Excessive bills - what is draining the power? 22kw standing??!

BigBoy · 5 Dec 2018 at 13:20

jpaul said:
so dare we ask - was this upgrade gratis ?

All metering activities are gratis you will never be charged for a meter change of any type. The meter belongs to your supplier and is powered before any energy enters your chargeable supply. So completely free.

Is anyone providing an app to accompany these so you can download to a mobile/computer ? and then, make some useful conclusion about what the different devices are actually consuming, based on time of day you see 'spikes' ... If an energy supplier was doing that then sign me up.

Their rasberry-pi solution, counting meter led pulses, seems expensive £150, I'm much ready for a diy arduino+sensor solution ~£20

You should be able to download your usage from your suppliers webpages,, as for apps I've no idea, it's been spoken about by many suppliers but until the DCC are fully functioning there is limited access routes to data even if it's your data.

something daft already!! · 5 Dec 2018 at 13:23

Toucans have excessive bills but manage to cope.

Vanilla · 5 Dec 2018 at 14:18

It was a free upgrade to get the monitor.

I'm with British Gas

pp111 · 5 Dec 2018 at 15:22

Just in passing saw this thread. I didn't read it all so I am not sure where you are up to but yes that is way too high for an empty house. A fridge and freezer could only use that power if they are both well and truly broken and on all the time! I mean you should be generating electricity with the solar panels and you are away, not consuming it. The only other possibility is that someone left the emersion heater on 24/7 or you have electric underfloor heating in a tiled room and it's on a daily timer ~ and you don't realise it's on. I mean other than that there really isn't anything else you wouyld have missed in your search for "on" stuff!

chrcoluk · 5 Dec 2018 at 15:27

There has been stories of people having high usage, they move house and suddenly it drops.

This to me suggests sometimes meters or wiring can be faulty, especially in flats, where there can be tapping and other stuff going on.

I had over £1000 written off on my gas when a meter swap reduced the readings by 60%
I also had £600 elec written off when I turned everything off including dip switches and the meter kept going up, this never got fixed however and I now get a permanent discount.

BigBoy · 5 Dec 2018 at 16:47

chrcoluk said:
There has been stories of people having high usage, they move house and suddenly it drops.

Stories are nothing but just that, 99% of people have no clue what their usage is, so as soon as they see a reading telling them it's £xxx amount they start shouting the smart meter is wrong and it was fine before the meter was changed!!!!

chrcoluk said:
I also had £600 elec written off when I turned everything off including dip switches and the meter kept going up, this never got fixed however and I now get a permanent discount.

Lol what?
No supplier worth their salt would ever leave a possibly faulty meter in place. Not without first putting a check meter in to verify readings.

If you are showing usage when your CCU is turned off then there is either something wrong with the meter or somepart of your install is wired incorrectly (crossed polatiry in most cases as CCU won't turn that off)

LuckyBenski · 5 Dec 2018 at 17:13

BigBoy said:
If you are showing usage when your CCU is turned off then there is either something wrong with the meter or somepart of your install is wired incorrectly (crossed polatiry in most cases as CCU won't turn that off)

Or the supply is being "borrowed" by a resourceful neighbour. I used to work out of a garage in a yard which had a mains feed sticking out of a wooden cabinet. No meter in sight...

BigBoy · 5 Dec 2018 at 18:01

LuckyBenski said:
Or the supply is being "borrowed" by a resourceful neighbour. I used to work out of a garage in a yard which had a mains feed sticking out of a wooden cabinet. No meter in sight...

In 18months of consumer metering I have only seen this once, it's far less common than you would believe.

LuckyBenski · 5 Dec 2018 at 18:23

BigBoy said:
In 18months of consumer metering I have only seen this once, it's far less common than you would believe.

