Am I being charged twice for my electricty?

Scot_39

OK at that point when modified the CU / fuse box connections - one of the old meters - if you moved absolutely everything over to the other - might have stopped recording use /  become redundant.

Some folk choose to get their second meter removed - if say paying a second standing charge - but for quite a few years - Ofgem stopped suppliers doing that to some complex meter set-ups if billed at single rate - so only paid one.

You probably wouldn't have needed a five port meter in that case - to drive a restricted time feed for the heating. Even if fitted a 5 port meter - their might have been nothing for the meter fitter to connect to the restricted port.

Let us know how you get on.

bucksboomer

themisterkoala said:

Scot_39 said:

Two meters and 1 line on bill sounds fundamentally wrong to me for the old system - and their may have been some legacy meter reading fudging going on to enable that.

Prior to smart - assuming you were able to - were you reading both meters and submitting the readings - and if so - how regularly ?

Were both old meters still incrementing - were you instructed - or were they internally fudging your bills by adding the two readings together to charge you single rate - e.g. if you had say in past requested single rate billing on what sounds like an old complex meter setup ?

Is your home all electric - most 2 meter homes were - but maybe not now ?

(How do you heat HW And your rooms ?)

Or had one long since been essentially made "redundant" (e.g. when say you or past occupier / landlord say upgraded NSH and HW tank to GCH boiler) but not disconnected the meter and had it removed ?

That bills now over 2 months old - to beginning of new cap period in Jul.  If you had raised it then - and Sainsburys (backed by EOn Next iirc) hadnt resolved it by now - you could be at the end of the 8 week delay to escalate it to the Energy Ombudsman. 

But for now - are you able to read the meter yourself - or have friend / relative to do it for you ?

Have you got an online account with Sainsburys - does it echo current readings - or a more current recent bill - have you checked the readings on their account - if like EOn - they give my readings only monthly at bill times - and as on SVT - at cap change dates as well - so on xxth every month and also 1st Jan, Apr, Jul, Oct as well.

It seems very freaky that your day and your night use would be exactly the same - but not I suppose impossible - but it does look suspicious.

And also unlikely unless you have asked for flat rate billing in the past - they would apply what looks more like single rate SVT than say an e7 style peak / off peak rate to both registers.  It's actually surprising they wouldn't have kicked you off of it  - and defaulted you to E7 - other suppliers have been known to - and customers have had to re-request it.

If you can get a set of readings - phone up and ask them for their readings and see how they now compare - or compare with a more current bill.

If not - phone them and them to explain the exact same readings on both lines - assuming its still happening.

(How often are they producing statements - monthly like EOn Next ?)

Make sure you distinguish between say a total reading and individual day and night readings - if the meter has been configured to do so (it might not have been - even if is an e7 capable meter)

Does your meter look like a 4 port (4 thick meter tails at the bottom) or a 5 port (5 thick meter tails) - 5 port meters provide a time restricted feed normally in sync with a low tariff rate say on a 2nd register - commonly to drive old style electric heating i.e. NSH or thermal store boiler - and HW tanks.

Also if you have an IHD - some will give you just the total of both rates - but others do give you the registers.

If you cannot find instructions on how to read your meter - on Sainsbury's site or google etc - let us know the meter make and the model.  

But to summarise - the best thing to do is phone them and query it (meter readings might help demonstrate the problem - but probably not essential) - if your not happy with the answer - take it to complaint level - and that gives them 8 weeks to resolve it before it costs them when you refer it to the energy ombudsman.  And hopefully help to get it resolved long before peak winter electric heating kicks in in earnest if you have it.

PS re the £18 - we would have to see the bill before this one - given thats 0.2/0.0 is likely your day 1 smart meter readings - were any on the £18 bill there as estimates - it would seem likely the £18 is more likely a catch up from meter readers final reading on old meter - compared to say an estimated bill a week or so before on the normal cycle - than for an actual 3 days use.  But not impossible in say a cold part of the UK even in April with even low electric heating.

I'm definitely going to phone up tomorrow! 

All of our flat is electric. We have panel heaters which my wife installed before she met me to replace panel heaters and a hot water tank that we heat up overnight every 2/3 days. 

The 0.2/0.0 thing is from when the smart meter was installed. I phoned earlier today to query the bill and they said they had recalculated things but it still doesn't look right. There is no way that we are using exactly the same amount of electricity day and night. 

We meticulously submitted manual readings at the end of every month for both meters. 

When the flats were first built in the 90s all the storage heaters and hot water were on one meter with everything else on the other. That's why there are two fuse boxes in the cupboard. We had everything switched over so it was all attached to the one meter. 

I appreciate that this is all very complicated so thanks for the input. 

I'll see what they say tomorrow 

What jumped out at me was your standing charge, I can't remember mine but it is fourty something, I used to pay zero and then 10p and 15p but these are the days we live in, over 50p seems outrageous.  

It appears you are definitively paying twice, but for what and why has yet to be established.

At first I thought it was a tariff change but the dates would have been different from July.

It seems to me that they have wired in the same meter to two inputs

YouTube is full of examples of botched up Smart Meter installs, some even where they have mis-wired the neutral and expose a live when in off position.

Like most I have been badgered to install a Smart Meter but my gut instinct is to hold out, BBC said 4 million not working and now OFGEM are coming out with a very mild scheme to get all those ones that don't work to work.

Add the fact that the only consumer benefit was supposed to be you would be more aware of how much you were using because of In Home Display, but now we find that these are unreliable, failing and energy company is asking consumers to pay for a new one. We were all charged up to £15 Billion for the Smart Meter project and the only beneficiary seems to be Energy companies and people who love the nerdy aspect of it.  I like the nerdy aspect but I use an app for that by just adding my reads.

My meters are fine until 2032 and I will fight tooth and nail to remain on analogue, they just work.