This is exactly what im facing right now. I jumped from 1000KW usage per period to 3000KW usage and its such a crazy process in proving electrical company that the meter is faulty since they refuse to do a check themselves.
Thank you for this. I get huge spikes in my electricity and I live in a tiny flat alone with barely anything and my provider tried to say they were going to repair it and check but instead tried to just install a smart meter leaving me stuck with an enormous bill.
Absolutely staggering. I have had one of these meters since 2016. When it was installed to replace a similar one. I discovered it was faulty when I doubled my solar pv and yet my consumption went up by 70%! Apparently OFGEM has a list of faulty meter which includes this one.
Very interesting. We had our meter replaced in 2012, and am I positive there is an issue. Our electricity was higher in the summer, and we were on holiday for a month. Great information and thank you.
Absolutely appalling that you have to foot the bill for electricity company's faulty equipment, they should be monitoring this themselves. our meter usage double last quarter and we were on 2 weeks holidays during that time. am going to do this test now. thanks!
OMG I have this meter, my bill doubled last month to £295, and it's doubled again this month to £528! I have the Landis Gyrt Type 5235A. They forced this meter on me saying, "the old mechanical disc one was unreliable!" but it worked fine for 20+ years! This is like a couple of years old. Anyway after first phone call was rebuffed, I pointed them to your video and demanded it be replaced with a smart meter, and now they are going to install a check meter free of charge. Fingers crossed.
Thank you for the reply, 170% Wow I hope that you can prove how long its been over reading. I am pleased to hear that your energy supplyer has took responsability and refunded you. I am going to look on the forum and have a read. Thanks again. Steve
I am a meter fitter and this is very common ! , Any meter of this type made in 2007/8 will go wrong in this way , they will begin to fade and then go blank ,, I have been reporting this problem for 3 yrs and nothing is being done...we still have effected meter in our stores waiting to be fitted
Have learnt that there are fault capacitors fitted to the timer circuit, when made in China, they control the sampling rate, and timer. These capacitors fail after a time, and cause the screen to go blank, known to clock over 2.5 times, and my meter (2007) was installed faulty. There is a huge stock pile of meters ready to be installed. Government Energy dept has known of this faulty units since 2010. This effect new Gas digital meters to!
We got this meter, last month, I was away for 2 weeks, just my husband left home, hot August, longer days, and we used 50% more than in July, how come?!
What was the outcome? I have the same meter same problem (but mine only has one decimal place, so it's 10x less dramatic). My provider just told me that the light flashing means it's "receiving power from the distribution centre" and under normal operation the only time it wouldn't flash would be a power cut. This is after sending them a similar video.
I have long suspected that these (Ampy) meters record incorrectly. Your providers answer is total misleading rubbish. The LED (visible flash) operates every Watt-hr consumed. My meter only has a digital display of kiloWatt-hrs so 1000 LED flashes clocks up one digit on the display. I have for several years connected all the utility meters to my own "smart meter" network (water, gas, electricity) - all are non-contact, low voltage, so no problems. The LED flash rate increases or decreases with consumption. In fact mine states on the meter 1000 imp(ulses) per kWhr. My records of the LED flashes are consistently lower than the meter kWhr (i.e. the meter reads high). If your main switch on the consumer unit (fuse box) is off, it should completely isolate the house wiring. The meter obviously needs power to run (Ampy might have a backup battery for power cuts), but most likely takes its power from the incoming supply. This should not clock up on the meter and the power should be taken before the sensor that detects the current going through the house wiring. I write my own counting software and know just how easy it is to get it wrong, deliberately or accidentally. The video demonstrates this nicely. The only thing I would want to check is that there isn't a leak (live to earth or live to neutral) in the tails between the meter and the consumer unit. By leak, I mean something like a nick in the cable insulation in a damp situation. This is hardly ever checked by installers (external loop impedance) as they use the value given by the supply company. That's the only thing that could put a spanner in the works. No meter, analogue or digital can be 100% accurate, but the error shouldbe extremely small if properly calibrated
@@sedumunanagani7388 It's fairly straightforward if you can do a little electronics. The Ampy meter has a circular portion to the right of the digital display. In the small window, there are two optical devices. One is used by the meter company to program the device or make changes. The other, a red flash every Whr (1000 flashes per kWhr), is an LED, to show you that the device is recording power usage and the rate of usage. All I do is use a light to voltage sensor (TSL250 for example) that sits directly over the LED, protected from external light. The sensor outputs a pulse, about 5-volts depending on the power supply. So 0-volts no pulse, 5-volts with pulse. You can do what you like with the pulse. I connect it to a radio (XBee) so that I can see what the meter is doing from inside the house (the meter is outside). My set up is fairly complex and the received pulses go into a micro-controller (Arduino Mega 2560). The micro-controller processes the data from the electricity meter as well as the gas and water meters. I can see at any time what is going on, useful for things like picking up unusual activity like water leaks, suspicious usage etc. One advantage is that I don't need to read the meters. You don't need anything this complicated. The pulses will drive a slave LED or even a cheap totalising digital display. There is a difference between the meter shown in the video and mine. My Ampy only displays whole units of kWhr's - the video one shows two decimal places, ie. displays usage to 10-Whrs. The problem with any of these meters is that they have to pick up the current in the supply wires accurately and there has to be some complex calculations going on to record time and current to give you energy used. I don't know how they do that, but I'm assuming that the Whr LED pulse drives the digital display. So there is plenty of scope for inaccuracies. What shouldn't be happening is the LED and digital display clocking up power being used when none is. One fault I find is that that with a dual rate meter like mine, the individual rates don't add up to the displayed total. A small error can turn out to be a large bill. A recent case was a smart meter showing the user taking £45,000 of gas and being billed for it. No smart meters in my house.
