Smart meters and installers

Algarve Sparky · Oct 9, 2021

Hi all, a recent call out to a frantic home owner that the most everything in the house had blown up !

The cause was quickly found, the recently fitted smart meter had had a terminal failure at the neutral and as the supply was 3 phase and the overheating terminal got worse the neutral was completely lost and of course 3 phase without a neutral in a house full of 240v equipment has only one end game!with near 400 volts on the sockets and lighting circuit there was a hell of a lot of damage, near €17k worth.

The smouldering meter was attended by the local fire crew and an emergency repair ( was a Sunday ) by the power suppliers cont
contractor was not great, but they did return with a new meter the next day and actually did not fight the compensation claim at all, and paid out in under two week !!

The installation of smart meters here seem to be of varied quality and keeps us busy with faults...

telectrix · Oct 9, 2021

but was it a meter failure or a sloppy termination by the meter monkey?

GLENNSPARK · Oct 9, 2021

telectrix said:
but was it a meter failure or a sloppy termination by the meter monkey?

Take a look at it Terry...
Virtually every one of them terminations is shyte...
Exposed conductor showing where the insulation should've been taken right up to the terminal blocks...

And look at how them tails have just been stuffed in there...

James · Oct 9, 2021

My guess would be on poor termination.
the length of exposed conductor on the other terminals, added to the fact that the cables could easily be dressed nice and neat but were not.
makes it look like a lazy or incompetent installer.

If a trainee presented that as a finished job for me to check, I am not sure if I would be laughing so hard that I could barely speak or if a few choice words about a change of occupation to full time broom operator would be a good career choice.

telectrix · Oct 9, 2021

difficult to tell from the pics, but are some of the top screws bottomed out without trapping the cable/s?

7029 dave · Oct 9, 2021

Does look like poor terminations

Algarve Sparky · Oct 9, 2021

Yes the meter had only been installed 4 days prior to the failure, the cable termination was very poor and with no shadow of doubt the root cause of the failure.

I took a lot of pictures and did a scathing report to the energy supplier and as I mentioned they paid out very quickly, the smart meter install roll out are so far behind target the quality is suffering over speed.

freddo · Oct 9, 2021

Poorly terminating aluminium cable is never going to end well!

Gavin John Hyde · Oct 9, 2021

Algarve Sparky said:
Yes the meter had only been installed 4 days prior to the failure, the cable termination was very poor and with no shadow of doubt the root cause of the failure.

I took a lot of pictures and did a scathing report to the energy supplier and as I mentioned they paid out very quickly, the smart meter install roll out are so far behind target the quality is suffering over speed.

Sounds much like the uk rollout then... I came across a meter a couple months back where the neutral outgoing tail literally fell out the bottom when i so much as touched the tails to see the bonding cables behind... meter had been fitted a few weeks prior and thankfully house had been empty until this point.
I sorted it myself but had that been left and house occupied could have been nasty.
I gather the latest trade to have a shortage is funnily enough meter fitters.... guess british gas have been busy sending theirs out on ev charger jobs instead!
All these energy companies about to go bust have in many cases not fitted smart meters as people get moved to other providers they are going to be given them and its inevitable that there will be a few issues!

GLENNSPARK · Oct 10, 2021

freddo said:
Poorly terminating aluminium cable is never going to end well!

Poor terminating ANY cable isn't going to end well

GLENNSPARK · Oct 10, 2021

Gavin John Hyde said:
Sounds much like the uk rollout then... I came across a meter a couple months back where the neutral outgoing tail literally fell out the bottom when i so much as touched the tails to see the bonding cables behind... meter had been fitted a few weeks prior and thankfully house had been empty until this point.
I sorted it myself but had that been left and house occupied could have been nasty.
I gather the latest trade to have a shortage is funnily enough meter fitters.... guess british gas have been busy sending theirs out on ev charger jobs instead!
All these energy companies about to go bust have in many cases not fitted smart meters as people get moved to other providers they are going to be given them and its inevitable that there will be a few issues!

Do you like it when your scheme assessor starts prattling on about "torque setting screwdrivers"...?

telectrix · Oct 10, 2021

GLENNSPARK said:
Do you like it when your scheme assessor starts prattling on about "torque setting screwdrivers"...?

go and wash your mouth out with soap. another bloody fad designed to negate the efforts of limp wristed "sparks" that should spend less time playing pocket billiards, and instead , learning how to clamp a cable end.