Electric Meter Questions!

[jon11a]

Hi everyone, new to the forum and after a little advice please about the electricity setup in my building.

We bought a property a few years ago that had been used as offices.  It's rather an old building and we have three floors above a bank.  We now use the space as one residential space (our home!).

All the electricity meters are located on the ground floor in the bank.

I have two electricity meters per floor - a single phase meter and a 3 phase meter.  Each pair of meters are a separate account with the supplier meaning we have 3 accounts.

The three "3 phase meters" were previously used for Night Storage Heaters which are no longer in the building and those meters are not connected to anything anymore.  The supplier has told me it is too difficult to remove these meters and so they are left dormant on each account so I am not billed a standing charge for them.

The single phase meter for each floor provides my regular electricity supply.  Unfortunately it means I have to have a separate electricity account for each meter which means three lots of standing charges and a bit of an admin nightmare.

I did try and get my electricity moved into just one of these meters but was told that there is a chance that we could use too much electricity for the single rate meter to handle.

I tried to post a quick sketch of the layout to make things clearer but I can't post links or pictures yet!

I have a couple of questions!

1.  Am I right in thinking I could get all my floors connected to one of the unused 3 phase meters - the 3 phase meter being able to handle a higher amount of electricity?  We currently do not have gas in the property and during the winter our electricity use is high.

2.  If we wished to, could we relocate our meter to the first floor of the building?  We currently have to visit the bank each time we want to take a meter reading which can be a pain.  It would be moved directly above it's current location.  The wires already go up that way to the consumer units on the floors above.  I would have loved to have got a smart meter which would mean I wouldn't have to take meter readings physically but they don't seem to be being rolled out in my area at the moment.

3.  Having previously agreed to remove the unused meters, my supplier said it was too tricky and so just set these as being dormant on our accounts.  However, when I tried to switch supplier, the new supplier just reactivated them which would have meant I would be paying a standing charge for each meter.  I cancelled the switch but feel like I am forced to stay with my current provider now.  Any advice on this?

Sorry for the huge post, I have spent many, many hours with my supplier trying to sort things out but 4 years on I still don't feel like I'm getting anywhere!

Thanks in advance for any help or guidance you guys can give me.

Jon.

 

[SPECIAL LOCATION]

Without knowing exactly what your real power consumption is, its hard to say if  one meter can supply your load....

the governing factor may be the physical size of the incoming cables to the meter from the supply network...

In principal it is not beyond the realms of feasibility that one single phase meter should supply a three floor property....

as loads of traditional properties with lofts and/or cellars have this arrangement working quite happily...

BUT as you say these were offices...  they many be much larger than the average domestic property..

circuit cable lengths also come into safety calculations.

At the end of the day if someone is prepare to pay enough money then supplies and meters can be installed almost anywhere....

I am assuming your single phase meter is just a phase off a three phase supply..

NOT a separate single phase supply as well as a three phase.?

opcorn

 

[M107]

Moving one of the 3 phase supplies into your property. Then submain one phase to each floors consumer unit sounds a sensible move to me.

 

[ProDave]

Ignore the 3 phase meters as they are "dormant"

You objective is to get all onto one account.

So you need an electrician to move all the loads from one of them onto the other, leaving one feeding nothing.  Your electrician will be able to determine which one is the least amount of work to move.

Unless you have several electric showers or some other unusual loads, then one meter should be able to supply one normal domestic dwelling.

Once the electrician has moved the loads to just one meter, that will leave you what to do with the spare one.

You could ask to get it removed, though I had a customer who converted two cottages into one was quoted £1000 to remove one of the supplies.

Assuming you find the same nonsense, then you just need to make the spare one "dormant"  One easy way to do that would be to switch the electricity account for that one to Ebico who have no standing charge (but a higher price per KWh)  Then if you are using no electricity, you will get a quarterly bill for £0.

 

[apprentice87]

Soooooo, basically then, all the redundant meters are located in a building, [the bank bit] that does not even belong to you? How big is each floor?? Are we talking something silly, or are we just on about the equivalent of a "normal" 3 bedroom house say.....

john..

