Faulty Meter in New House

aussie_in_wales

Afternoon,

I recently moved house and was giving my first meter readings after 6 weeks of moving.

I realised that the electricity meter reading has only moved very slightly since I move in, i.e red numbers only. This is obviously wrong and I've sent a photo of the meter to my energy company to show them the issue.

The property was supplied by flow energy but after using the cheap energy club I'm planning on switching.

I don't have any previous usage to base the previous 6 weeks usage on.

Does anyone have experience of this with Flow Energy and know what may happen? And what impact this may have on me switching supplier?

Thank you

System

aussie_in_wales wrote: »

Afternoon,

I recently moved house and was giving my first meter readings after 6 weeks of moving.

I realised that the electricity meter reading has only moved very slightly since I move in, i.e red numbers only. This is obviously wrong and I've sent a photo of the meter to my energy company to show them the issue.

The property was supplied by flow energy but after using the cheap energy club I'm planning on switching.

I don't have any previous usage to base the previous 6 weeks usage on.

Does anyone have experience of this with Flow Energy and know what may happen? And what impact this may have on me switching supplier?

Thank you

Presumably, when you moved in you gave the Deemed (existing) supplier an actual meter reading and your details so it should be pretty easy to tell if the meter is faulty. If you believe that the meter is faulty then this needs to be resolved before you switch or you could be faced with months of issues. Flow will arrange for an engineer to call. If the meter is not found to be faulty then you will be charged for this inspection.

My advice. Take a meter reading and turn on your HW heating for say 30 minutes. This is usually a 3kW heater so in 30 mins your meter reading should increase by c. 1.5kWhs. I am assuming that there is no obvious evidence that the meter and associated wiring has been tampered with; eg; seals are in place?

aussie_in_wales

Hi Hengus,

I did give them both gas and electricity meter readings which is why I realised that something was wrong with the electricity meter as soon as I took the reading this morning. These reading also tallied with what they had on record from the previous owners.

I'll turn on the hot water heating and see that happens, thank you for that.
I did put on the washing machine this morning after I realised there may be an issue and watched the meter and it didn't move at all so I think there is definitely a fault.

I can't see any evidence of tampering. There are some inspection certificates on the meter from western power distrubution but the last was was from 2006.

System

aussie_in_wales wrote: »

Hi Hengus,

I did give them both gas and electricity meter readings which is why I realised that something was wrong with the electricity meter as soon as I took the reading this morning. These reading also tallied with what they had on record from the previous owners.

I'll turn on the hot water heating and see that happens, thank you for that.
I did put on the washing machine this morning after I realised there may be an issue and watched the meter and it didn't move at all so I think there is definitely a fault.

I can't see any evidence of tampering. There are some inspection certificates on the meter from western power distrubution but the last was was from 2006.

It that case your supplier will arrange for a meter exchange. You need to take photos of the old and new meters (not all new meters are new and there may already be a reading from previous use). Flow then needs to update the National Database before you can switch suppliers. They will also monitor your consumption with the replacement meter and back calculate your usage to the day that you moved in.

House_Martin

As I posted on another enquiry last week, the Weston Sangamo electric meter will stick sometimes and drop a blank on the 5 th digit after usually two 9 s on the 3 rd and 4 th digit..A good thump on the side of the meter will restart it.

aussie_in_wales

Hi Both,

Thanks for your replies. Flow have now made a date in a few weeks to change my meter as it appears to be faulty.

Interestingly they've said they will need 4 month's readings in order to be able to bill me!! This is obviously not ideal as I will be on their standard rate as I was planning on switching to a different supplier.

Does anyone know if they are able to effectively keep me locked into their company without me having agreed to it?

molerat

As soon as you get a new meter you can apply to switch. The problem is that Flow will bill you on a best guess estimate of your use which will not be based on much real data.