Landis GYR+ E470 Type 5394

BarelySentientAI

Reed_Richards said:

111 A ... that should eventually blow a 60 A mains fuse but might never blow an 80 A (or greater) fuse.  

25 minutes or so for 60A, plausibly never for 80A, yes.

Reed_Richards said:

Could a court reach a decision based on a balance of improbabilities and no evidence either way?   

Civil cases are settled like that all the time.  There's very rarely "no evidence" though, even in this case, and either more evidence could be gathered or a decision made on balance of probabilities.  Take this example - logs from the software, physical inspection of the installation to see if there are any unidentified loads / evidence of tampering, testing of the meter (although it might have been destroyed by now) etc.

Or one side decides it's more trouble than it's worth and gives up.

(I'm an expert witness on electrical cases, amongst other things)

Petriix

I would think it would be trivial to win in court based upon there simply being no plausible explanation as to how so much power could have been used. You're talking about the equivalent of three electric showers running continuously. 

To put it into perspective, during the energy savings sessions (specifically the flawed in-day adjustment periods) I tried to use as much power as possible. I charged my EV while running the oven, tumble dryer and an electric heater. All that peaked at 13kW, under half the supposed usage in this case. It unfeasible that someone could unknowingly be using that much.

The response from the Ombudsman is alarming because it ignores the simple facts of the situation. Surely there must be a process for reviewing cases when new information comes to light? 

Reed_Richards

My consumer unit has 2x 32 A circuit breakers for two ring mains, 2x 32 A for a hob and an oven, 1 x 32 A for my immersion heater, a 40 A spur to the garage, not to mention a 40 A spur to my heat pump.  Ignoring the heat pump, it's still easily theoretically possible for me to draw 28 kW of power.  There is no plausible explanation why I would want to do this.  But if my electricity meter said I did then surely the onus is on me to prove otherwise? 

MeteredOut

Petriix said:

I would think it would be trivial to win in court based upon there simply being no plausible explanation as to how so much power could have been used. You're talking about the equivalent of three electric showers running continuously. 

To put it into perspective, during the energy savings sessions (specifically the flawed in-day adjustment periods) I tried to use as much power as possible. I charged my EV while running the oven, tumble dryer and an electric heater. All that peaked at 13kW, under half the supposed usage in this case. It unfeasible that someone could unknowingly be using that much.

The response from the Ombudsman is alarming because it ignores the simple facts of the situation. Surely there must be a process for reviewing cases when new information comes to light? 

It's not clear what evidence the OP gave the Ombudsman, but I suspect it was not as clear cut as we now know it, and the because the OP declined their decision, the case is closed. The ombudsman no longer has the ability to mandate any further action by the supplier because of that.

Bendo

Reed_Richards said:

My consumer unit has 2x 32 A circuit breakers for two ring mains, 2x 32 A for a hob and an oven, 1 x 32 A for my immersion heater, a 40 A spur to the garage, not to mention a 40 A spur to my heat pump.  Ignoring the heat pump, it's still easily theoretically possible for me to draw 28 kW of power.  There is no plausible explanation why I would want to do this.  But if my electricity meter said I did then surely the onus is on me to prove otherwise? 

It would be a combination of both, the OP would need to show they couldn't have used the electric and the supplier would need to demonstrate the meter is working correctly.  After that it would come to what is most logical to whoever hears the case.

IANAL but if I were in the ops situation I'd pay the bill but make it clear that it is disputed and I intend to pursue a claim to recover it. No point in getting your credit file in the toilet as well.

They would then need to send a properly worded letter before claim to their registered office and at that point the OP needs to do his homework, and start building his case. And it certainly needs to be a lot more in depth than whatever they went to the ombudsman with.

Whatever happens is likely to be time consuming and the op will need to do a lot of homework if they want to win it.

Reed_Richards

it's a pity that the OP and spouse seem to have dropped-out of this thread.  We never found out if they could access an event log for the electricity meter; that might provide clues.

whaticallmother

apologies all we didn’t drop out we have been away for a few days.  Thank you all for your comments quite interesting read,  we could not access the event logs followed the manual with no joy.  Unfortunately EON have not played ball with our updated information. And we are going to take it to small claims, for us the concern is now if this happens again and we get another 1k bill we have to pay again??  So frustrating,  and leaves me rather bitter if I am honest, clearly something was wrong it is not possible, and quite right that when we went to the oberdersman we didn’t have all the data we do now.   We plan to have a full load test done as part of the case, that with the solar telemetry and our export to grid graphs, please the readings for two years in half hourly reading.  I hope that someone can see that it’s clearly not right. 

Reed_Richards

I think we can all see that it's clearly not right.  But equally it's not impossible that someone could use such a large amount of electricity over 5 days, unless they have a 60 A mains fuse in which case it is impossible.

Can you agree with Eon that you will pay the bill if they fit a new meter?  That's an unsatisfactory outcome but better than nothing.  Or you could pay an electrician to install a second meter in series with yours so you can verify what your meter tells you is correct.  Again, possibly better than nothing?      

Chris_b2z

Bearing in mind when this happened, did you have indoor / outdoor Christmas lighting in use at the time? I'm not suggesting that it would explain the high usage but it could be a contributing factor.

It may also be worth reposting this case on the e.on next Community Forum with all the new info before going down the legal route. After all, the supplier has an experienced legal department and only they have access to known code defects, previous incidents, remote access history and meter logs.

whaticallmother

Just for everyone awareness,  we had an electrician attend today,  to conduct a load test,  that is every socket used, fan heathers,  washing machine, dishwasher and tumble dryer, lights, TV's x box,  4 pans boiling on the hob,  2 x electric ovens, fridge, freezer and so on,  no socket left.....and as suspected,  at peak we were in a 30 minute period we maxed out at 6.9 KWH after the ovens and the pans boiled and got to temperature,  is significally dropped down.   So we have absolutely proved with everything in our house running at full capacity there is no way we could have reached those ridiculous measurements,  and for sure not at midnight and the proceeding hours for 24 hours.

04/01/2024 00:00	13.739
04/01/2024 00:30	14.645
04/01/2024 01:00	15.954
04/01/2024 01:30	17.741
04/01/2024 02:00	16.203
04/01/2024 02:30	16.359
04/01/2024 03:00	12.279
04/01/2024 03:30	10.713
04/01/2024 04:00	13.619

I think it is fair now to say that we have enough to prove our case,  whether EON choose to do anything about it and we go to court is a different matter.   finally let me thank everyone for their suggestions it has been very helpful for us as we have learnt alot.