 

[Evans Electric]

All the above posts make good sense Jon11   and as said anything can be achieved .  I would be refusing to pay standing charges on meters doing sod all  to be honest.   As said above , can you give us some idea of what is now "Your home" 

Is it basically the same as a regular family house ? 

You mention electric heating in the winter ...what form does this take ?

If you are all electric you'd want an E7 type tariff  for a start I think .

Would you have say :

15 lights

1 cooker

1 shower

The usual family stuff that plugs in . (The number of sockets doesn't really matter if theres say just four of you)

I think the heating is the deciding factor here.

But Supply Networks are often rubbish at this type of job ,they don't seem to want to get involved these days, but if you get a contractor in he should sort it for you,  get shut of those meters you don't want , get a submain up to your floor ...its not rocket science.  

If they don't play ball , go through Offwatt or Offvolt-- Offlec or whatever they're called .   Keep pushing 'em .  

 

[apprentice87]

Just thought, phone whoever is charging you for these things you do not want, and tell them that under the terms of the "unsolicited goods and services act" you do not want these things, and could they kindly remove them, or you will charge THEM storage until such times as they are removed... You cannot be charged anyway, for something you do not agree to buy, hire, etc.. contract law sees to this..

This should concentrate their brains....

You sure you chasing the right people though?? I would have thought it is the DNO not the supplier..

john..

 

[jon11a]

Thanks for the replies so far!

Firstly to John, yes, the redundant meters are located in the bank bit of the building which doesn't belong to us.  They are still connected to the grid but not into our property.  We had engineers come out to try and remove them - the supplier agreed to do this for free - but they told us it looked too difficult!  These 3 phase meters remain on our accounts apparently, the meter numbers still appear on our bills but they don't attract a charge.  I'm pretty mad about this really as they agreed to remove them and we can't switch supplier without having to go through the whole situation again.

The property is quite large, much bigger than a 3 bed house.  We don't have a gas connection at the moment so rely on expensive electric heaters during the winter, even then limiting them to a couple rooms (there's around 18 rooms in the building in total).  The maximum load we have ever got to is about 20 KWh.  Thats with shower, a couple of under sink water heater thermostat on, electric heaters etc...  

I did get an electrician to connect our three floors into just one of the single phase meters but we lasted a weekend like that as I was too worried we would consume too much electric for a single phase during the winter.  If that happened and we needed to access the meter to fix, we can only do that when the bank is open.  So I decided to keep it split over the three single phase meters.  I wondered whether the 3 phase would be able to handle a higher load better.  The electrician explained that businesses generally used 3 phase meters but I'm not sure if this would work for us - seeing as there are there already.

Prodave - you are right about the cost of removing the redundant or dormant meters - as I mentioned, our supplier said we could get them done for free and even sent engineers out on a couple of occasions but they did not do it.  Good to know about the other supplier though.  I will keep them in mind.

Special Location - I am pretty sure that each single phase meter is it's own independent supply.  We have had power cuts that have affected neighbours and we lose electricity on only one supply, i.e. the middle floor goes out.

Eventually, we are wanting to get Gas into the property so wouldn't be relying on the electricity to heat.  That way we may be able to get down to one single phase meter for the whole building.

If we leave it as is for the time being, we do pay a bit of a premium for having three meters, we pay three lots of standing charges, at around £90 per meter per year, it's an extra £190 extra a year.

The property is a bit on the large size as I've said.  Many, many years ago it used to be a hotel and then offices more recently when the bank arrived on the ground floor.  It was empty for a few years when we decided to buy it.  Cost us not much more than a normal sized family home - just a fair bit of work to make it into a home.

Trying to heat the place with electric alone is pretty stupid, our electricity bills are pretty huge.

 

[ProDave]

This is a barmy situation.

I can't believe the bank is too impressed with having to give access to their premesis for meter reading etc.

What you really want is your own supply in your own building. Have you tried enquiring about a "new" supply to your part?

It must be possible to move one of the 3 phase meters to your building. but there will be a cost attached. Is the issue you have enquired before but didn't like the cost they quoted?

