Çould my electricity meter be faulty?

Pitsypoolisa

Hi there, I'm looking for some advice please?

Last year, after two years in our current property, our electricity usage jumped considerably and npower told us we were £400 in arrears on our account. We'd just had a baby and I was at home all day so the increase seemed understandable- we adjusted our payments to pay back the arrears and made a conscious effort to consume less electricity.

I was looking at switching supplier this weekend and rang npower to give an accurate meter reading and to confirm that our arrears were cleared. They informed us that our monthly direct debit only just covered our usage until January so that none of the arrears had been paid off. Then the gentleman on the phone told me our usage spiked dramatically again in the new year- we have added another £800 of arrears onto our account this year alone despite our already large direct debit payments. I'm afraid I don't have kwh figures available but he said from Jan-today we have used what an average household uses in 10-12 months!

In the last twelve months we have really cut back on the amount of electricity we use as finances have been tight and we honestly thought the account would be in credit. Instead, they have put a 'block' on our account (something he failed to explain properly on the phone and I have no idea what that actually means!) I was told to either pay in full or switch to a prepayment meter. I asked about the possiblity of the meter being faulty as the numbers just don't add up to us but he pretty much laughed at me and said that they never get faulty.

Does anyone have any advice on how to proceed please? I don't see how we can have used the amount the meter is saying we have! Could the meter be faulty?

Thanks in advance

molerat

Meters can go faulty but it is very rare. You can ask for the meter to be tested but if it is found ok you will be charged, usually £80.

The most likely cause is your consumption. Take daily reads, get an energy monitor and see how much you are using at any given time and find what is using it. How is the house heated, if electric has the timer gone mad, has someone switched the water on permanent ? You need to be proactive, do some detective work and find out what you are using and when so if there is a faulty meter you have some evidence.

Pitsypoolisa

The house is central heated so that's not using any electricity. Right now I have everything turned off and unplugged (except the fridge freezer) and the dial on the meter is spinning quickly. May I ask where the best place to get an energy monitor is please?

molerat

Turn off the FF as well, it won't hurt for a while, then go round the house looking for anything else that could be using, do you have a hot water tank with immersion heater in it ? also try switching off at the main switch and see if it stops spinning. Are you in a house or a flat ?

Pitsypoolisa

It's a 3 bed semi. It stops spinning when the main switch is off. No hot water tank/immersion heater. Shower and extractor unit in bathroom are off. All plugs are unplugged and 'off'. The spinning almost stops when the f/f are off, they are both less than 12 months old and AAA rated. We've checked each plug and appliance individually and the only thing that makes a huge leap in the speed the dial spins is the Sky box- could the sky box realistically be using over £800 of electric in less than 3 months? I'm hugely confused! How can we be cutting back yet using VAST amounts more?

Pitsypoolisa

I should say that it begins turning quickly as soon as any appliance is plugged in and switched on. At the minute, that's the f/f, then there's isn't much change with other appliances except the Sky box that seems to send it wild. Hubby thinks its moving far too quickly when just one thing is on. Hope that makes sense?!

joncombe

You might want to ask your energy supplier about an energy monitor, NPower sent me one for free. I would suggest note down the numbers on the meter then run all the usual appliances for a couple of hours. Then note the numbers again, unplug jthe Sky box and note the numbers again after the same amoubt of time. If the usage is noticeably higher with the Sky box on it suggests it may have become faulty.

molerat

The best thing to do would be a basic load test. Get a high power item that you know the rating of, 1kW electric fire for instance, and put it on for 30 mins with everything else turned off. It should use 0.5 units of electricity. If it uses much more then the meter is suspect.

Energy meters can often be borrowed from the library or available on ebay. I don't think any energy companies are giving them away at the moment, that is where mine came from.

The sky box cannot use that amount of electricity, if it was you would feel the heat !

rogerblack

Also - define 'spinning quickly'.
The disk will show - typically - one rev per 166th of a unit.
(this should be noted on the front of the meter).
(roughly)

If yours is also 166 per unit, then:
One per minute is about 300W - what might be normal consumption with lots of lights on, and a TV or two.
Three per minute is 1kW - a one 'bar' heater.
One every ten seconds is 3kW, about the rating of a typical immersion heater.

If it's going more than three or four times a minute, then you almost certainly have either a fault, or some singificant heating or lighting appliance left on.
Something somewhere will be getting hot or making a lot of light.

Pitsypoolisa

Thanks all for the advice. Its spinning just shy of three times a minute with only one appliance running- it doesn't seems to matter what we plug in and run, but it goes from nothing to 3 rotations minute when the first appliance is switched on. Surely that's excessive if the only thing plugged in is a pair of hair straighteners?

ETA: yep, it's one rev per 166th

rogerblack

Pitsypoolisa wrote: »

Thanks all for the advice. Its spinning just shy of three times a minute with only one appliance running- it doesn't seems to matter what we plug in and run, but it goes from nothing to 3 rotations minute when the first appliance is switched on. Surely that's excessive if the only thing plugged in is a pair of hair straighteners?

ETA: yep, it's one rev per 166th

If you plug in a heater, and it doesn't speed up, then yes, it's clearly broken, call someone out to get it fixed.
However.
A pair of hair straightners however isn't a small load, and at least while it's heating up, three turns a minute is about right.