Absolutely, rare but it happens. Probably less common in housing TBF, especially new builds.

chrcoluk · 6 Dec 2018 at 02:04

BigBoy said:
Stories are nothing but just that, 99% of people have no clue what their usage is, so as soon as they see a reading telling them it's £xxx amount they start shouting the smart meter is wrong and it was fine before the meter was changed!!!!

Lol what?
No supplier worth their salt would ever leave a possibly faulty meter in place. Not without first putting a check meter in to verify readings.

If you are showing usage when your CCU is turned off then there is either something wrong with the meter or somepart of your install is wired incorrectly (crossed polatiry in most cases as CCU won't turn that off)

Complex situation.

Rented house

A meter swap entails a smart meter which I refuse, landlord also doesnt want smart meter. In addition they wanted me to pay for the meter swap if it was proven to not be faulty, I refused. The discount is equal to the usage racked up when everything is off, however the electric company is not eating it up, its simply been billed to my landlord as they believe the meter to not be faulty hence the swap not been enforced but instead they believe some wiring from another flat is going to the meter, landord wont pay for electrician, so he is paying for the usage. The unexplained usage is not insignificant so I am not paying it, its 4 units a day.

Also when I mentioned people moving home and seeing reduced usage I am talking about sensible people who look at units used not just size of a bill.

So basically a new bill is now generated for the address to the landlord, it has 4 units fixed per day usage, and my bill discounts the equivalent of 4 units a day. My usage on average including the mystery usage is about 9 units a day so its almost half my bill.

NickK · 6 Dec 2018 at 06:50

Rented house... all changes and modifications are the landlord's responsibility. If there's a utilities bill you pay, then you will be on the letter head (thus liable).

From memory there's nothing to cover a landlord being liable for meter by the owner of the meter (a role in the industry) and the consumed gas/electric/water through it.

jpaul · 6 Dec 2018 at 07:44

looks like the BG meter should tell you hourly use . so we will soon know if the housekeeper did it (in the pantry with the electric heater)

[EDF meter right seems to show consumption at a minutes resoluton - want one

]

[

chrcoluk said:
A meter swap entails a smart meter which I refuse, landlord also doesnt want smart meter.

if a smart meter would enable you to knoiw when culprit is stealing energy .. would be useful .
but ladnlord must have know issue for long time .. eg. when property was empty ]

BigBoy · 6 Dec 2018 at 10:00

EDF dont use that ihd any more there are currently 3 smets1 ihd's and one smets2.

BigBoy · 6 Dec 2018 at 10:26

chrcoluk said:
Complex situation.

Rented house

A meter swap entails a smart meter which I refuse, landlord also doesnt want smart meter. In addition they wanted me to pay for the meter swap if it was proven to not be faulty, I refused. The discount is equal to the usage racked up when everything is off, however the electric company is not eating it up, its simply been billed to my landlord as they believe the meter to not be faulty hence the swap not been enforced but instead they believe some wiring from another flat is going to the meter, landord wont pay for electrician, so he is paying for the usage. The unexplained usage is not insignificant so I am not paying it, its 4 units a day.

Also when I mentioned people moving home and seeing reduced usage I am talking about sensible people who look at units used not just size of a bill.

So basically a new bill is now generated for the address to the landlord, it has 4 units fixed per day usage, and my bill discounts the equivalent of 4 units a day. My usage on average including the mystery usage is about 9 units a day so its almost half my bill.

Glad I'm not with your supplier! Even if it's known usage ther is no reason for them to accept partial payment from you and some from the landlord, that mental! But if the equipment is working correctly and you are refusing a smart meter there is not much more they can do. (Although they can force you to have a new meter as it will come under the recertification program soon enough).

Jez · 6 Dec 2018 at 12:36

BigBoy said:
Glad I'm not with your supplier! Even if it's known usage ther is no reason for them to accept partial payment from you and some from the landlord, that mental! But if the equipment is working correctly and you are refusing a smart meter there is not much more they can do. (Although they can force you to have a new meter as it will come under the recertification program soon enough).