The one I referred to where two houses were joined to make one, the DNO would not remove one supply for free, they wanted £1000 because it would have involved digging up the road, so in that case the "spare" supply is still there, with nothing connected to it, on a zero standing charge contract with Ebico.  I guess at some point in the future someone might realise it's silly keep sending a meter reader round and sending out bills for £0 and disconnect it, but my customer was adamant he was not paying £1000 for a disconnection so that's the arrangement.

The whole lot is a mess now. I'm just getting a new supply in on a building plot, and now have the supply but have a 6 week wait to get the meter installed.

 

[jon11a]

I do feel like going to Offwatt about the redundant/dormant meters at least.  If they were removed, I'd be free to switch supplier without the hassle of them being re-activated.

But keeping the three separate meters is a waste of money year on year with the extra standing charge.  I should try and get it sorted.

Moving the meters into our property may not be necessary if they change them for a smart meter, then we wouldn't need to access them to take meter readings.

Prodave - yes, it is a balmy situation.  The hours I have spent on the phone in the last few years trying to get things sorted has been soul destroying.  When we moved in, each floor was with a different energy supplier too!  Took a long time to get them all onto one supplier.  But even that has it's challenges.  One address cannot have more than one supply, so each of our accounts has a slightly different address so they can keep their systems in order.

The bank is luckily pretty good for us.  The meters are located in a cupboard in the customer lobby so I can usually get access when I go ask.  It's not ideal though.  As our bills are so big, I try and take a reading each month to keep on top of it all.

 

[jon11a]

One last thing to add is that we get letters constantly telling us our meters need to be changed as they are old.  But then once the engineers come out, they tell us they can't do it.  I would hope that they are reading the usage properly - as I said, our bills are pretty huge and there are only two of us here at the moment.

 

[apprentice87]

Hi Again,

Who did you buy the Building from?? Was it the bank?? Anyway, these meters are not even on your property, just tell the supplier this, and that they are nothing to do with you and you are not paying for them and that is that. No way have you got to pay for things you do not want, criminal offence to try to make you...

You say that you got up to 20Kw, you would in most houses, but as everything is not being used at once, [it is called "diversity"] an ordinary single phase supply would PROBABLY be fine i would think. Do not worry about "breaking the meter" that would be next to impossible. If you DO use 20 Kw all at once, then yes, you may well want a three phase supply although it depends on the capacity of the single phase supply you have now..

john

Final question.. Who are the DNO, not the people you buy the leccy from, the DNO that own the cable to the property, for example, where i am it is western power.

john

 

[jon11a]

The DNO would be Electricity North West for me.  It may be worth me giving them a try.

The bank just leases the space from the property firm we bought our bit from.  Property firm washed their hands of it really.  I can see why!

It's good to know about the single phase meter being okay up to 20 KWh, I think we worked out any more that 23 KWh at the same time and we would break the meter fuse - electrician explained that we'd have to get the DNO involved to fix that which given the limited access to the meter, could be a problem.

Thanks so much to everyone who has commented on this.  It's been really helpful to have advice from people who know what they are talking about.  When I speak to the supplier, it's always difficult to explain the situation to the call centre staff.

 

[Evans Electric]

Jon11  In my area ( West Mids)   the modus operandii for this work is to go to your "energy supplier"  first .     Most of these people are fairly useless as they are just "shopkeepers" really , most do not employ any engineers as such and often don't know what you're talking about .  

So it could be anyone from  Npower ...British Gas..... the Co-op ...Scottish Power etc .  They should then follow up by getting their Metering contractor involved ..who then may or may not need to involve the DNO .

So in my area...in my house... it would be first call to NPower  ..they would use Metering Services  who may or may not involve Western Power as the DNO.

Sounds like a large living  area  ..I'd go for one of the 3ph meters which would cover everything ..including space heating . 

I'd say those guys who have beento site and "can't disconnect the meters"  ...just couldn't be bothered TBH . 

I did a Vet's surgery with a load of meters doing nothing ,  meter people didn't want to know for some reason and told the Vet to get a contractor in . So we took them all out ...no problem ..rehashed all the tails etc . Put the meters on the shelf , Vet phoned them to say he was no longer paying the charges.  

One last thing to add is that we get letters constantly telling us our meters need to be changed as they are old.  But then once the engineers come out, they tell us they can't do it.  I would hope that they are reading the usage properly - as I said, our bills are pretty huge and there are only two of us here at the moment.