you could always rig your meter my brother had his done it counts down slower... use a cooker or 2.5 cable ends must only be bare you have 4 cables example. disconnect the black fuse for the meter light must go out. 1.2.3.4 you want to put the wire directly into 1 and 4 you have created a bridge for free electric power. put the fuse back in and switch power on....presto free power
Interesting test, but your consumer unit board cover is loose. At 4 minutes into the vid when you restored the power it visibly moved, exposing live conductive parts. Dangerous. Get it sorted.
Oh wow, that meter is TOTAL PANTS! The worrying thing is...Our meter is very similar to this one! :-O Although our one says L+G on it (Landis + Gyr) I do believe that these meters are all made by Ampy. See my vid: "Electricity Meter...One year and 2424.3 kWh" In that vid, you'll see my electric meter. In fact....Tomorrow, 23rd Aug 2012, it's been there for TWO years! Prior to that, we had a Landis & Gyr CL-147h, & I've just recently managed to buy one of those for myself. :-D -BBD.
Does anyone know the reading of an Ampy 5235A meter when it clocks or where I can find the info please?? it looks very similar to the one in this video. Mine was installed as a check meter for our Siemens key meter back in 2005. The reason I ask is because we have had a 4kWh solar pv system since 2012 and only this week we have found that our main meter is charging us for unused generated electricity that's going back onto the grid!!!!! Current daily average according to our bill is a staggering 44 kWh (£5-6 a day!!) however since taking daily readings from all meters the check meter is showing quite a discrepancy. I have a check meter reading from 2015, it has since clocked so I'm unable to work out an accurate difference in units which would be of help when approaching our power supplier for reimbursement... The check meter light stays red when the power we produce is going back onto the grid, it also has a 'rED' message that flashes up every so often, not sure what that means... Any info much appreciated, thanks :)
Hi I also have a problems with my meter reading I have to pay for one month £3031.25 I can't believe in the old and new meter its like the same but u think it's wo
Wow that is not good. You have good evidence there to support your case though. I also take weekly readings as well to check on my usage I think that I will also use the turn off test as well. Maybe every month. I also put all my data into a excel spreadsheet so I can keep check on my usage. Thanks for showing. P.s How did your energy supplyer handle your case I would love to know. Steve.
@@brucehawkinson8901 The meter is usually placed before your consumer unit so cutting the power basically takes the load off the meter, the power that supply’s the meter isn’t measured by itself (if that makes sense) there is a sealed fuse that the power company can remove when they replace the meter so it’s safe for them to work on. Hope this helps.
alec crawford - Let's face it, it's theft this guy is being financially swindled & i'm going to upload his video on my channel so that people know. They do this quite frequently with many accounts, a little to high in being just faulty meters, as far as i am concerned this is purposely done to steal from the customers.
In 6 months I pay 781 pounds of electricity what is horrible. I call EDF and I tell them about the meter if they can sorted out the problem but they don't give a fuck a nobody. Tomorrow I'm going to send a email to citizen advisor and will see what happens.
This is exactly what im facing right now. I jumped from 1000KW usage per period to 3000KW usage and its such a crazy process in proving electrical company that the meter is faulty since they refuse to do a check themselves.
Thank you for this. I get huge spikes in my electricity and I live in a tiny flat alone with barely anything and my provider tried to say they were going to repair it and check but instead tried to just install a smart meter leaving me stuck with an enormous bill.
Absolutely staggering. I have had one of these meters since 2016. When it was installed to replace a similar one. I discovered it was faulty when I doubled my solar pv and yet my consumption went up by 70%! Apparently OFGEM has a list of faulty meter which includes this one.
