Electricity Usage meter

[salawiner]

Hi all,

I have three rooms I let out above a shop, where the rent includes all the utilities as they are shared with the shop.

I want to have the ability to charge residents for excessive electricity usage, and have found these, which look like I could have one per room in the fusebox (the flats have their own fusebox, and have one circuit for each room, one for communal, one for all lights and one for the cooker).

The problem is I can't really find much information on them, whether they work well, and how they fit into/are connected up in the fusebox!! If anyone has any experience of them any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[JohnW2]

I have three rooms I let out above a shop .... (the flats have their own fusebox, and have one circuit for each room, one for communal, one for all lights and one for the cooker).

Does each flat/room have a cooker and, if so, is there one cooker circuit per flat/room? Is the 'one circuit per room' just for sockets? Could you provider a photo of this 'fusebox'?

Kind Regards, John

 

[bernardgreen]

If these "meters" are to be used for charging the tenants for the amount of electricity used then you will have to be able to prove that the meters are accurate.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Hi all,

I have three rooms I let out above a shop, where the rent includes all the utilities as they are shared with the shop.

I want to have the ability to charge residents for excessive electricity usage,

You need to familiarise yourself with the rules/regulations/laws concerning reselling electricity to tenants.

and have found these,

I would advise against those.

So where is the seller

1. Jersey?
2. Salford?
3. Hong Kong?
4. All of the above?
   
5. None of the above?

and how they fit into/are connected up in the fusebox!!

In the obvious way.

Your electrician will have no problems fitting something like that.

But buy them from RS, or Farnell, CPC etc, and make sure you do the charging legally.

 

[TicTac]

It's been a long time since I've done this, but you can get a meter that just reads the usage, and you'd fit those prior to each flats consumer unit, but preferably outside of them. Anything you put in their room, can be bypassed.

And this might help with understanding recharging tenants for electricity.

 

[salawiner]

Does each flat/room have a cooker and, if so, is there one cooker circuit per flat/room? Is the 'one circuit per room' just for sockets? Could you provider a photo of this 'fusebox'?

Kind Regards, John

The rooms are just three bedrooms, with a shared kitchen (with the only cooker) and bathroom. This is the fusebox/consumer unit (I'm a bit old-fashioned in my terms!)

So it's modern set-up, and there's room for at least three of these units, possibly one for the communal sockets as well. I just wasn't sure if they would just fit in to the standard consumer unit with the common live rail.

It's been a long time since I've done this, but you can get a meter that just reads the usage, and you'd fit those prior to each flats consumer unit, but preferably outside of them. Anything you put in their room, can be bypassed.

And this might help with understanding recharging tenants for electricity.

Thanks TicTak, that link is very helpful! Not something I had thought of, and the examples don't really fit what I am planning on doing. Basically I am one of the good landlords - I currently include all the utilities, I have the heating on constant at 21degrees, and really I'm pretty easy going, but as I have the heating on what I don't want is someone having an electric heater on 24/7 as well. My plan would be to say X kWh per month is included in the rent, but anything above this would be charged at my current rate. I'm not wanting to use this to make money, just to stop losing money if the tenants take the pi$$! I'd take a reading on the 25th of each month (I submit all my readings on the 25th, so it will be part of my routine!). I'll keep a record of each month's readings, so there'll be no problems proving usage.

I would advise against those.

To be honest, that was the first one I found to link to! I hate that about ebay, you can select UK only, but the seller could still be in China with a UK address for shipping. Thanks for the advice though.

I was confused because from the diagrams I could find said that the bottom terminals were for live & neutral, but in a standard consumer unit there's a common live rail along the bottom. I'm hoping someone has fitted one like this and could confirm how they connect them.

 

[TicTac]

As you CU is full, you'd need a new one to fit those meters, and is that worth the cost. There is no breaker on them, so although they fit on the rail, it would seem you have to wire them in to the CU alongside the MCB you're measuring. But even then they may not work. They have a live and neutral in, and a live and neutral out, so you'd need to take the live wire out of the mcb, and feed it into the meter, and then fix the live wire into the other side of the meter. In the same way, you need to take a neutral into the meter, and then take the neutral out of the meter to go to the relevant room. And you also need to make sure that the meter will fit your CU as well.

 

[Iggifer]

I was confused because from the diagrams I could find said that the bottom terminals were for live & neutral, but in a standard consumer unit there's a common live rail along the bottom. I'm hoping someone has fitted one like this and could confirm how they connect them.

If there was space you'd just cut the busbar (common live rail) short - it may only extend to the MCBs that are there if there's spare ways, in your case it will fill the consumer unit.

Adding a second enclosure for 3 DIN rail meters wouldn't be a big job, it'd be done like TicTac describes. Or you can do it with standard single tariff meters which are a bit bigger but more reliable. Something like this and you can get extension covers so you can wire T+E into them

 

[TicTac]

The busbar is only for holding the meter in place, not for supplying power to it, hence the in and out connectors. With the cost of fitting a secondary CU (nice suggestion) and the question mark over whether they'd even work, I'd go with iggifers suggestion on the meters.

 

[Iggifer]

The busbar is only for holding the meter in place, not for supplying power to it, hence the in and out connectors. With the cost of fitting a secondary CU (nice suggestion) and the question mark over whether they'd even work, I'd go with iggifers suggestion on the meters.

DIN rail is for holding MCBs etc in place. Busbar is the copper link at the bottom of the MCBs.

 

[TicTac]

Sorry Iggifer, didn't put that across properly. Whereas the busbar would supply power to an ordinary MCB, it's not doing that on those CU meters he's looking at. In this case, both the Din rail and the busbar are just holding the meter in place, not supplying any power to it in the way that it would to an MCB. Does that make more sense.

 

[salawiner]

Thanks all for the suggestions and info. the current CU is not full - the MCB's with the labels on are used, the rest aren't, so could be replaced with the meters. I can move everything around so there would be one MCB, one meter for each room. The Busbar could (as Iggifer says) be cut down.

The Busbar feeds power to the MCB. The Live comes out of the MCB and in to the meter. The Neutral comes from the common rail at the top of the CU into the meter, then the T+E would connect to the out terminals of the meter. Hope that makes sense!

 

[TicTac]

Well the CU will take the meters, but there'd normally be blanking plates rather than unused MCBs there. But you don't want to cut the busbar, as it'll be the bottom support for the meter. The L&N going to each room would come out of the bottom of the meter, and you'd take a feed from the top of the MCB into the L connection on the meter, and a feed from the neutral bar to the N connection on the meter.

The caveat being, will they fit your particular CU, and this should be done by a qualified electrician, because we are assuming how these meters work.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

If there was space you'd just cut the busbar (common live rail) short

No if.

In this case, both the Din rail and the busbar are just holding the meter in place

There's nowhere in the thing for the prong(s) of a busbar to go.


Who here thinks that a photo of the inside of the CU wouldn't show that it would probably be a right PITA to install 3 or 4 of those in the middle of the CU, with all those extra conductors (at least 6 per meter) running back and forth?


Also, they are 30A devices - the circuits are 32A.

 

[Steven Prentice]

Just a thought, what do you expect them to have on in their bedrooms? There is nothing to stop you putting in a smaller breaker. That avoinds any regualtory issues of reselling electricity (I'm not sure of the laws here but you might have to give them the option to shop around for the cheapest rates), and adding any possibly dodgy chinese kit.

If there is nothing that generates heat to be allowed in the rooms (you supply the heating), so no kettles etc then why not go for sometihng even as low as 6A? (4A might be a but tight for them)