im getting mugged by a dodgy meter!

[ricicle]

It depends what you call high resistance and low resistance though.

Most people would see high resistance as Mohms, so very little, if any current flow. Certainly not toll worthy.

A low resistance of, say, 10 ohms would allow 24amps to flow. This on a 32amp circuit would typically go un-noticed, and would rack the meter up. Is 10ohms a high resistance? I would say it is low - VERY low

I would not like 6kW of heat in a dodgy joint hidden in my house

 

[electronicsuk]

It depends what you call high resistance and low resistance though.

Most people would see high resistance as Mohms, so very little, if any current flow. Certainly not toll worthy.

A low resistance of, say, 10 ohms would allow 24amps to flow. This on a 32amp circuit would typically go un-noticed, and would rack the meter up. Is 10ohms a high resistance? I would say it is low - VERY low

I would not like 6kW of heat in a dodgy joint hidden in my house

Me neither. I also think this explanation of the excess units holds little water - a fault large enough to draw that much current would soon generate enough heat to either become very apparent, or burn itself out.

 

[flameport]

There can't be a 6kW fault in your house - if there was, it would have burnt down by now.

It's the same as 2 fan heaters being left on 24/7 - things would get very hot very quickly.

Either the meter is actually faulty, or your neighbours are stealing your electricity for the plants in their loft / basement / every other room as well.
Has the house next door got permanently closed curtains and a lot of condensation on the windows?

 

[big-all]

1 kw = around 10p an hour so 32a = around 8kw or £20 a day

 

[ricicle]

1 amp = around 10p an hour

Christ - where do you buy your electric ?

 

[mattysupra]

right i think this http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=225407

is going to be my best bet to start with.

I will also try and get hold of the sparky tommorow to see what results he has and to sort this certificate out.

Agree?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

It's possible, if there is some sort of high resistance L-N or L-E fault

A L-E fault will trip the RCD some several orders of magnitude short of the unexplained load matty is seeing...

 

[big-all]

1 amp = around 10p an hour

Christ - where do you buy your electric ?

well spotted lol

4 amps = just under a kw =10p per kwh so my calcs are slightly out
should be 80p an hour or £20 a day

 

[LiamPope]

He also says the meter appears to behave itself when observed, but then will suddenly have 100 or so units added. So the hypothetical fault is not a continuous 6kW, but rather intermittent and of the order of 10s, even 100s of kW. My money is on the meter

Liam

 

[CortinaV8]

If the meter behaves itself when watched I would be tempted to hire an immigrant on a low wage to sit in your meter cupboard and stare at it, this will probably work out cheaper in the longrun.

 

[Stoday]

My money is on the meter

Not mine! Here's a true story:

In the early 1950's as a 13 year old schoolboy, I acquired a magnetron magnet. So powerful, I had to leaver the keeper from the gap. Tried it around everything, including the meter. Almost stopped the meter's disk from turning.

A month later parents grumbled about the electricity bill but paid it. Three months after that, a huge bill. Complained, so a 'meter man' looked at it & said it was working OK. I persuaded my parents that it was not (having secret inside information ) and we finished up with a check meter. This showed the meter to be running 3X too fast.

Clearly the magnet had partially demagnetised the meter's magnet.

Now fast forward just over a decade and Stoday is a graduate trainee with EMEB. Training took me to the meter testing department where I asked the foreman how many he found working too fast, like twice or more. In my 35 years, said the foreman, only once, about 10 years ago...

 

[Lectrician]

I too agree that it is pretty unlikely to be an internal fault, however, I have seen this. Not huge bills as such, but a fault of this nature.

There was a site with a dodgy earth - effectively none, just the tails from the DNO, no rod, nothing.

A direct short from L to E on the immersion circuit.

The Ze was low, but not low enough to operate any protection. The 16amp fuse held tight, and allowed many amps to pass until this was discovered.

Perhaps not exactly the same scenario.

 

[stuartsjg]

A way to check without spending any money on secondary meters etc would be to switch every single breaker off on your consumer unit for 24 hours which should be ok if the house isn't always in use.

Obviously, it should be the same reading at the start and end of this period.

Next test, Switch on only one ring main and unplug every appliance from the ring. Plug in one 100W light bulb and leave it on for 10 hours. Your meter should have moved by 1kWh only.

If in the 1st test the meter moves then it may not be trimmed properly so is moving its self, or there is a sneaky circuit taking load.
If its not moved then there is no problems there.

In the 2nd test, if the reading is 1kWh then i would think there is no problems. If its more than this, then its probably running fast.
If it has logged, say, 2.5kWh, then we know its running 2.5x faster than it should.

The 100W lightbulb test will be give or take 10%, so your reading will be 1.1 or 0.9kWh because the bulb may not be using exactly 100w.

I agree with other posters tho, the only sure way is to buy a new meter like http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/RDCRED100.html for £25 and get a friendly electrician to fit it.

Take a photo, ideally showing the two meter readings side by side then come back a week later.

You said

They have used 2000 pounds worth of electric ontop of there normal bill

then

bill that is now almost 4000 pounds for a quarter

Your implying £2000 a quarter of normal usage which is huge! I'm all electric heating and use that year for both domestic and heating consumption.

At 15p/unit (npower average rate info i just found), £2000/q is 4430 units per month meaning an average demand of 146kWh per day.

I would estimate this to be in the order of 10-20 times what i'd expect from the laods and usage you indicate. Your then saying that the meter is logging £4000/q, or 8860 units per month, or 292kWh per day. Is as if you have a 12kW electric shower running 24x7!!!

Im assuming you don't have electric heating? (storage, panel, electric boiler etc)

As for sneaky loads, to use that amount of electricity implies a huge sneaky load.

The sort of thing that you sometimes see are a 3kW fan heater in a loft, garage, greenhouse etc there for frost prevention but the thermostat has it running all the time.
If there are 500w or 1000w halogen floodlights on; hundreds of meters of trace heating on pipes, etc etc. are other culprits.
Even with that, i cant see where the "normal bill" of £2000/q is, never mind the £4000/q is coming from!


Stuart