You seem to know your metering stuff so i thought that i would ask, i have what looks to me like a very old meter, it looks exactly like this including "propery of southern electricity board" https://www.flameport.com/electric_museum/old_meters_and_cutouts/sangamo_meter.jpg

Would i be entitled to have it replaced with a new but non smart meter? I am not very interested in the smart functions.

Thanks

BigBoy · 6 Dec 2018 at 12:50

Jez said:
You seem to know your metering stuff so i thought that i would ask, i have what looks to me like a very old meter, it looks exactly like this including "propery of southern electricity board" https://www.flameport.com/electric_museum/old_meters_and_cutouts/sangamo_meter.jpg

Would i be entitled to have it replaced with a new but non smart meter? I am not very interested in the smart functions.

Thanks

Is that your meter in the picture? Your meter should have a sticker on it saying "Cert date" so date it was certificated, if the year (most likely 91/92 ish) is more than 25 years ago then you should be under the re-certification program your supplier is running. Although your Supplier says you have to have a smart meter this is not currently the case, you can request a non smart meter! This is only available until December 2020 as new rules will be in place from then.

What part of smart functions do you not want? other than it reading your meter and giving you info it can do nothing to your supply!

Jez · 6 Dec 2018 at 12:59

BigBoy said:
Is that your meter in the picture? Your meter should have a sticker on it saying "Cert date" so date it was certificated, if the year (most likely 91/92 ish) is more than 25 years ago then you should be under the re-certification program your supplier is running. Although your Supplier says you have to have a smart meter this is not currently the case, you can request a non smart meter! This is only available until December 2020 as new rules will be in place from then.

What part of smart functions do you not want? other than it reading your meter and giving you info it can do nothing to your supply!

Thankyou for the response;

No that is a generic picture from the internet, but the meter type matches exactly, i didnt know what the meter type technically was hence just linking to that generic image

That is good info to know, i will seek out the date when i am next at the house and contact the supplier if it is over the 25 years.

Re smart: it just doesnt interest me at all, it it solves an issue which does not exist. A meter reading takes all of a few seconds every 3-6 months, all usage balances out in the end even if i do not submit each and every bill. It is just a total non issue in my life to the point that i would rather manually submit as an opportunity to sanity check my bills occasionally with absolutely no danger of anything going off track with an automated solution

Really if i reverse the question, why would i want one? It doesnt offer me anything bar the (admittedly very remote) potential of it going wrong.

chrcoluk · 6 Dec 2018 at 19:39

BigBoy said:
Glad I'm not with your supplier! Even if it's known usage ther is no reason for them to accept partial payment from you and some from the landlord, that mental! But if the equipment is working correctly and you are refusing a smart meter there is not much more they can do. (Although they can force you to have a new meter as it will come under the recertification program soon enough).

I dont know if I can do this for too long, I expect at some point the landlord will moan about paying what he is paying, I agree with the electric company that there is either tapping or badly done wiring somewhere so ultimately a electrician needs to gut all the wiring in all 3 flats to correct it, probably expensive hence my landlord wont do it, likelyhood is he wants me to move out and then the new tenant will be none the wiser and pay it all again. Another issue of course is all 3 flats are populated, and its the sort of work thats done when they not occupied.

jpaul · 7 Dec 2018 at 08:14

BigBoy said:
EDF dont use that ihd any more there are currently 3 smets1 ihd's and one smets2.

can one of your clients now demand an smets2 ?

... by the looks of it no one now has ihd's that provide a graph/download with a minutes resolution ... but the TV adverts continue pretending smets+ihd are a panacea solution.

BigBoy · 7 Dec 2018 at 19:27

As of December 1st all installs should be SMETS2, with two exceptions 1, is SMETS2 fails then SMETS1 is to be installed. and 2, 2 rate metering installs as SMETS2 doesn't currently support 2 rate metering.