why has house got two meters?

[sparkol]

Been to look at a fuseboard upgrade.


The house has a 3-phase cutout. One phase isn’t used, and the other two phases feed a single phase meter each. The house therefore has two single phase meters, each feeding an old wooden Wylex board.


One meter/board does lights, garage and a few sockets, the other does mostly sockets. Can’t see any obvious reason why it's set up like it is.


Can anyone see any issues with me getting one of the supply phases de-energised and installing a new consumer unit for the whole house, on one phase?


It’s big 6-7 bedroom house but the overall energy usage would be fine on one phase. They’ve got 2 8.5kW showers, a double oven and usual lights and sockets.


My only concern is that the DNO likes to balance loads between phases. Am I doing anything wrong by putting all the customer’s demand onto one phase?


I don’t know what size fuses are in the cut-out as it’s still sealed. And no, it's not economy 7 or anything like that.



Thanks in advance.

 

[davesparks]

Simple explanation for this would be that they had a second phase connected at some point in time and didn't have a meter capable of working on the two phases with them on the day the board came to connect.

Just get the meter operator out to swap it for a single meter on the two phases, they won't then have to pay the two standing charges

 

[7029 dave]

Three phase meter, is an good idea, you don't need L3 but hey ho, one standing charge.

 

[londonlec]

I would definitely try to retain use of the two phases in a property of that size.

 

[Leesparkykent]

If you are upgrading the DB like you say in your Op then obviously the best option would be to have both meters upgraded to one 3phase meter, install a new 3phase DB and balance the load across all 3phases.