The meter fitters I've come across have been trained to only fit a single phase Smart meter so the 3ph meters probably scare them off !!!

Siemens are doing some of the upgrades and issue their  guys with a Voltstick to check for dead :C   the fitter had half a dozen of 'em as some had packed up .  Bloke had as much electrical know-how as a monkey.    

 

[ProDave]

Following on from the above post.

The problem we all face, is none of us can report a problem directly to the DNO. We have to report the problem to the energy supplier, who should then pass it on to the DNO if it is a network problem.

I find "best results" are where your energy supplier is the same as your DNO. So for instance up here the DNO is Scottish & southern Power distribution, so for best results choose Scottish & Southern as your energy supplier, who trade up here as Scottish Hydro Electric, known as "The Hydro"

By far the worst energy provider I have encountered from the point of view of customer service in the event of work needed to their supply and metering has been N Power.

Also as above, some of the linesmen that come out are also next to useless.  I had an issue when a temporary 3 phase generator (while a power line was down) had been wired wrong.  I called them out and waited for the linesmen to turn up, where upon he got his volt stick out and said "what's the problem mate, all 3 phases working" where upon I got my volt meter out and showed him that one phase was 415V as they had wired the generator star point wrongly.

 

[apprentice87]

Hi Jon11,

Hope you did not misunderstand and think that i meant that it would be ok to connect a 20Kva load to a single phase supply, that would almost certainly blow the board fuse. There is a big difference between total connected load, [everything added up] and what ACTUALLY will be switched on all at the same time. If you need a figure for "all at the same time" you would be looking at more like 12 or so Kva...

john

 

[ProDave]

If it's a 100A fuse, then a 23KVA load should be okay.  But granted if you run that load too long, it will show any "weakness" in the network.

We frequently have two 8.5KW showers running, but I am careful of what else we turn on if I know both showers are in use.

 

[jon11a]

Hi Jon11,

Hope you did not misunderstand and think that i meant that it would be ok to connect a 20Kva load to a single phase supply, that would almost certainly blow the board fuse. There is a big difference between total connected load, [everything added up] and what ACTUALLY will be switched on all at the same time. If you need a figure for "all at the same time" you would be looking at more like 12 or so Kva...

john

No, that sounds about right.  At it's peak we probably had the following switched on:

9.5KW Shower

3KW Heater Living Room

2KW Heater Bedroom 1

2KW Heater Bedroom 2

3KW Undersink Water Heater Bathroom

2KW Oven

If someone turned the iron and kettle on I would have been worried...

I may see if I can get some advice from the local DNO, Electricity North West.

 

[kme]

Jon.

You might have had all of those turned on at the same time - but each one is controlled internally by a thermostat - so switches itself on or off as necessary ( except the shower )

so the [liklihood of ALL of those drawing power, at the same time, is quite low.

Be aware that, if you DO choose the three phase option, you`re generally charged at a non-domestic tariff; which can be substantially higher.

As regards DNOs; I`d say Western Power are one of the better ones - I can`t say much about the others, except UKPN; who`ve got a really odd way of operating.

Their network is classed as "robust" - meaning that, in the event of a fault on an HV line, causing an automatic relay to open, another line closes to reconnect power. They find faults by "blowing them clear" - which is why there have been the recent events of "launching" manhole covers..................

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2682154/Summers-new-risk-Pedestrians-warned-beware-exploding-manhole-covers-thought-caused-record-rainfall-winter.html

 

[jon11a]

Thanks KME.  I have an OWL energy monitor which and I set an alarm for when it reached a certain load (20 kWH).  When it started beeping, I had to go switch things off!

When we went back to using the three separate single phase meters, I was able to buy two more clips and use the energy monitor attached to my three single phase meters (as if it were attached to just one "three phase" meter).  That way I can keep an eye on my usage although I know the load is spread out over the three meters and we shouldn't blow any of them.

Going to do some digging and see what I can get from the supplier once more, as well as the DNO.  Then maybe see what Offwatt has to say,

Thanks all who took the time to send me a reply on this.  It's good to know I'm on the right lines with what I was thinking.  Cheers!