Very interesting. We had our meter replaced in 2012, and am I positive there is an issue. Our electricity was higher in the summer, and we were on holiday for a month. Great information and thank you.
"You're right, sir, that meter does appear to be faulty. That meter was supposed to quadruple, not double the usage."
😊
Rookie numbers. What a noob meter.
Absolutely appalling that you have to foot the bill for electricity company's faulty equipment, they should be monitoring this themselves. our meter usage double last quarter and we were on 2 weeks holidays during that time. am going to do this test now. thanks!
OMG I have this meter, my bill doubled last month to £295, and it's doubled again this month to £528! I have the Landis Gyrt Type 5235A. They forced this meter on me saying, "the old mechanical disc one was unreliable!" but it worked fine for 20+ years! This is like a couple of years old. Anyway after first phone call was rebuffed, I pointed them to your video and demanded it be replaced with a smart meter, and now they are going to install a check meter free of charge. Fingers crossed.
Electrician who was putting a new meter in told me that they fix the meters so that it shows you are using more than you actually are.
Thank you for the reply, 170% Wow I hope that you can prove how long its been over reading. I am pleased to hear that your energy supplyer has took responsability and refunded you. I am going to look on the forum and have a read. Thanks again. Steve
I am a meter fitter and this is very common ! , Any meter of this type made in 2007/8 will go wrong in this way , they will begin to fade and then go blank ,, I have been reporting this problem for 3 yrs and nothing is being done...we still have effected meter in our stores waiting to be fitted
Have learnt that there are fault capacitors fitted to the timer circuit, when made in China, they control the sampling rate, and timer. These capacitors fail after a time, and cause the screen to go blank, known to clock over 2.5 times, and my meter (2007) was installed faulty. There is a huge stock pile of meters ready to be installed. Government Energy dept has known of this faulty units since 2010. This effect new Gas digital meters to!
We got this meter, last month, I was away for 2 weeks, just my husband left home, hot August, longer days, and we used 50% more than in July, how come?!
I must ask please as our bills have suddenly increased, what equiptment did you use to perform the no load test in your video. Keep up the good work.
What was the outcome? I have the same meter same problem (but mine only has one decimal place, so it's 10x less dramatic). My provider just told me that the light flashing means it's "receiving power from the distribution centre" and under normal operation the only time it wouldn't flash would be a power cut. This is after sending them a similar video.
I have long suspected that these (Ampy) meters record incorrectly. Your providers answer is total misleading rubbish. The LED (visible flash) operates every Watt-hr consumed. My meter only has a digital display of kiloWatt-hrs so 1000 LED flashes clocks up one digit on the display.
I have for several years connected all the utility meters to my own "smart meter" network (water, gas, electricity) - all are non-contact, low voltage, so no problems. The LED flash rate increases or decreases with consumption. In fact mine states on the meter 1000 imp(ulses) per kWhr.
My records of the LED flashes are consistently lower than the meter kWhr (i.e. the meter reads high). If your main switch on the consumer unit (fuse box) is off, it should completely isolate the house wiring. The meter obviously needs power to run (Ampy might have a backup battery for power cuts), but most likely takes its power from the incoming supply. This should not clock up on the meter and the power should be taken before the sensor that detects the current going through the house wiring. I write my own counting software and know just how easy it is to get it wrong, deliberately or accidentally. The video demonstrates this nicely. The only thing I would want to check is that there isn't a leak (live to earth or live to neutral) in the tails between the meter and the consumer unit. By leak, I mean something like a nick in the cable insulation in a damp situation. This is hardly ever checked by installers (external loop impedance) as they use the value given by the supply company. That's the only thing that could put a spanner in the works. No meter, analogue or digital can be 100% accurate, but the error shouldbe extremely small if properly calibrated
@@philipslater5015 how can one monitor his meter?
@@sedumunanagani7388
It's fairly straightforward if you can do a little electronics.
The Ampy meter has a circular portion to the right of the digital display.
In the small window, there are two optical devices.
One is used by the meter company to program the device or make changes.
The other, a red flash every Whr (1000 flashes per kWhr), is an LED, to show you that the device is recording power usage and the rate of usage.
All I do is use a light to voltage sensor (TSL250 for example) that sits directly over the LED, protected from external light.
The sensor outputs a pulse, about 5-volts depending on the power supply. So 0-volts no pulse, 5-volts with pulse.
You can do what you like with the pulse.
I connect it to a radio (XBee) so that I can see what the meter is doing from inside the house (the meter is outside).
My set up is fairly complex and the received pulses go into a micro-controller (Arduino Mega 2560).
The micro-controller processes the data from the electricity meter as well as the gas and water meters.
