Moving the meter.

[La Poste]

Greetings.

A landlord has asked me to do an inspection of his property which I have done.

I noticed no bonding so I installed bonding and went round making sure each circuit had an earth and complied with
disconnection times.

I also noticed the main fuse and meter had no seals so I sealed both with security seals which I always keep handy.

Now the landlord wants me to move the meter up further so it sits higher on the wall and to do this I will have to extend
the cables/meter tails from the main fuse to the meter.

I have been advised this is a big no no and to call the electricity supplier, EDF in this instance.
I am little worried that I will get the blame for breaking the original seals and wondered what people thought was the
best thing to say to the engineer when they arrived.

Comments appreciated.

 

[amlu]

dno does not keep any seal logs. unless there is some messing around with bypassing the meter they dont give a damn.

 

[La Poste]

It's not the DNO who will be involved it's the electricity supplier.

DNO is Scottish and Southern energy.
Supplier is EDF.

 

[SPARTYKUS]

It's not the DNO who will be involved it's the electricity supplier.

DNO is Scottish and Southern energy.
Supplier is EDF.

Hi La Poste:smile5:

tricky. Would the meter be moving off the electricty boards' board so to speak?

sounds like the premises owner wants to move it significantly so probably best to just let the owner of the meter do it however tedious it may seem.

S.

 

[LlandrilloSpark]

2 screws 5 minutes and its shifted......nobody saw a thing

 

[La Poste]

If only it were that simple.

The length of tails from the main fuse to the meter are about a foot.
The meter has to be moved about four feet so you see the problem.

I would either have to disconnect the tails from the main fuse and the meter and fit new longer tails or disconnect the tails from the input side of the meter then extend these tails from the main fuse by means of a Henly then connect new extended tails to the meter.

This seems a bit fraught and in this instance I think it best to just call the supplier.

 

[telectrix]

the correct thing to do is call the supplier. however, if you move it, deny all knowledge, who's to say some previous DNO/supplier didn't put it there?

 

[stuartcourt]

I would usually agree but we have the landlord to take into account and if he does not want to spend a few hundred moving a meter he will def not want to spend 1000 on fine.

 

[LlandrilloSpark]

I won't bore you good folk with the antics regarding meters & service heads I have got up to, but I 'll let you guess!, sometimes you have to do what you have to do, but it's like a lot of jobs in the industry, assess the risks first

 

[Silly Sausage]

I would say the landlord wants it about eye height for a person that is six feet tall.

Or eye height for a bloke that's five foot standing on a milk crate but his flat cap might touch the ceiling.

He just wants it moving so it can be read without bending/kneeling down???
I'd tell him to do one and he should call the supplier!

 

[La Poste]

At the moment it is too low to the ground.

The idea is to fit a toilet in the room where the meter and fuse board are placed and the toilet is going to go right where the meter and fuse board are currently situated hence the need to move both further up the wall.

I've had the main fuse off, it's a 60 Amp and everything looks quite healthy.
The trouble is if there is a problem I just know the landlord will grass me up.

The meter is a key meter so it will need to be accessed by the tenants to top it up.

 

[Toonlad]

toilets and cutouts in close proximity to each other, another thread perhaps??

 

[La Poste]

Another thread another day.

Right now I away on the beers.

Thanks all.

 

[La Poste]

EDF, the supplier.
Would you really want to mess with these guys?

-----------------------------------------------
"Électricité de France S.A. (EDF; Electricity of France) is the largest electric utility company in the world.

Headquartered in Paris, France, with €65.2 billion in revenues in 2010, EDF operates a diverse portfolio of 120,000+ megawatts of generation capacity in Europe, South America, North America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

EDF is the world's largest producer of electricity.[SUP][2][/SUP] In 2011, it produced 22% of the European Union's electricity, primarily from nuclear power:"

Électricité de France - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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I don't fancy my chances.

 

[specs]

Any ideas how much EDF would charge to move a meter 2 metres up a wall and extend the length of the tails from the main fuse to the meter to accommodate this move?

. They do have limits, i believe height max is 6ft or 2 meters. I know this cos the guy from edf told me. I recently moved a meter from a bedroom to a cupboard near the front door. I had had to call in Edf to remove fuse as main board was in cupboard in common areas of a block of flats. When he arrived he inspected meter and noticed seals were missing, he asked why i wanted fuse pulled so i told him installation was a mess (really old) and i wanted to move meter to a better location, he said that he coudnt see a problem as seals were missing. So he pulled fuse. He then told me that meter in cupboard could not be placed higher than 6ft (or 2 meters) and installation would not be reconnected until all 2nd fix had been completed. I queried this as flat was undergoing a refurb, he replied that he would only reconnect if a temp board was in place and protected by RCD and all main bonding was in place. I set up temp board with RCD protection etc put in 2, 2 gang skts,. I then removed about 4 meters of 16mm swa , moved meter into cupboard and tidied it up. I then phoned Edf to come back to reconnect, They turned up next day inspected my work and reconnected, and put new seal on meter The charge from Edf was Zero, nothing, foc. Putting in new cu was no problem as i had put in isolator switch between meter and temp board.( Forgot to mention he did a quick test to ensure rcd was working.) Not sure if this height limit only applies to meters in cupboards as i can see a problem if meter installed in hallways is only allowed at this height.

 

[itselectric]

In years gone by, they decided on meter heights to stop meter readers claiming for accidents.
Too low then meter reader could do his/her back in bending down to read.
Too high and he could do himself damage falling from whatever he/she, used to access meter, chairs, steps etc.
So they decided to have them at a height where they could be read without and strenuous activity. Obviously existing meter positions before this were not affected, but if you asked for them to be repositioned, they would require them to be at accessible height.
It's been a while since I did any domestic work, so this may not be the case, but somehow I can't see it changing