Can an Electric Meter simply malfunction?

Terrylw1

Sounds like a right cobble up by the supplier their sacsquacco. Its not like access has ever been a problem!

[Deleted User]

yeah, been onto BG business today and shamed them into doing something, its had several name changes and owners probably. the true length of time is more like 5 or 6 years dud. Back billing rule I dont think will apply at least for current tenant because he s not notified it as faulty when he moved in.

Terrylw1

He's business anyway, so they will slam him for whatever they want.

Stopped meters are an interesting issue when it comes to back billing. Customers can't see what the EAC/AA values are. Its entirely possible for a supplier to back bill you for 12 months but have a zero EAC hence they don't pay the distributor anything and make a pure profit.

No one would ever see that. At a corporate level, someone would stop that happening (been there!) but for individual accounts, would the advisor check this and get the EAC inline with the back bill...I doubt it!

misterbarlow

Its not very common for meters to fail, in a variety of ways..
but its not impossible either...
newer electronic pcb types seem to fail more than the older coil/magnet types...

[Deleted User]

misterbarlow wrote: »

Its not very common for meters to fail, in a variety of ways..
but its not impossible either...
newer electronic pcb types seem to fail more than the older coil/magnet types...

they most definitely do misterbarlow, have only found one dial meter fail (pointer dropped off ) and the very common Sangamo Weston electric meter which for some crazy reason drops a blank down on the single digit ; usually after two nines, eg 2399blank, and stops dead. The meter reader logs the blank as a zero and then its free lecky for the happy owner. a good thump on the side restarts the meter. Not uncommon either this fault. Has anyone any idea why this meter does this.I am finding lots of blank digital meters,the small white ones used by a variety of makers, Ampy, landys and gyr etc

misterbarlow

yeah lcd fails are very common on the pocket white ones...
also the pocket white meters seem to be common for over recording..
have done accuracy tests on a few following customer high bills and have found 4 this year that were +70-90%....

and newer actaris dial meters stop a hell of a lot.. particularly those made in 2005-2006 more of them than any other years stopping...
i must change about a dozen a week myself, out of 10 guys in my depot...

greektortoise

In answer the engineer left my old meter in place, the lcd was fading, my energy company tried to state my meter was 42% out, not sure what they meant by this and nor were the when I pushed them. I know how wrong it was because I have the readings the engineer took under the load test. The test involved counting the pulses for 30secs. The house was consuming 3.4KWhs but the meter was recording 6.7kwhs. THe problem went wrong in January. The company have accepted the meter is wrong, and sent out another engineer to install a check meter to resolve the disputed inaccuracy. The engineer said, the last meter I saw like this today did not reenergise when he had completed the instalation of the new check meter. Guess what it didnt, no flashes no reading.The new meter records half the previous over night with the same prevailing conditions. Fortunately I only have had a 10% varience in consumption each month over two years to when it jumped by 100% it was obvious something went wrong. Just waiting for the comapny to get the latest engineers report to see what happens next but the check is of course now void as the old meter died

atheist1971

I have the same problem, I gave my meter reading online as usual and it was 5 times higher than normal. so last friday at 1pm i turned all my appliances off except my smoke alarm, the meter read 01666, i returned at 8pm and it read 01669 The next morning at 10 am i returned home after staying at a friends house and it read 01682, so i turned the power off at the fuse box, no power to my home at all and i returned at 3pm and it read 01686. My meter is not working as it should.......

zoomaster

The display on our meter has malfunctioned and replaced by a new meter EON are proposing to calculate our bill on an estimate of pass usage since there is no reading to determine our usage since the last time the meter was read. Im wondering what our legal standing is here cos they cant possible know what our lifestyle has been over the last couple of monthes ie we might have been away for several weeks and not used any power at all ?

Wywth

zoomaster wrote: »

The display on our meter has malfunctioned and replaced by a new meter EON are proposing to calculate our bill on an estimate of pass usage since there is no reading to determine our usage since the last time the meter was read. Im wondering what our legal standing is here cos they cant possible know what our lifestyle has been over the last couple of monthes ie we might have been away for several weeks and not used any power at all ?

What better solution would you propose???

If you have been away for several weeks and not used any power, inform the supplier (with evidence) and they will take that into consideration.