If you rotate the seals and snip them where normally covered then they can be replaced and still look intact, only tugging at then will prove otherwise and when did you last see a meter reader do that.
Steve
I know how they detect "electricty fiddlers".
They add up all the usage (from bills) for all the houses from a particular transformer and compare that to the amount measured at the transformer. Usually no or little discrepancy.
If they discover a major discrepancy they then target all the houses with suspically low meter readings.
I heard about this as a student when we moved into a house with pay meter and asked for it to be changed. The guy changing over said this house had previously been targetted by the supplier (before we moved in) based on the fact that this house used very little electricty and there was a mismatch between bills and substation. He had found 6 inch nails driven into the meter tails and connected via a car jump lead. Nice.....
In my case, the next time a meter reader came by, I told him what had been done, and he put on a new seal and noted the fact in his report.
That's all.
When I moved into this house, I also changed the CU and the tails, but I knew someone who had a couple of spare seals, so no problem.
A while later, the meter reader noticed a mismatch between the CU and the supply fuse (old fusebox required 60A, new CU was okay with 100A) and he arranged for the supply fuse to be uprated - very nice of them.
The guys that came to change the fuse also had to change the holder and of course the supply was live - one guy donned thick rubber gloved, whacked the old bakelite holder with a hammer, slid the new one over the now bare cable, tightened it up, filled the entries with what looked like an epoxy putty and that was it.
Next time I need to do a CU, I may just go the rubber gloves route!
Steve W
Err, yes, but they ain't marigolds......
Err, no you don't......
Oh no they don't.
Think it'll come down to a simple accounting equation - as soon as the the amount estimated to be lost & is recoverable from theft exceeds the amount that it costs to implement and maintain routine procedures to check and prevent this from occurring, then something will probably happen.
To do otherwise would mean that the company would have to cover this loss by increasing charges to all consumers, and would therefore lose out as it becomes less competitive and customers move to other companies.
If a case of tampering came to the attention of the electricity company, I'd be very surprised if no action was taken because that would quickly become general knowledge, probably making the problem very much more widespread.
-- Richard Sampson
email me at richard at olifant d-ot co do-t uk
I did say *thick rubber*
Steve W
You don't see those 'black boxes' anymore that made the meter spin backwards, do you ?
Humour not on your shopping list then?
Fair enough, slipped past me there, must have been too slippery because of the washing up liquid!
Steve W
This is exactly what I do, and as Steve rightly states - the meter readers never tug at them!
On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 18:03:49 GMT, "Doctor D." strung together this:
I don't, it looks like you know what you're doing is wrong whereas when I hack the seals off and sling 'em it looks like I'm protesting against another stupid rule whereby electrical contractors who are more than capable of fitting tails can't, (but the gas boards let gas engineers play with gas meters?). Anyway, rant over unless someone replies to this and starts me off again.
Go on. Have another go and enjoy yourself.
As the householder owns the white meter cabinet and the tails from the meter then putting a seal stopping them accessing their own property is wrong. The myth about seals is circulated so that people think that they will go to electricity prison if they touch them.
If someone clamped your car on your driveway where would you stand?
Make the electricity company fit an isolation switch or sod them. You only need to worry if you are stealing power.
Adam
Pete Cross wrote
A friend had one of those, it was a standard car battery charger that he'd tinkered with. Sent the meter spinning backwards. He used it one night a week and used electricity as normal the rest of the time, always making sure he used a reasonable number of units per week so as not to arouse suspicion.
Not condoning it, I just found it fascinating that a car battery charger could do this.
On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 19:27:43 GMT, "ARWadsworth" strung together this:
I really can't be arsed to go full steam ahead ranting now, I'm going to go for a lie down instead.
Yep, I'll add that to the 'list of excuses' as well.
Well precisely, the seals are only really there to stop end users stealing leccy, I'm not an end user and don't steal leccy so f' 'em.
On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 20:23:18 GMT, "Ed Rear" strung together this:
Many possibilities, they may not both be fuses. If you can get a photo online somewhere and post the link then I'm sure we'll all be able to tell you what they are.
I intend to replace my ancient (1960's) fuse box with a modern CU shortly. After reading this thread I feel brave enough to do it myself. I've had a look at the main fuse and wiring, and there is what appears to be a large fuse, then directly after it a smaller one. Both are sealed. Anyone explain why there are 2?
Ed
I had a similar discussion with whichever bit of whoever replaced the Gas Board when they came to fix a leak in my front garden. The work involved removing my gas meter so that they could force a plastic pipe into the house to line the old metal pipe. The meter had, and still has, no seals of any type. The bods agreed that there was (is) nothing to stop me bypassing the gas meter!
Richard
clever, but how does this work with tenants? Suppose they fit such a unit so the offender just moves elsewhere. Suppose theyre the dole dwelling type who almost no-one can find as they move so often. And even when you do find them theyve got nothing anyway, having spent it all on drugs. Those kinda folk are hard to extract anything from, short of violence. Even courts order payback rates so pathetic theyre often not worth the expense of prosecution.
How do you deal with those?
Regards, NT
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