Err, yes, that's what I meant when I said a local t/s (timeswitch). These had a 7 day spring reserve, so they were OK for normal supply interruptions. 1987 was a bit of problem after the great hurricane!
Unless things have changed in the last few years, not as much as you might be tempted to think.
Don't even think about it! I could certainly add one or two far more ingenious means, but then, I spent a little bit of my working life looking for it, and it is a criminal offence!
It has always perplexed me that there appears to be nothing preventing the removal of my gas meter and insertion of appropriate pipe in its place. There are no seals anywhere on my meter or the bracket that it is attached to.
Richard
I wonder if anyone knows, as far as I can see it would be very hard to make even an educated guess.
I have heard of people stripping some of the armour off the incoming steel wire armoured cabled in a common stair and driving screws into phase and neutral conductors and drawing power off that...
The bind boggles at what would cause someone to do something so dangerous.
When I moved in to my current home I asked the electricity supplier to remove the assortment of meters, contactors and timeswitches which supplied a disused consumer unit previously used for storage heaters. The new meter was of course carefully sealed up with lead seals but the hefty terminal blocks where the incoming tails split to feed the off-peak meter were left completely unsealed. If I was less honest than I am there would be nothing to stop me drawing electricity off at this point, bypassing the meter but leaving the seals intact...
Depending on how long he had that arrangement installed, there are / were preserved tariffs that new applicants are not able to get.
One guy was found using a film negative (thin / flexible) to jam the disc, only one day they managed to tear the film leaving some inside the meter.
Prints were made from the negative and used against `em...
Someone in the gas industry told me that the gas company installed meters in 5 tower blocks each consisting of 174 Flats and found that about 12% of the gas was stolen.
All they did was to put up posters in the entrance halls warning people about the safety and criminal aspects of stealing gas, which made no difference whatsoever to the amount being stolen.
The normal meter reader apparently found bypassed meters periodically with varying degrees of competence including one which had been bypassed using a piece of plastic/rubber hose with Jubillee clips and gaffer tape for the seal.
John.
John.
Which must be why you seem to think that anyone who mentions the subject wants to do it.
Thanks for letting us all know, I am sure that no one on this newsgroup knew that.
John.
Glad you said had, if ours did it no longer works... It currently thinks it is 1400 not 0030. It has been reset once but any power outage soon makes it wrong.
Only for a *tiny* part of the country. I was in Bristol, it was windy but nothing special. I doubt anywhere much north of Oxford noticed anything.
On Mon, 1 Mar 2004 22:26:39 -0000, in uk.d-i-y Colin Wilson strung together this:
Quite right. I've just rewired a friends house in Sheffield and their off peak is an absolute bargain but the YEB say they can't get that tarriff now. If they stay as they are they can keep it but if they want the meter or any related equipment changing they'll have to stick it on the more expensive tarriff. ..
SJW A.C.S. Ltd.
Not sure if it's still done, but it's quite easy. Energy is measured at bulk supply points (i.e.where the local leccy companies get it from the national grid). Deduct all the units billed, factor in an allowance for unmetered supplies, like street lights, and system losses, and you have an indication of unbilled units.
In my early days at RB Kingston one tenant blew the back of his house out (and so of course got given a nice new one!). The immersion heater stat failed shut so his DHW would get too hot unless he remembered to turn it off - but evidently he didn't always remember. He couldn't get the council in to fix it because the meter had been bridged by a mate. Unfortunately repeated overheating of the water led to the vent pipe furring up, and on the feed there was a screwdown stopcock which acted as a non return valve. One night when he had forgotten to turn off the IH the vent pipe finally furred solid. The cylinder, full of superheated water under pressure, finally burst filling the house with steam. It blew the back of the house out just as if a bomb had gone off.
Doesn't surprise me at all. Why is the electricity supply protected with so many indicators of tampering? It can't be because it is less dangerous, maybe it is because electricity is perceived as less dangerous thus tempting the lightfingered into abstraction?
Re danger; the wall of the engineering shop at my college was blown out along with a 3ph distribution board. The explosion was *allegedly* caused by a wandering rodent.
Rgds Richard
In article , Dave Liquorice writes
Ah, but it affected Lunnun therefore BIG NEWS.
J.
In article , Richard Savage writes
Ah, but if you're not CORGI registered you're not allowed to do it.
J.
In article , Wanderer writes
I can remember in a certain place I lived they knew from the substation which two streets were consuming twice as much as they were paying for.
J.
I don`t think they can force a tariff change just because they want to - if any equipment needs replacing (including the cutout / meter) the tariff stays as-is AFAIK. At the end of the day, tariffs are usually* just different figures applied to the same meter reading(s).
On Tue, 2 Mar 2004 20:52:41 -0000, in uk.d-i-y Colin Wilson strung together this:
That's what I thought. They're on a 60A supply and I wanted them to get a new 100A cutout and new meter fitted, they have been in for sometime. The 'not without a tarriff change' quote was apparently mentioned quite a few times. ..
SJW A.C.S. Ltd.
Yup, remember that you're dealing with half-educated chimps in most of the call centres. They won't have a clue about tariff legislation, they're programmed to come out with a standard set of responses that favour the leccy company whatever the question, on the basis that the customner equally won't have a clue whether what they're being told is true.
On Tue, 2 Mar 2004 21:39:32 +0000, in uk.d-i-y Wanderer strung together this:
Quite true, I should have pointed out though that I thought this may be the case but with it not being my supply I couldn't be arsed to get involved. ..
SJW A.C.S. Ltd.
You could always ask them what would happen in the event of a fault with the meter (its not unknown) - would they want to force a tariff change to fix their faulty equipment ? - I think not...
If they give you gyp,
In fact, you could always start by asking them what their thoughts are on the matter, and when the call centre chimps start their "tariff change" mantra, give `em the bad news courtesy of energywatch :-p
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