Recently bought a shop with a flat above....
2 meters in the cupboard, the supply is split by means of two black junction boxes between the shop and the flat.I had assumed that there was a meter each but upon closer inspection the tails from one meter enter the other meter and then the feed is split from the tails coming from the second meter.
I've also noted the reading and as i use electricity they are both counting up by the same amount.
That can't be right, can it?
Do you get two bills, both for the same amount?
Bill
Post a photo
Sounds like somebody is trying to bill the other body, so to speak, and then they put it back wrong. Brian
(the rogue cable to the right of the fuse/switch to the flat fell out of one of the black junction boxes)
*left*, not right!
A check meter would be wired in series but it looks more like someone has just wired it up "wrong".
You also have two meters when you have solar panels but they aren't wired up like that. Its inverter into isolator into meter into CU MCB.
My guess is that they were separate, and the base of an old sangamo time clock would suggest one of them might have been a night rate for storage heaters. The connecting in series may have simply been a prudent way to revert back to a standard supply.
The service connection blocks look like they're floating in mid-air. The neutral which has pulled out is extremely dangerous.
Would it not make better sense to just omit one of them?
I wondered if that was normal, there's hardly any scope for improving their position as there is only about 6 inch of cable for connecting what was the fusebox (now the CU).
That fell out earlier today, was manipulating the cables out of the way of the CU to get a breaker in, surprised by how easy it came detached. It will be sorted soon.
I've occasionally come across meters where meter A measures all the consumption, then meter B measures part of the consumption, so "flat A"'s consumption is meter A minus meter B, but I can't think of any use for two inline meters.
As mentioned, photo wopuld be useful.
jgh
Seen photo. Yes, that definitely looks odd, particularly those floating connectors. What I'd do is feed the tails into a proper belko-type fixed connector and feed new tails to the two CUs ... but there's no isolator, so I'd (ahem) arrange for the supply fuse to be removed (ahem) and feed the tail into a two-pole isolator and use that as a fixed connection point to feed on to the two CUs.
===METER===METER===(insert 2P SW here)=====CU1 \====CU2
jgh
Assuming both the meters are the suppliers It looks to me that someone has been buggering about. Tr wires from the cutout (where the incoming cable comes to) should go to the two black link boxes. The two meters should both be connected to the link boxes.
OR
Both meters should be wired to the cutout directly. The two left hand terminals on the meter are incoming, the two right hand termilals are outgoing. In which case the link boxes are to do with the wiring system.
So, meter terminals, left to right:- Incoming live, incoming neutral, outgoing neutral, outgoing live. The neutrals are actually solidly linked together inside the meter.
It's slightly possible that a "check" meter has been fitted, ie someone suspected the accuracy of their meter and another was fitted in series to see if it was reading OK.
There may have beens some sort of off peak electricity system/heating in the past I see there is a times switch. This is normally all done with a single special electric meter these days.
It needs sorting out by a competent person, all looks a bit dodgy.
Check your Bill, it should state the serial no of the meter you are being billed from. The downstream meter has no seal, which "could" mean it is not official? If you don't want the second meter you could replace it with a henley block and save any confusion with meter readers in the future.
Yes, but if you have no service connection blocks or spare tails, maybe you just use what's there. Also, if you don't know which is going to be the meter afterwards, sticking both in the circuit means you don;t have to bother finding out.
Unless your supplier assumes that each meter feeds only one CU - and is reading both and billing you *twice* for the total units used!
It cannot. Fiddling with meter wiring by anyone except an agent of the ele ctricity supply system is dangerous and should be both illegal and against the terms of supply. I have had no professional connection with consumer electricity supply, so I cannot quote chapter and verse : ISTR no more than something about the 15th Edition of the Regulations having been superseded (and that may be some other Regulations entirely).
You must report this to your electricity supplier at the earliest possible moment; and, I imagine, if they suspect that you have been doing anything m ore with what they consider to be their stuff than looking at it, they will be seriously displeased. "Tampering with the Evidence" might also be alle ged, since it seems that a predecessor in the property may have been distin ctly naughty.
However, you do need to be aware that, except in the earliest days, electri city metering has been of power and not of current. With two meters, the v oltage connections should be *effectively* more-or-less in parallel, the sa me company-side current connection goes, not necessarily directly, to both meters, and the shop and flat supplies should come entirely independently, one from each meter. But that does not necessarily mean that it must *look
I do not know whether the power dissipated in the meter is itself metered, so I do not know whether the voltage connection (within?) the meter is to t he company side or the consumer side.
See Belloc, H. : , even if a heptagrammaton therein does not apply to you.
It's now the 17th Edition - also known as BS7671:2008. But, there;s nothing about metering there,
17th. See and its links.
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