extension build - utility meters

[number9]

Hello everyone.

I am in the process of having a 2 storey extension built, much of which includes building above our existing garage. The gas and electricity meters are positiond on the garage wall with the covers allowing meter reading from the outside.

I therefore need to have these moved to the new outer blocked leaf of the building , ie the cavity and block thickness away and have been warned that this could be a very expensive job. Do I have to move them or is there a way of putting some sort of access cabinet into the second leaf? All advice/experiences welcome please.

 

[johnb80]

Hi,
Just had to do the same myself, moved less than 2 metres, total cost for gas and leccy? just over £1000. If you have to move more than 2 metres the costs increase dramatically and they don'y reconnect your internal gas / leccy cables without increasing the charge even further.

Regards - John

 

[number9]

holy moly. what a rip off. I need these moved about 6-8 inches!

 

[Steve]

The electric guys work live - they dont turn off the electric at the end of the street*, so there are major insurance implications for them and they are highly paid (one would hope). The DNO are probably charging on the basis that this is a re-install, so charge roughly what they would if they were installing the equipment from new.

*this is not actually possible (newbies on here make me laugh when they say "i need to move my electric meter. wheres the "off" switch on the street? all i can see is the water one")

 

[Lectrician]

The gas I can understand being a little pricey - The lecky is a piece of ****. You could probably loosen the box and pull it forward - I expect there is slack. See if your spark will guide you.

 

[RF Lighting]

If the cutout is in an external meter box then it tends to be a newer incoming cable which as Lectrician says is dead easy to move* (as opposed to the old lead / steel / tar cables).
We had our gas meter moved about ten feet when our extention was built. This was all arranged by the builder, who never thought to tell us that the gas board do not reconnect to the customers side of the meter. They also never thought to organise a gas fitter. A fun night with no boiler or cooker followed

*for the DNO anyway, and providing there is a bit of slack.

 

[JohnD]

A thing to avoid... suppose your electricity supply approaches your house from the Northern side. you want to move it further north. You pull the meter box northward, without any cuttring and rejointing, and so there is a loop of cable that goes, from the meter box, South towards the old position, then it is curved back on itself and runs north again.

Later, somone observes that the cables come from the North of the property; sees that they come up at the meter box, assumes (not unreasonably) that the cables run between those two points, starts excavating south of the meter box, cuts through the cable.

(picked this up from a safety bulletin at work, supply went underground from a pole transformer, popped up at the adjacent house, but left the pole going in a different direction to that where the meter box had been moved to).

 

[plugwash]

this is why you are supposed to keep plans of such things......

 

[JohnD]

And an "as-dug" record which is different to the plan

 

[Lectrician]

But seriously - you are making a big deal. It is moving forward by 4 inch. The single leaf wall is becoming a cavity wall.