Two Electricity Meters Problem

Brintus

My mother lives in a house that has been converted from two smaller houses.

Speaking to her last night it turns out that she has 2 separate electricity meters for the property. Both with different suppliers (COOP and SSE).
She is also paying 2 standing charges and is confused as to how the Electricity price cap will effect her.
She apparently tried to get one of the meters removed but had real difficulty getting anyone at either company who could help her. She was then told that it would cost £900 to have the meter removed. At this point she gave up (she is in her late 70's) and has been paying 2 standard charges and bills ever since. 

Having just found all of this out I would be very grateful in anyone can help as to:

1. Does the cost for removing a meter and being put on 1 meter sound right?
2. Other than the doubling up of standing charges is she at any other cost disadvantage from having 2 meters and 2 different suppliers?

Any advice gratefully received

molerat

1) It is not just removal of the meter, it is removal of the supply.  Looks in the ballpark - UKPN quote £500+ depending on exactly what is being done.

Has she had an electrician quote for connecting the property wiring to one meter - not something the DNO would be responsible for.

2) The only negative really is the 2 SCs. On the plus side she should be getting 2 x £400 rebates.

wrf12345

Get an electrician to combine the circuits into one then stop paying the disconnected one, eventually end up with a prepayment meter with the debt on it but won't cost anything if you don't top up. It will clock up a massive standing charge bill over the years but no need to pay it...

molerat

wrf12345 said:

Get an electrician to combine the circuits into one then stop paying the disconnected one, eventually end up with a prepayment meter with the debt on it but won't cost anything if you don't top up. It will clock up a massive standing charge bill over the years but no need to pay it...

How do you figure that one out ?  Someone will have to pay sometime.

macman

If the meters are in their original locations in what were separate houses, then there may be a lot of work to do to rewire the circuits in one property to be supplied through the remaining meter. All the circuits on one side will have to be extended, so this could be a lot more than the cost of removing the meter.
Removing the meter will be done by the DNO and is the easy bit. You will need to employ a private sparky to do the necessary rewiring.
If the meters are adjacent, it's a lot simpler, but I doubt they will be: this was a bodged up conversion.

Ectophile

macman said:

If the meters are in their original locations in what were separate houses, then there may be a lot of work to do to rewire the circuits in one property to be supplied through the remaining meter. All the circuits on one side will have to be extended, so this could be a lot more than the cost of removing the meter.
Removing the meter will be done by the DNO and is the easy bit. You will need to employ a private sparky to do the necessary rewiring.
If the meters are adjacent, it's a lot simpler, but I doubt they will be: this was a bodged up conversion.

There's a simpler way to do it.  Run a long sub-main from the remaining meter to the consumer unit that was being fed by the disconnected meter.  That could be done with a switched fused isolator and a long run of suitably fat SWA.