Electricity meter is running after I've turned the electricity off at the mains

Abingdon_Chris

The L&G ampy meters do get a lot of blank screen issues, but rarely do they record electric usage when none is passing through. I suspect the issue is somewhere in your property. A loose connection within the consumer unit could cause electric to continue flowing through.[/QUOTE]

Meterman - sorry but how would you know? The meter is showing a reading - I don't see how you would know it was in error?

The check meter fitted recently has shown the meter is recording 6-7 kWh / day on top of the real consumption. Hence the error is largest when very little or no actual demand is occuring.

welshguy84

Glad to find this Thread, I have a digital Ampy electricity meter that was "suprise" made in 2007 and since august insted of my usual 5/7 units per day its clocking up 24 units per day, evan when the mains is switched off.

misterbarlow

I have carried out hundreds of accuracy checks on meters, and have only found 5 faulty meters in 7yrs, but all of them being small white L&G or Ampy...
Found one where the % error increased with load too..
main switch off if was about 10% out, with a 3kw load it was 700% out...

sardarji

I had the same problem as the guy who started this discussion, googled, and found it had figured on MSE. I am a newbie too. I do not find it helpful for people to post insults to each other on these forums. And I reckon that if I'd posted umpteen thousands of times over the years, I'd have discovered that long ago.

DorsetGent

You will find, that by switching off your mains from the house supply, (by using the mains isolation contactor switch.) you should stop the meter from running, if not then there is a fault in the meter, by way of a errant component being fitted in the timing circuit, when manufactured. Have the same problem, even watched it happen, and Npower refuse to except it.
Millions of meters were made like this, when the display goes blank that is the sign that you have been scammed, tried to explain this to Martin L. but got ignored.
There has been lots reported, but getting anyone to believe it is impossible.
Even the Governments Energy Dept, can verify there has been a huge problem with these Digital meters going faulty, with there displays going blank, which signify's there is a timer fault, (the display is run by the timer circuit!!!!) Worse still these meters are made in 20 different varieties, between 2007 and 2014.
Had a test meter fitted in June 2015, after a years delay by Npower, and succeeded in showing this fault, have records!!!
Again Npower and the O.S. have refused to knowledge.
But wonder if this was a general introduced fault across the UK market, hate to think these duff meters were being fitted in our Hospitals, and old pensioners properties?

Consumerist

DorsetGent wrote: »

. . . Even the Governments Energy Dept, can verify there has been a huge problem with these Digital meters going faulty, with there displays going blank, which signify's there is a timer fault, (the display is run by the timer circuit!!!!) Worse still these meters are made in 20 different varieties, between 2007 and 2014. . .

Thanks for sharing.

Is there a list of these suspect meters which people can refer to ?

brianposter

DorsetGent wrote: »

Had a test meter fitted in June 2015, after a years delay by Npower, and succeeded in showing this fault, have records!!!
Again Npower and the O.S. have refused to knowledge.

Small claims court ?

DorsetGent

As a Design Electronics Engineer, part of my job was to design and incorporate timer units, which ran Display meters, such as these Digital Usage Meters.
There was one fault, which if you did not fit the right type of capacitor into the timer circuit it would fail, stopping the timer, and the display would go blank. Much as many millions of these Digital meters fitted from 2007 until 2014.
Now as these capacitors were failing, they would still run, but because they were failing, each capacitor would leak its acid on to the pcb, and become unstable, causing the timer to run erratically, until finally not acting as a capacitor at all, and hence the timer would stop, in the process of failing, it would put the meter into a free running mode, ignoring the house owners usage, and hence running freely, clocking on its own.
In my case up to 250% over the rate.
Had Npower fit a TEST meter, in Jun 2015, and 3 months later they came and riped it out, but I kept a daily record, and had my previous analogue meter reading records to compare over that 3 month time frame.
2 complaints against Npower, with two Ombudsman appeals lodged, won one, and lost the last, still owed some £20,000 pounds.
Was told in 2015 by a senior Installation Meter fitter, that they had 2 warehouses full of these new digital meters, and found out the Npower had up to 20 different types of these digital meters. Now I wonder where they were being fitted, Could they have been fitted to business, and hospitals, as well as households?
As Npower decided to order their Installation company to destroy all their records pertaining to these meters before 2015, so we might never know.
But note: that the OFGEM fined Npower 26 million pounds in 2015, for poor Customer Service!!!!
But it does not end there, question, what happened to the over spend and the VAT generated from it? And are Npower the only company operating these digital meters, made in China.

DorsetGent

Update - Have now report this Fraud to ACTION FRAUD, the online Police web site, as it is clearly amounts to many millions of pounds being illegally extracted from peoples banks!
Suggest if anyone is still unhappy, they do the same.
Have contacted Ofgem, who told me they would NOT except a complaint from myself.
But there is an Independent Ombudsman complaint process, that can be made against the Energy Ombudsman service.
Have a Facebook group which gives more details. - British Electric Meter Problems.