Investigation on massive electricity bills

[sparky1508]

Hi all,
This morning I visited a new client who needs me to find out why there bills are so high.
At the moment I can only give a quick rundown of the installation as it was just a general chit chat about the issue. I will be going back to do some proper investigation in a week or so.
This is an old manor farm with the main house having been extended along with an attached barn conversion which is their main living space. 3 story's including the loft conversion so quite a considerable space. They have a 3 bed cottage ( Detached )on the land along with stables a plant room and a wooden barn converted for parties in an L shape. So they called me because they are getting extremely high bills. The 2 that I saw was 1 for last 3 months and 1 for the previous 3 months. The latter was for £4100 and the other was £2700. I did get a quick look at a couple others and they were similar costs ranging anywhere in between.
Firstly can anyone say whether this is normal for a house of this size when they have assured me that they don't use the emersion heaters as they have 2 big oil boilers in the plant room.
Wet underfloor in the new half and the barn end and radiators in the old part of the house.
Also my first thoughts are that I need to familiarise myself with the wiring of the entire installation so I can eliminate circuits one by one. Any advice is welcome as always.

 

[davesparks]

Thinking may get away with a clamp meter as I've just seen the price of these machines. Just check current flows to each DB and see which one has got an unusually high current flow.

That will only tell you the instantaneous current flow, it won't tell you anything about the average demand.

I would say the first thing to do is contact their electricity supplier (the meter operator, not the DNO)
I believe they are required to investigate if there is a query about the bill.

As mentioned above if the bulls are estimate s this may be part of the cause. Have a look at previous bills to see if there is a gradual increase over the years or if this is a sudden jump up.

 

[dmxtothemax]

Leakage in underground cables is not uncommon,
have you tried testing any underground sections
I would do a megger test on any underground sections ?

 

[Leyland30]

The expense of a data logger at this stage seems a little excessive, a basic clap meter will allow you to identify the circuit (s) with high loadings. If you can't identify an issue with this method then a data logger might be considered a robust method of demonstrating a meter malfunction to the DNO.

However, Do DNOs offer meter calibration testing - only charging the customer if no fault is detected.

Let us know how you get on.

 

[Pete999]

I thought I had caught at one stage of my life, lucky it was a false alarm.!!!

 

[GMES]

I bought myself the Fluke 1730 Energy logger and it's already paid for itself at nearly 2k it wasn't a knee jerk purchase but I've had it hired out nearly every week since I bought it so it is now making money every week.
They are well worth the money, simply input the unit price for electricity and it will work out exactly what your installation is costing.
The logging period can be set from 10 minutes to 3 months and at the end you can print off the results or email them direct to your customer, equally you can drag snapshots off of it with a memory stick while it is logging.
We also use it to carry out load tests on machinery, some of our customers like to know what some of their large machines are costing to run for help with working out production costs.

 

[Octopus]

Problem with such vague posts such as these as we are all guessing.

OP - you need to ask the customer to get out ALL their old bills, and

1. look at the amounts due
2. they need to check if they are estimated or proper readings
3. also log the consumption per quarter

- only then can they actually compare apples with apples.

 

[sparky1508]

I will be doing tests on all circuits making the underground ones a priority. I feel with that amount of current flowing it shouldn't be hard to find.

 

[buzzlightyear]

Leakage in underground cables is not uncommon

they need to put a smart meter in for downton abbey !

 

[Lucien Nunes]

with that amount of current flowing it shouldn't be hard to find.

Indeed not. If half the bill is wastage via leakage to earth, the L-E insulation resistance would be 8.2 ohms, so about a ten-millionth of what you might expect on a domestic system. You would want to search for it with a continuity tester, not an insulation tester, as that would just read a string of zeroes - 0.000008 Megohms if it had that many digits. Somehow I doubt this as the cause - the fault would be dissipating the heat of over three 2-bar fires, which I can't imagine XLPE SWA withstanding for over six months. The ground would probably be steaming! Although anything is possible until you get some data.

 

[Midwest]

may be the electricity company they get
the supply from need to be involved and ask them.

Think this is the most sensible suggestion to check first. Why pay hundreds of pounds getting an electrician to check if there is something wrong with the electrical installation, if they've got some dodgy meters or readings.

Get the fuel supplier to verify their meters.

 

[Pete999]

Think this is the most sensible suggestion to check first. Why pay hundreds of pounds getting an electrician to check if there is something wrong with the electrical installation, if they've got some dodgy meters or readings.

Get the fuel supplier to verify their meters.

And if the readings are correct?

 

[dmxtothemax]

The vast majority of these types of problems turn out to be unknown faults or un realised/unknown increased usage by the customers.

