Moving meters

[gilly99]

Hi all - first post.
Renovating a house & would like to move both elec & gas meters from understairs cupboard (now about 1.5m from front door) to front outside wall - a distance of approx. 4m. Southern Electric via Ebico supply both services, although elec is pre-payment type & I would also want normal credit type meter installed.

Currently, have floorboards up on ground floor and stairs out so access is very good, with about a 7" crawlspace available.

Am prepared to fit external meter boxes, probably flush fitting with suitable lintel installed, to external wall. Would also ask REC to fit an 100amp isolator, so sparky could connect up later in complete safety.

Questions
1) Can both gas & elec both re-route under front room floor?? - I would not like to dig an external trench if at all possible. If so, what depth & what conduit / protection would be required assuming this is my responsibility as inside the house boundary?

2) Guess elec consumer unit will have to follow to internal wall behind the new meter boxes - needs replacing in any case - but whats the maximum distance allowed from meter?

3) Would requested isolator switch be installed internal near CU or inside new meter box?

4) Lastly, i don´t like the look of either the current gas or elec terminations. No bonding of gas pipe. Poor braiding of elec with exposed earth into their cable, with unclipped meter tails & earth lead. Longshot but hoping to persuade Southern Electric / Ebico that when replacing elec meter that the terminations of both services need making safe in any case & therefore get a large discount - ie to including moving them??

Apologies for the long post, but hopefully my questions are not too daft. Thanks for taking the time - any advice much apprieciated

 

[plugwash]

First of all getting meters moved is expensive, because afaict they require the meter and service cutout to be together and moving service cutouts is a live working job that must be done by the DNO.

You will have to discuss details of the job and prices with the DNO, They will be very fussy about what ducting is to be used and how deep it must be run. Not sure if it can run under buidings or not but it will definately need to be burried.

Main bonding to the water and gas is your problem

A picture of the current intake position will help us comment on it's current state.

Why do you want to move the meters?

 

[gilly99]

OK, thanks for looking. Here are the images

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• gilly99
• 17 Jun 2008
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• gilly99
• 17 Jun 2008
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• gilly99
• 17 Jun 2008
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• gilly99
• 17 Jun 2008
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• gilly99
• 17 Jun 2008
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First photo shows main steel gas feed - its fairly loose and looks to run under the floor boards (not buried, at least not until front door). Meter is against wall, main feed about 2ft out. No bond at all on my side.

About 3ft left & down the wall, the other photos show elec cut-out with REC seals intack and {detail} ropey main bond lead - looks to be two lengths of 6-core steel wire braided together with G/Y pvc tape. Guess at 6mm2 in total. This goes into the CU. Main REC cable just runs under the floorboards!!!!!!!, but must go underground before front door. Meter & CU are directly above cut-out as normal. There is another 30Amp fuse unit just over CU, still got tails back to meter, presumably an old water heater connection.

The water pipe comes up in kitchen to rear of house - about 10m away. Guess what, no bonding lead at all inboard of the stop tap, although there is supplementary bonding of all pipes under the combi boiler on other side of kitchen. I wear boots & use RCDs at every power outlet in use when working, eg for power tools

Ideally want to move everything outside as open-plan staircase going over this area. Taking ur comment, could maybe 'just' get gas meter sunk lower to floor level to provide clearance to underside of stairs & box elec, but both service terminations look a mess to me - I'd budgeted £750 to tidy this lot up. Guessing southern electric own both installations and act as DNO - does this help getting a combined solution?

 

[RF Lighting]

Unfortunatly, I can see nothing wrong with the DNO supply, and if they were to inspect it they would no doubt say the same. You might get a new cutout and earth if you are lucky.

All the problems appear to be on the consumers side of the installation.

The cable is a paper insulated lead cable, and the DNO will not move it.

The would cut it underground outside the property, and connect a new piece of cable to it to supply the new cutout position.

£750 might cover the cover of moving the cutout & meter. It will not pay for sorting the main bonding or the consumer units and associated works.

I have no idea about gas.

 

[kkynaston]

I trust you are not doing your renovations arse about face like most people.
i.e decorate to a high standard then realise the walls need to be bashed for a rewire.

Also, it looks like you currently have no RCD protection so I would use a plug in RCD when using power tools during your renovation. Better safe than sorry

 

[gilly99]

Have got most flooring up and new studded walls installed minus last few sheets of plasterboard to allow for rewire routing. Should be an ideal job for a sparks & his mate. The CUs got some RCDs, but I use plug-in RCDs in anycase.

So, I need to get re-wire to old CU, with enough cable to reach new position, whilst installing the new outside meter boxes & slitting a trench. Then get DNO out to move supplies & coordinate electrian to re-connect to new CU. Or is it easier other way around? Eitherway, looks like my budget is blown.

RFLighting - are you saying it is acceptable to have main elec supply cable running for a least 2m from cut-out directly under the floorboards?? Looks about a 2" gap only from cable to underside of boards.

 

[RF Lighting]

RFLighting - are you saying it is acceptable to have main elec supply cable running for a least 2m from cut-out directly under the floorboards??

Yes.