Electricity meter not wired correctly - free electricity

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berlininvest

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'A friend of a friend' bought a house and on getting the first ESB bill (not an estimated one), realised that very few units had been used over 2 months.

This was confirmed by reading the meter.

Looks like the meter is not wired in to the whole house circuit (at a guess).

This may have been due to accidental wrong wiring when an extension was added by the previous owner.

Or, more plausibly, deliberate wrong wiring.

Presumably he needs to get the wiring corrected, asap, at his own expense, by an electrician?

Does he need to inform the ESB?

Any other advice?
 
berlininvest said:
Presumably he needs to get the wiring corrected, asap, at his own expense, by an electrician?

Does he need to inform the ESB?
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I would imagine that the ESB need to know about this and may be reponsible for wiring it correctly. Obviously they may look for payment for electricity used to date.
 
ClubMan said:
I would imagine that the ESB need to know about this and may be reponsible for wiring it correctly. Obviously they may look for payment for electricity used to date.
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Surely they cant enforce payment? How do they estimate it if the meter is not wired correctly?
 
I would say that now that you are aware of the situation there is a legal onus on you to report the matter. To leave things continue as they are would effectly be stealing electricity as you know that the meter is not recording accurately. You may land the previous owner in a spot of bother!!!!!
 
Maybe there are 2 meters/fuseboards in the house - one for the original and one for the extension, I've seen this with a house that had a granny flat in it, there were 2 esb accounts and the 'new' owner had a bit of hassle getting the house converted to 1 meter/fuseboard.
 
But if some of the 'supply' is not metered, how do they know what has been used?
 
I'd imagine that once the ESB are informed and the metering issue sorted there are few ways that they could fairly estimate usage. E.g. take a sample for about a week and extrapolate from that and/or compare with other similar properly metered properties etc.

Either way, I doubt they'll get any free electricity for the period up to this point.
 
ClubMan said:
I don't know. But I can't see them writing off the 2 months of "free" usage automatically.
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You best let them know and come out and inspect it anyway. As above if you suspect there is something not right the onus is on you to report it. Would be interesting to know how they propose to charge you for back usage (if they do and thats if there is anything wrong) if it hasn't been metred
 
Have you checked the attic?!

It was reported on the news a few weeks ago about houses being used as drug farms. They were used to grown weed. The meter would be by passed because the lights used to grow the weed are very powerfull and heavy useage is normally questioned by the ESB.
 
Only one fusebox, only one meter.

No exotics in the attic.

Not trying to get the previous owner in trouble, rightly or wrongly.

Not looking to have the ESB estimating consumption either, could be a whole can of worms.

Might get a spark to have a look and see what they reckon, I am sure they come across these things from time to time.
 
Update:

Got a spark out. He heard a very low sizzle in the meter box, and realised two live wires crossing had melted together a bit, thus bypassing the meter.

Got ESB out to investigate, they broke the seals to investigate further, there was bit of scorching round the meter. They decided to replace the meter and the melted wire. (Incidentally this entailed about an hour of fannying about by 2 guys and 2 large ESB trucks. Glad it was not a big job).

There was no discussion about consumption, whether by me or the previous owner.

Meter is now running at normal speed, and we are legit.
 
So the 'friend of a friend' is actually YO. Brilliant !!! You're lucky the entire house didn't go up in flames. Burn baby burn.
 
You figured it out !! Well done! hehehe

Yeah, of course it was lucky there wasn't a fire. Could have been very nasty smoke damage throughout the house at the very least if the insulation caught fire.

Previous owner was braver / more foolhardy than I, to let it slide for God knows how long.
 
i was with the esb for 4 years for my shop then i decided to change providers all fine ...received my final bill from esb and then nothing....4 months passed i contacted the new provider saying i havent received a bill yet...they said that it is been paid...i say well not by me....they tell me who is paying....i tell them thats not me...please sort it out...anyway 2 years later still no bill i have called them maybe 4 times to sort it out but each time they say no its all fine and been paid....so im giving up calling them. i know they keep a record of all calls they deal with....
 
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