 

[Leyland30]

Arh those clap meters

The expense of a data logger at this stage seems a little excessive, a basic clap meter ...

(Embarrassed face)

 

[Octopus]

I would say most are where the price goes up, the direct debit doesn't, the consumption goes up..... Then the supplier does a meter reading...... Then the payment jumps....

 

[Upton Sparks]

well you can do some very simply thing like check the electrical meter readings on a daily basis, record these and see if there is a spike, you could do this over the Phone with the customer
then see what they are paying for a KW hour, normal about 13p. ish but it may be cheaper.

but if the customer are well off then look at the energy tracking devices which are out there a couple of hundred quid. these are better as they will record the power consumption and give you an idea if its a steady consumption or a spike at a certain point. These can visual display the Data in graph form for easy of understanding.

if its a steady consumption then get a clamp meter out and check all the circuit to see whats going on and which circuit is using the power.

hope that helps. goggle is a good tool

here a web site which offer some tracking

Tracking Your Energy Use | Home Power Magazine - https://www.homepower.com/articles/home-efficiency/electricity/tracking-your-energy-use
your need to find a 3 phase meter,

I think £4100 is quite a bit, A very rough calculation, if they paying 13p a KW hour ,
then they using something like 31,538 KW Hours ,now if that's a quarter then there about 11,500KW hour a month and about 350KW hours a day. that mean they are using 14KW every hour.!

 

[Selfmade]

Has your client checked that the readings on the bills match the readings on the actual meter(s)? Wouldn't trust suppliers further than I could through them...

 

[Selfmade]

*throw them (too late to edit!).

 

[sparky1508]

On the job now. Reading a constant 7.6 amps in L3 incoming on main board. This L3 also had a constant 4.8 amps to main house. Any ideas

 

[Wilko]

Ask Owner for permission to dis ... see who comes running

 

[HandySparks]

On the job now. Reading a constant 7.6 amps in L3 incoming on main board. This L3 also had a constant 4.8 amps to main house. Any ideas

Open up the board in the house and see what the currents on the final circuits are.

 

[sparky1508]

Out of 28 circuits in main house only getting current flow on 2 and they are small 0.1 and 0.5 amps. Yet when I check flow from main DB on L3 it was 4.6 amps. Done IR and Continuity and all fine.

 

[sparky1508]

Meter readings all seem to coincide. Found out it's an actual meter reading every 6 months so every other quarter is an estimate based on last reading. Just checked the last two actual readings and in the 6 months usage was 28187 KWh. Think it's at 13p so that would work out at £3664. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Any other ideas welcome.

 

[martinwinlow]

Do you think that £4100 is acceptable for a quarter when they know they don't use a lot of electricity themselves. Clearly they don't want free electricity and I can assure you they quite well off but why would anyone pay for something that they are not using regardless of how much money they have. Really don't see the point in your comment.

I'm glad you even understood his/her comment. I do hope s/he isn't an electrician!

 

[streamer]

Is the detached cottage permanently let and is it off the same supply? Is there a sub meter to it? And are the stables used by the owners or let out to others?

 

[sparky1508]

Everything is from one meter (3 phase). Cottage is occupied by a couple that work for my clients. Barns and stables all used by my clients and nothing is rented out.

 

[Woofie]

No one, ever, thinks they use a lot of electricity. Can only think of one case where a customer's (shop) supply was also supplying the shop next door. Every other time they have simply used a lot of leccy. And, personally, I am pleased they are getting hammered for it financially. Once you have investigated the installation, prepare to advise them on how not destroy the one and only planet we can live on by. being a little more responsible in their choices. Probably try to not sound like the swivel-eyed environmentalist I am though.

 

[sparky1508]

Well the couple in the cottage have just got back and now the supply to the cottage is pulling anywhere between 10 and 37 amps sometimes sitting at a steady 17 but also sits at around 26. Something going on there. More detective work needed.

 

[Strima]

Worked on a Vodafone site a few years ago and had to find the origin. Traced the cable back to the Spar shop.

The manager was insistent that the site wasn't fed from his shop until we pointed out the cable going through his wall.

Was supplied off his DB and not a sub meter in sight, they'd been paying Vodafones bills for years...

 

[buzzlightyear]

are they producing &selling bob hope, you need to gain access in the cottage and see what is going on !

 

[sparky1508]

are they producing &selling bob hope, you need to gain access in the cottage and see what is going on !

Just been in and the only circuit pulling any significant current is the cooker at 6.6 amps. Don't know why it kept spiking but it's only since they got home. L1 was pretty much inactive until try arrived then starts spiking at 36 amps at times.