OMG am I lighting up a town?

JC_Derby

easygoing wrote: »

It would appear that as far as they are concerned, the test meter reads the same. We have booked an electrician to come in next week, to test all appliances for us. We are currently using candles and due to the failure of a company who were to fit air source heating today, are huddled around a long burner. Great!! I will update when we have news on electrical items in our home. Can it get worse?!!! two disabled people in the home and we are not having fun!! ha ha.

Hello Easy....
I think you have been offered some good advice on here. Im slightly concerned that you haven't yet followed Prodaves advice. With the likely charges that you are incurring...YOU need to act now and try to locate where this electricity is being used NOW.
An electrician coming in next week? That's incurring another £80 of charges (per week) if your bill continues to click on at the same rate.


Prodave has asked for a photograph on the distribution set up.
What he actually means, is the incoming supply with meter and the tails (grey wires) from meter to your consumer unit/distribution board. This IS the first place to start.
I've said this to people before, but the responsibility is now yours, if YOU don't act now, you are incurring more costs due to your own lack of effort - Brutal and blunt I know, but we can definitely help you on here and quite quickly.
Please let us help you here, but you do now need to act quickly.
Apologies if you are physically unable to do this through disability or age - please get someone who can do this to come round.

JC_Derby

Some questions from your first post if you don't mind


1 - Where is your electricity meter? is it in your bungalow?
2 - does your own electricity system run anywhere outside of the bungalow...do you have power to any other/out buildings
3 - You said the neighbouring property had electricity 2 years ago, taken from the transformer on your land....are you being paid a wayleave for this?
4 - who connected the neighbours electricity connection
5 - who is your local distribution Network Operator and have you spoken to them?

easygoing

Hi JC Derby, I'm sorry, I seem to have missed the request from Prodave. I will get on to that.. (mum currently in hospital, no excuses I know, but its been a bit frantic) Not had the best of weeks.. no heating.. silly electricity bills, failed installation on air source heating company, should have put in last week.. don't get me started.. lost dads wedding ring, He died just under two years ago.. and now mum rushed in. I am not one to give in to a fight.. SSE apparently have rang again today and are not pushing us due to us calling in electrician. No.. we should get a wayleave on two posts in our garden, another fight we are yet to have. Western power put the electricity into the small holding. They cut our tree down, after the neighbours said it was theirs. Was not happy.. so remember clearly when that happened. Seems we are the unluckiest people going at times. If it goes wrong, it goes mega wrong for us!! Will feed back with the photos of the feed.

Robin9

easygoing wrote: »

. Our electricity bills over the last 2 years have been rising steeply. .........................

Two years ago, our neighbours.. its a smallholding, no house, had electric fitted, running off the transformer which is on our land. .............................

Going right back to your original post I am suspecting that your neighbours smallholding is still supplied via your bungalow. Although they may have had the electricity supply installed perhaps it has never been metered or the wiring never transferred from your bungalow.

Can your electrician get access to your neighbours property ?

Boohoo

Robin9 wrote: »

Going right back to your original post I am suspecting that your neighbours smallholding is still supplied via your bungalow. Although they may have had the electricity supply installed perhaps it has never been metered or the wiring never transferred from your bungalow.

Can your electrician get access to your neighbours property ?

I don't know if this will help you or has benn advised before.


In the late 80's or early 90's me and 2 mates rented a 3 bed house. The dowstairs part was used by the landlord for shop storage who converted the house so when you went in the front door you had the stairs there and under the stairs was a coin meter and the rest of the downstairs was partioned off so no access to what was the kitchen, front room and dining room.
All 3 of us were working during the and in the pub at night times being in our early 20's.
We were putting in loads of 50 pence into the meter and i think we were spending £15 a week.
Anyhow 1 weekend we were all comming back from work and saw the landlord in the shop and asked him about the meter and he said previous people had said the meter must be set high and when the electric board come round to collect the money we should have a good rebate.
This went on for 3/4 months and one night while he was downstirs in the storage part of the house our electric ran out and we noticed his lights were off so we went out into the street thinking there was a power cut but the street lights were on and so were other houses lights.
Put 2 50p's in the meter and the lights came on and so did his.
All 3 of us were ready to round to see him and give him a thump but we decided to wait and the next night we knew he was in the storage part as the lights were on and he took a delivery of stock so what we did was turn the power off and we heard a crash and a few swear words. Waited 15 secs and put the power on for a min or 2 and then turned it off again and all the lights went off including his.
We confronted him about this and he denied that out meter was supplying the whole house. In the end we used to turn the power off when we all went to work(we had no heating or fridge just a cooker in the house) and then turn it on when we came back. This lasted 1 week and then the landlord came round and said the spark had not put in a meter for his part of the house(later we found out that it had been like this for 2 years from ex-tennants) and said untill it gets sorted he will deduct £5 a week rent for this. We said ok but we still turned the electric off when all left the house. We stayed there fo 4/5 months until we got another place.
I know this is a long post but what you could do is if you can see your neighbours house wiat to its night time and then turn the power off and see if their lights go off aswell. If they do then they are connected to your power and you are paying like we were.
Good luck.

rdr

Any strange smells from the barns?

Robin9

Easygoing - What did the electrician find ?

JC_Derby

Any advance with this easy? I have PM'd you too

lstar337

Yeah, the suspense is killing me! What is the conclusion of this story?

Robin9

Robin9 wrote: »

Easygoing - What did the electrician find ?

(Even if its embarrassing ) easygoing are you going to tell us ?

- then others can learn