I can see at any time what is going on, useful for things like picking up unusual activity like water leaks, suspicious usage etc.
One advantage is that I don't need to read the meters.
You don't need anything this complicated.
The pulses will drive a slave LED or even a cheap totalising digital display.
There is a difference between the meter shown in the video and mine.
My Ampy only displays whole units of kWhr's - the video one shows two decimal places, ie. displays usage to 10-Whrs.
The problem with any of these meters is that they have to pick up the current in the supply wires accurately and there has to be some complex calculations going on to record time and current to give you energy used.
I don't know how they do that, but I'm assuming that the Whr LED pulse drives the digital display.
So there is plenty of scope for inaccuracies.
What shouldn't be happening is the LED and digital display clocking up power being used when none is.
One fault I find is that that with a dual rate meter like mine, the individual rates don't add up to the displayed total.
A small error can turn out to be a large bill.
A recent case was a smart meter showing the user taking £45,000 of gas and being billed for it.
No smart meters in my house.
you could always rig your meter my brother had his done it counts down slower... use a cooker or 2.5 cable ends must only be bare
you have 4 cables example. disconnect the black fuse for the meter light must go out.
1.2.3.4 you want to put the wire directly into 1 and 4 you have created a bridge for free electric power. put the fuse back in and switch power on....presto free power
So if the power is completely turned off, where is the power coming from to run that meter,,? Hmmm.
Bro you are so stupid
Interesting test, but your consumer unit board cover is loose. At 4 minutes into the vid when you restored the power it visibly moved, exposing live conductive parts. Dangerous. Get it sorted.
Oh wow, that meter is TOTAL PANTS!
The worrying thing is...Our meter is very similar to this one! :-O
Although our one says L+G on it (Landis + Gyr) I do believe that these meters are all made by Ampy. See my vid: "Electricity Meter...One year and 2424.3 kWh"
In that vid, you'll see my electric meter. In fact....Tomorrow, 23rd Aug 2012, it's been there for TWO years!
Prior to that, we had a Landis & Gyr CL-147h, & I've just recently managed to buy one of those for myself. :-D
-BBD.
Does anyone know the reading of an Ampy 5235A meter when it clocks or where I can find the info please?? it looks very similar to the one in this video. Mine was installed as a check meter for our Siemens key meter back in 2005. The reason I ask is because we have had a 4kWh solar pv system since 2012 and only this week we have found that our main meter is charging us for unused generated electricity that's going back onto the grid!!!!! Current daily average according to our bill is a staggering 44 kWh (£5-6 a day!!) however since taking daily readings from all meters the check meter is showing quite a discrepancy. I have a check meter reading from 2015, it has since clocked so I'm unable to work out an accurate difference in units which would be of help when approaching our power supplier for reimbursement... The check meter light stays red when the power we produce is going back onto the grid, it also has a 'rED' message that flashes up every so often, not sure what that means... Any info much appreciated, thanks :)
Hi I also have a problems with my meter reading I have to pay for one month £3031.25 I can't believe in the old and new meter its like the same but u think it's wo
Wow that is not good. You have good evidence there to support your case though. I also take weekly readings as well to check on my usage I think that I will also use the turn off test as well. Maybe every month. I also put all my data into a excel spreadsheet so I can keep check on my usage. Thanks for showing. P.s How did your energy supplyer handle your case I would love to know. Steve.
So if the power is completely turned off when he flipped the red switch, what is powering the meter? Shouldn’t the numbers on the screen go blank
@@brucehawkinson8901 The meter is usually placed before your consumer unit so cutting the power basically takes the load off the meter, the power that supply’s the meter isn’t measured by itself (if that makes sense) there is a sealed fuse that the power company can remove when they replace the meter so it’s safe for them to work on. Hope this helps.
Morning!Guy i am trying to get to the forum and it reverts to the youtube video, any ideas on how i can get on the forum please?
Hi is there anyway I can hire you to come and check my meter in London?
check it yoursef
can these metres be set higher than what u use
alec crawford - Let's face it, it's theft this guy is being financially swindled & i'm going to upload his video on my channel so that people know. They do this quite frequently with many accounts, a little to high in being just faulty meters, as far as i am concerned this is purposely done to steal from the customers.
higher value?
In 6 months I pay 781 pounds of electricity what is horrible. I call EDF and I tell them about the meter if they can sorted out the problem but they don't give a fuck a nobody. Tomorrow I'm going to send a email to citizen advisor and will see what happens.
really stupid i received an electric bill from using a d.c. power supply an a 40 watt light bulb strang Hmmmm?
Standing charges?
why the fuck are u using a smartphone in conjuction with this testin of house?
oh i get it, the smarmeter is connected to smartphone.?