Electricity metering problem - hypothetical!

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manalishi

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Let's imagine that Fred Smith has been living in a house since 2007. He has a 3-phase supply previously installed for Economy 7 heaters (that are long gone). He's using the Day/Night tariff with his billing company, everything's been going well, Siemens reads the meters from time to time, bills get sent, and Fred pays as usual.

Now, he's getting a new extension wired in and his electrician discovers that the clock+metering thingummies have got the Night (cheap rate) and Day (normal rate) attached the wrong way around. :confused:

What to do?

The only dated thing visible is a tag to say the old meters were replaced with the new one in 2001. The seals (wire and paper) are unbroken, so it's not like someone's been fiddling.

Who's liable for the billing mistake? Will EDF / Siemens / billing company come after Fred for any shortfall? Fred hasn't yet worked out the figures. But it must have affected the house's previous owners, too. Keeping quiet about it seems daft.

Fred's going to have the 3-phase ripped out at some point in the future and presumably EDF's bod will notice?
 
As the seals are unbroken I would imagine that the problem lies with the utility and/or their engineering subcontractor. As such its up to them to sort it out. :)

In the meantime don't forget to let Fred know that he should only fire up those class A valve amps prior to 10:30pm.
 
manalishi said:
Let's imagine that Fred Smith has been living in a house since 2007. He has a 3-phase supply previously installed for Economy 7 heaters (that are long gone). He's using the Day/Night tariff with his billing company, everything's been going well, Siemens reads the meters from time to time, bills get sent, and Fred pays as usual.

Now, he's getting a new extension wired in and his electrician discovers that the clock+metering thingummies have got the Night (cheap rate) and Day (normal rate) attached the wrong way around. :confused:

What to do?

The only dated thing visible is a tag to say the old meters were replaced with the new one in 2001. The seals (wire and paper) are unbroken, so it's not like someone's been fiddling.

Who's liable for the billing mistake? Will EDF / Siemens / billing company come after Fred for any shortfall? Fred hasn't yet worked out the figures. But it must have affected the house's previous owners, too. Keeping quiet about it seems daft.

Fred's going to have the 3-phase ripped out at some point in the future and presumably EDF's bod will notice?
Click to expand...

Hi
Just as i was moving over to the rock we had an hypothetical incident similar to this where our meter reading was sent to the restuarant down stairs, they paid it witout question but when thier accountant spotted the error tree years later, they were a bit irrate about it. It came down to the fact that the supplier had sold my contract to a third party (apparently they can), because they never informed me of this or sought my consent they settled they said not to worry about the arrears :D, and they would repay the overspend by the restaurant.
 
If they are the wrong way round, does that mean Fred has been 'over paying' all this time?
 
We had just this problem, but our storage heaters were in a property we moved into. I didnt notice the AM/PM bit either. Needless to say the £850 quid leccy bill for 3 months over the winter made use suspicious about something.

Thankfully Scottish Power came and sorted it out and charged us for the actual number of units at the night rate only. It appeared because the previous tenant popped his clogs they shut off power to the property as it was left vacant for some time, and didn't reset it properly before we moved in.

As we were shedding the storage heaters we had them take the Eco 7 Meter out, I would suggest you do the same and assume they havnt spotted it. A normal bill may end up being cheaper in the long run.
 
See about a Smart Meter. That way you won't have them in doing it all again a few year's time.

m.
 
Thanks, all. I ... er, I mean Fred ... will contact EDF/billing compnay to let them know. No point carrying on and hoping. Haven't quite got my head around the numbers/timing/logic, so I'm not sure how bad the damage is.

I did find that this issue (different root cause) has featured on Watchdog recently. So maybe there's some precedent been set. Will report back as and when I know...

And yes, these valve amps are awfully greedy. :D
 
Stick with the "the seals are untouched, it's your fault ya idiots" line and they will eventually relent, assuming they give......Fred....a hard time :)
 
i had exactly the same problem and they just changed the meter (to a one-rate one) and didn't bother to try to claim the underpayment i'd made (unknowingly) for the previous years

that was some time ago (2004) but i don't see how they can hold you responsible

when i moved here in july '09, i noticed after six months that the reading on the meter was the same as i'd given them when i moved in. again, no attempt from the electricity company to recover anything for the "free" six months...
 
Our meter stopped completely some time after moving in.
After the hard winter using storage heaters (prior to having our woodburners fitted) we realised & contacted the board. We got charged for an average four bed(we have 6) house with out storage heaters...
Never knew how much we saved, but it must have been a lot :)
 
2 bed bungalow required nearly 600 quid in leggy to heat with NSH. I fear for the bill of a 6 bed.

Gas Central Heating, you truly cant beat it. Last year was 80 quid for the same period.
 
If I was 'Fred' I would get myself hypnotised to forget about the wires being the wrong way round....
What the mind doesn't know, the heart doesn't grieve over
 
i think it's the "knowingly" bit that can generate estimated bills in future

in both my cases i reported it as soon as i found out and there was no way i could have reasonably known before, so a backpayment was never raised

if "fred" could have reasonably been expected to notice before - ie by having provided a customer meter reading in the past, then i think that's when they start to produce estimates based on an average likely consumption
 
Just a quick update - closer examination of the weird clockwork er... clock doohockey seems to show that it's connected right, but the clock itself is just 12 hours wrong.

Am waiting until the electrician has finished his extension-wiring work and will then notify TPTB.

A propos of nothing, my GF says that on one of her old houses the LCD timer display had bled when they tried to do a reading (must've been made by the same people who did the 190 16V's lap timer). In that case, they couldn't work out what the reading was, and she was let off that quarter's bill (no estimated bill).
 
as an electrician for 29 years and an inspector for 5 years ive seen a few good ones.i once attended a council house which the tennant was an old lady about 80 years old.the house had storage heaters in every room and was like a sauna.when i opened the mains cupboard door i noticed the mains board was connected directly to the norweb cutout with no electric meter at all.when i asked the old lady did she know about this she said she had lived there for 25years and never had an electric bill,it must be included in her rent.
since the storage heaters were on 24/7 imagine the electric bill for 25 years.i totally forgot to make a note of this on my paperwork especially after the pint of tea and a bacon butty.the lady has since died and the property was rewired so all is legal now.
 
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