Refurbishment. Help needed with spooky ancient meters.

[jaintiler]

Hello. We are doing a refurb for an elderly lady and her family. Its a Victorian house. the local network has said it will upgrade fuse to 80A or 100A depending on capacity etc. she needs more power due to electric showers, stair lift, and our electrician will upgrade tails. But there is a mystery.
She has two meters. both old analogue ones with the rotating discs. they look ancient. one does not move at all. the other has a rotating disc moving at same speed. regardless of what is turned on etc. and the dials are stuck also. the disc just moves at same speed. Our electrician says both meters are live.
she has been paying a direct debit for years and nobody has come to check meters for years.
she has had 5 certified electricians do work on the house over the last 15 years. rewiring, new consumer board, two kitchen companies with their electricians have all done work near the meter board. Nobody has mentioned anything. she also told us that the DNO sorted the cut out as it was leaking bitumen and came out and sorted that out for her a few years ago. any idea what is happening?
if the meter is faulty the supplier should come and exchange but they cant do anything for months and we do not want to leave her with upgraded tails from a meter which clearly isnt functioning. is it normal for these old meters to do this? can our electrician change the meter and then inform supplier?
any suggestions would be helpful.

 

[jaintiler]

amazing how much we learn on this forum in such a short time. never heard of a teleswitch before and neither had any of my team. even our electrician was confused! the lady here has no idea about it. Are we saying that an entire radio unit has been removed at some point? or is it some simple switch? There does not seem to be an large gaps anywhere.

 

[DefyG]

Judging by the age of the installation it may have been an old mechanical timer that was used to switch on and off the Off Peak supply, if it ever was an Off Peak supply but we don't really know from the info and photo's!
'Teleswitch' is a more recent version that can be switched remotely.

 

[freddo]

Wow that head is in poor condition and well overdue for replacement, leave the iron cover shut as it is covering very dangerous parts. If it is a 3 phase supply to the head, the screw terminals near the bottom will all be live.

 

[Mark Wright]

If she's happy with her current electrical bills I'd be wary about getting the meters upgraded.

 

[jaintiler]

Thanks. Well the DNO assured the lady they would sort out the cut out when they came to sort the leak but that was never followed up. That was two years ago so we will speak to them. our electrician said today that the last fuse carrier (on far right) in that cut out is actually live. No fuse in it. He said it is linked to a substation which is normal. We have no idea what that is but is it common to have a live fuse carrier like that?

 

[ipf]

If she's happy with her current electrical bills I'd be wary about getting the meters upgraded.

I agree. But I'd be a bit more worried about the state of that little lot, safety wise. DNO time.

 

[Lucien Nunes]

The cast-iron head is due for replacement. There is a significant risk of personal injury if anything goes wrong there, so it should not be disturbed by anyone not wearing arc-flash protective clothing (and it is also in theory an offence to interfere with the DNO's equipment unless authorised.) As your spark mentioned, the live terminals at the bottom are connected to the public supply, if they are shorted out it will be the entire street or neighbourhood that goes black and molten metal will be sprayed in the face of whoever does the shorting. It should all be enclosed and sealed, and these days preferably replaced with an all-plastic unit. Advise the DNO and they will probably be quite happy to upgrade.

The meters do not look very spooky to me, just ordinary meters. One is presumably redundant, the other ought to be metering the supply to the house but evidently isn't. There's nothing mystical, the speed of rotation should be exactly proportional to the load; two 2kW heaters should make it go twice as fast as one, and with the main switch off it should stop completely. If it does not, then either it is faulty in some peculiar way, or it is powering something you don't know about and registering the usage accordingly. In the first case, it is the Energy Supplier's problem to rectify, or they will send their appointed Meter Operator to do it. I have no idea of the liabilities involved if the estimated account is far adrift from the meter reading. If the meter is registering a legitimate load (such as a heater running in a shed that has been on for years) then it might get a bit more tricky as the customer will be relying on their clemency to cancel some or all of the bill. If they have been lax in checking the meter or requesting customer readings, there might be hope.

How large might the bill be? You say 26 seconds per revolution. A meter of that type might typically make 150 revs/kWh. Take the current price of electricity as 14p/kWh.
3600/(26 x 150)= 0.92kW
0.92 x 0.14 x 24 x 365 = £1128 per year (if 150 rev/kWh meter)
But, if the recording train is not turning and registering on the dials, then it might be zero. All a bit vague so you'll have to bite the bullet. Might be worth checking the reading as it stands, with the estimate on the bill, to get an idea of what to say.

And, for the record, this is an old and spooky electricity meter. Actually, not spooky either, just a very clever piece of engineering from about 120 years ago that is still working perfectly today.

 

[jaintiler]

thank you for your response and for the photo of what is a fascinating piece of engineering. thank you to all who replied to our post.

 

[freddo]

this is an old and spooky electricity meter.

Awesome! Is that a built in level hanging at the front, or some sort of tamper detection device? Reminds me of the tilt switches in pinball machines.

 

[Lucien Nunes]

Yes it's a plumb bob, the meter is most accurate when correctly upright. I won't clutter this thread with more chat about the Aron meter. I'd point you at its page on my website but that is offline today for no obvious reason (it was working yesterday.)

 

[ipf]

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Brilliant. Can I have it for my sideboard.
I can see some thinking it's showing different time zones.

 

[Lucien Nunes]

I did have it running on the sideboard too. It's a bit obtrusive, two clocks ticking away, a clunk every 30 seconds as it winds the mainspring, and the suspense of waiting for the little click every 15 minutes that heralds the reversal of coil polarities and clock rates.

 

[jaintiler]

well today we had your machine in mind when we explained to the lady about the probable fault in the meter. she doesn't want to change the meter. (I think it is wise to keep the one she has) but one of our team today mentioned that the meter has two coils. is it possible that one coil is damaged which is causing the dials to not advance? She asked our electrician if the supplier would change the meter to an old Landis Gyr one. But what are the chances of that?

 

[davesparks]

The supplier will fit whatever type of meter they prefer, you don't get to choose which manufacturer or model of meter you get.
The are all approved to the same standard and class of accuracy which is legally required for use in billing.

 

[pc1966]

The cast-iron head is due for replacement. There is a significant risk of personal injury if anything goes wrong there, so it should not be disturbed by anyone not wearing arc-flash protective clothing (and it is also in theory an offence to interfere with the DNO's equipment unless authorised.)

For the benefit of the OP, here is an example of what can go wrong with professionals working on a live supply, and the benefits of proper arc-flash PPE that allow a sporting chance of escaping with little injury (but probably browned trousers):

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3yKFLJpnhI