Electric meter issue

[scottb]

Hi, I have just had a new digital electric meter fitted and my electric consumption has doubled.

We are apparently using 22 units a day the electric company has said which they say seems high for our standard 3 bedroom house. On our previous bills it worked out 13 - 15 units a day.

Also, while we have been checking the meter over the last 2 days we noticed that something strange happens - if all the lights are off and we then turn on the kitchen or bathroom lights and then turn them off a minute or so later, the meter speeds up! and then if we immediately turn another rooms lights on and then off a minute or so later, the meter runs very slow.

Would there be a problem with the meter or ould there be a problem with our wiring??

Any answers greatly welcome.

 

[Roo]

Your speeding up electric meter sounds strange to me, this is possible on the old mechanical type which had a disk.

If a piece of dirt was stuck on the disk it would have caused it to slow down until it passed where the meter would then return to normal speed.

If it's a new digital meter am I right in thinking it has a flashing light instead of a spinning disk so this couldn't happen?

You can have you meter checked by your supplier they will charge you for this but if the meter is out they will refund the cost.

I must warn you tho that 99% of meters I check are within the limits.

Check your previous bills to see if they were estimated.
Your bills may have been UNDER estimated and now that your supplier has an accurate reading your usage has gone up.

I personally use between 70 - 100 units per week in my 2 bed semi and there is only the dog in during the day.

 

[scottb]

You are right it does have a red flash beacon.

All off our bills are actual since we changed to a new supplier about 4 months . The red flash speeds up and down for no reason, I noticed this when we tested the lights.

I have asked the supplier to fit a check meter to check and see if something is wrong.

 

[conny]

Do you have anything running on a timer or thermostat? This could just be cutting in when you are turning the lights on and off.
Try switching everything off, (flick all the mcb's/rccb's etc to the off position). Check the beacon and then one at a time turn each circuit back on and note if it suddenly speeds up. If it does note which circuit and just turn that one on by the mcb but turn all appliances/lights off individually by there own switches. While you watch the meter get someone to turn them on one by one and note what appliance it was if it speeds up.

 

[mattysupra]

i had new meters fitted about 3 months ago which work through wifi/bluetooth to seperate meter indoors. It tells me how much im using and cost anytime i want. Now it is delayed by about a minute, if i turn the lights on and then off within a minute it is delayed with the update so tells me im using nothing and then loads but out of sink with what im doing with the light switch.

My problem is that for the last 2 years i have been paying 180 quid a month for electric and gas for a 3 bed with two people living but out every day between 8-5 at work. My house before was a 5 bed which was more than half this price (close to 60 quid a month) and always someone at home. I have always said there is a problem with the meters and they come out and say there is nothing wrong! Now i have new meters i only use 30 quid a month!!!! Something must of been wrong before! How can i claim back my money? they must owe me 3000+ pound over the 2 years

 

[Roo]

i had new meters fitted about 3 months ago which work through wifi/bluetooth to seperate meter indoors. It tells me how much im using and cost anytime i want.

Your the first I've heard to have one of these so called "SMART METERS" fitted.
I know the company I work for are/were trialing them.

Are they any good?
Any chance of a pic of what I'm gonna have to fit in the near future?

My problem is that for the last 2 years i have been paying 180 quid a month for electric and gas for a 3 bed with two people living but out every day between 8-5 at work. My house before was a 5 bed which was more than half this price (close to 60 quid a month) and always someone at home. I have always said there is a problem with the meters and they come out and say there is nothing wrong! Now i have new meters i only use 30 quid a month!!!! Something must of been wrong before! How can i claim back my money? they must owe me 3000+ pound over the 2 years

Your old meter has been removed so think your gonna have a hard time proving it was wrong.

You could try having a look here http://www.energywatch.org.uk and maybe contacting them but I wouldn't get your hopes up.[/url]

 

[Spark123]

Do you have anything running on a timer or thermostat?

I was thinking fridge freezer

 

[mattysupra]

Yes the meter is very good, tells you everything from kw being used to cost per hour and even how much c02 your making and a traffic light system that warns you when using to much power. I will try and get some pics later.[/quote]

 

[Steve]

The company I work for has fitted "smart meters" in 1000+ of their stores, which transmit readings (via GSM) every 15 minutes to our head office (I think) so they can get a much finer resolution of peak times etc (15 mins as opposed to 3 months).

I think part of the problem before was they were asking stores for readings every month, which was incredibly unreliable. The company provided an intranet page for stores to input the readings, with 6 readings for each meter. I saw one manager cycle through the readings (old red LED display), writing down the date, time, reset no, day 1, 2, 3, night 1, 2, 3. Then she says to me "there aint enough boxes for these readings" and started putting them into the next meter space, she only had the one meter. But she thought the time and date display was a reading too. I could have slapped her. There was a "schedule" of readings on the meter, to tell her which reading was what. I'd be surprised if anyone took any of the readings ever submitted seriously.

How reading meters helps us save energy I dont know. All I know is when our area's "leaderboard" comes down on the email, most of the stores display "meter fault" and no readings. Indeed, they changed the antenna on ours because it wasn't transmitting correctly, but it still doesnt appear to be.