common that they are missing

Ich_2

Calibration Seals are fitted on the meters to prevent access to the mechanism. So if we take an old Ferranti dial type.
There are two seals on the screws giving access to the terminals fitted by the DNO or supplier.
There are a further two seals on the two screws that allow access to the mechanism, these are fitted by the meter certification company (often the manufacturer) and are usually a lot larger than a DNO or supplier seal, both to signify the meter is certified to the industry standard, prevent access to the interior and as a security device to show if access may have been gained to the mechanism.
I've just checked the electronic meter here. One seal on the terminal cover applied by the MOP when the meter was changed & one applied as a certification seal!

From my experience at the DNO I'm employed by there is little concern about broken meter terminal and cut-out seals, in fact SP in their own DNO areas have schemes whereby registered electrical contractors may break these seals.

Why is it called a Certification seal? Because it identifies the individual that certifies that the individual meter meets the required accuracy standard.

For the avoidance of doubt I will have worked for an Electricity Board/DNO for 40 years later this year!

[Deleted User]

Thanks Ich, I am surprised at the lack of concern by DNOs about missing terminal cover seals. The electric prepay meter is the usual bypass I find mostly, and its increasing to the point where I am finding them in outside boxes.The smart ones will be buying the ebay copies anyway, I just catch the idiots who cant be bothered to hide a bypass.

Ich_2

I am surprised at the lack of concern by DNOs about missing terminal cover seals

I think in the main the DNOs are powerless to police it, our only need to visit a customer premises being in case of a fault or the need for a cut-out change.

In the nationalised days it was easy to police as everyone worked for the same company so it was in our interests to police this, so meter readers were very quick to report issues and the company to deal with them.

In terms of loses it is the supplier that is at greatest risk as in any cases of illegal abstraction the DNO is paid any DUOS charges by the supplier who has to then recover the money from the customer.
The confusion over who and the costs of connecting wiring to consumer units has led to wholesale breaking of seals by electrical contractors & customers (and round here a housing authority!!) so there are a huge amount of unsealed supplies now in existence.

Whilst there is no doubt MOPS staff see and possibly report missing seals I doubt that the suppliers have sufficient staff to deal with the issue (or trained to see it as an issue) so it gets missed at that level.

Ultimately I fear there could be a tragedy which will cause a huge upset to the system.