Faulty Meter?

Geps · 15 Jul 2012

Hi,

I'm carrying out a (LABC notified) rewire of my house. Yesterday I swapped over to my new consumer unit BUT after I had disconnected my old fuse board I noticed my meter was still rotating.

With the only thing being the isolater that's attached after the meter should I really expect to see the meter disc rotating?

I wasn't sure if it's just the meter itself that was using electricity in which case I'd have imagined it would draw from the DNO side rather my side.....?

Any thoughts?

Cheers,

JohnW2 · 15 Jul 2012

Geps said:
Yesterday I swapped over to my new consumer unit BUT after I had disconnected my old fuse board I noticed my meter was still rotating. ... With the only thing being the isolater that's attached after the meter should I really expect to see the meter disc rotating?

If you are saying that the meter's disc was rotating when there was absolutely no load connected to it's output tails (just a 'switched off' isolator), it's very hard to see how that can happen, and certainly very wrong.

How fast was the disc rotating - at a 'reasonable speed' or only just perceptably?

Kind Regards, John.

Geps · 15 Jul 2012

Correct.

I know alot of people say they've switches everything off but I literally had nothing coming from the isolator.

It was extremely slowly - and it does rotate proportionally to the load but it was definitely rotating when nothing was attached.

Cheers,

JohnW2 · 15 Jul 2012

Geps said:
Correct. I know alot of people say they've switches everything off but I literally had nothing coming from the isolator.
It was extremely slowly - and it does rotate proportionally to the load but it was definitely rotating when nothing was attached.

Very odd!! I don't suppose there is a timeswitch (e.g. for an 'Economy 7' supply) fed from the meter, is there?

Kind Regards, John.

Geps · 15 Jul 2012

Nope - after the meter there is my isolator and then onto my new consumer unit.

echoes · 15 Jul 2012

According to your meter, exactly how much power is being used with nothing connected? How many seconds per revolution?

JohnW2 · 15 Jul 2012

Geps said:
Nope - after the meter there is my isolator and then onto my new consumer unit.

OK - and there's no timeswitch/timeclock at all?

Kind Regards, John.

Geps · 15 Jul 2012

echoes said:
According to your meter, exactly how much power is being used with nothing connected? How many seconds per revolution?

To be honest it's so slow it's more like minutes - hence I thought it might be the meter itself drawing power.

I'll turn everything off tomorrow and get an exact reading when the dishwasher etc have all finished.

No John - when I first noticed the only thing connected to it was the isolator as I hadn't yet connected the new tails.

It's almost as if there may be a light on in the isolator but I can't see one on my consumer side. Does the DNO side have one?

JohnW2 · 15 Jul 2012

Geps said:
No John - when I first noticed the only thing connected to it was the isolator as I hadn't yet connected the new tails.

Fair enough, but the reason I was asking about a timeswitch is that it could be directly connected to the meter by something other than the main tails. However, from what you're saying, I assume that there is no such timeswitch?

In which case, if the revolving of the disc is 'real', then I give up!

Kind Regards, John.

Geps · 15 Jul 2012

Ah ok - nope, nothing else is in the vicinity of the meter, and no cables disappear off into a wall etc that could be something else drawing power.

I'll switch off to tomorrow and take meter readings before and after.

Just so I'm clear though, the meter should be reading zero consumption when it's disconnected - the meter itself doesn't draw anything from the metered side....

JohnW2 · 15 Jul 2012

Geps said:
Just so I'm clear though, the meter should be reading zero consumption when it's disconnected - the meter itself doesn't draw anything from the metered side....

Correct.

Kind Regards, John.

Geps · 16 Jul 2012

Having turned everything off I can confirm it does rotate. In the ten seconds I tried it it managed to rotate round to the next graduation on the outer most bit of the disc that had a '10' written on it. There was no obvious change in the figures though.

So I guess it's a call to my DNO to fix?

westie101 · 16 Jul 2012

So I guess it's a call to my DNO to fix?

Better yet contact your supplier as most DNOs no longer deal with metering

JohnW2 · 16 Jul 2012

Geps said:
Having turned everything off I can confirm it does rotate. In the ten seconds I tried it it managed to rotate round to the next graduation on the outer most bit of the disc that had a '10' written on it. There was no obvious change in the figures though.

I'm still not totally clear - can you translate that into an estimate of how long it would take for the disc to make one complete revolution?

Geps said:
So I guess it's a call to my DNO to fix?

It would be your electricity supplier, not DNO, who are responsible for the meter. However, unless the laws of physics have changed whilst I haven't been looking, if the disc is rotating, then some current must be flowing. I suppose there is some possibility that it's going through some 'leak' within the meter, but that seems pretty unlikley. Any chance of a photo of the meter and its immediate surrounds?

Kind Regards, John.

Geps · 16 Jul 2012

I agree it's unlikely John, but as far as I can see it's either flowing through the meter or the isolator. The seals on the isolator mean I'm unable to say further.

I've left it for the day but will take some photos tomorrow for you. I'll also kill power for longer so I can time a rotation.

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Faulty Meter?

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