Hi,

Thanks for the info - it certainly makes my poor old dad's usage look rather odd and extremely high. As for the bills, the final one he received in March 2007, by which time he had long given up on paying the full billed amount, was over £6000. He regularly got quarterly bills in 4 figures. E.ON have admitted that the wiring on the meters was wrong after 2002, but I still believe they owe him for pre-2002 overpayments. Among the many things which worry me about this case is that, although the wiring of the two meters at my father's house was catastrophically wrong [off-peak wired through standard rate meter], the E.ON engineer who fitted a PPM in Feb 2007 did not notice the faulty wiring!

Cheers,

Sarah

Hi,

I think the tariff was Economy 7, but am not sure. Sadly, a lot of the paperwork has been lost. E.ON said they had no records, until I raised this issue, when they miraculously unearthed a few. They told the Ombudsman they had no records before 2002. Now they claim to have found some. Except that they also claim that all records were destroyed when the system was migrated in 2002. I despair.

The PPM was forced on my father, but E.ON have since admitted fault in forcibly fitting the PPM in the house of an 83 year old with sight and mobility problems, after my complaint to the Energy Ombudsman, and have - after 2 years of pushing on my part and stalling on theirs - made an offer to cover their negligence which my father and I have accepted [and are not allowed to discuss]. The only outstanding issue now is, just how far back does the faulty wiring go? The Ombudsman and the Ofgem Meter Examiner both opined that it could go back to 1983, when my father moved into the property, as no maintenance was carried out between 1983 and 2002. E.ON accepted in full the Ombudsman's ruling, but now say that, actually, they don't accept that particular part of it. E.ON say the fault only arose in 2002. They ignore their own subsequent readings in order to claim this, saying that the readings which don't suit their case are "out of line with other readings". Again, I despair.

Thanks for taking time even to read all of this. I am heartily sick of it all, but DO want justice for my poor old dad.

Best,

Sarah

Hi

We're all electric, in a 2 bed semi, so I just checked our on-line consumption thingy to see how we compare for you.

It says between Jan and April, 2261 units over 79 days.

We've been using an average of 29 units a day - total. Thats a combination of our standard rate + economy 7.

Between 2 of us, there is usually someone in most of the day and we have heating that draws on standard tariff power, not storage heaters + a not very eco friendly amount of computers, TVs etc.

Im not seeing how your father could be using 25% more energy than us? I cant imagine how much the bills must have been?

Sossiebar:

Actually I've just re-checked the figures that E.ON sent to me and the matter gets even curiouser.

Hi

The 13425kwhrs/year is quite believable for a modest house kept adequately warm. IMHO not excessive.

Was just about to reply to your previous post with the typo. The off-peak usage is just about representative of two storage heaters on for the full heating period plus water heating. The standard rate usage seems rather high and is much harder to explain unless there was quite a bit of extra heating on. Can't explain why it doesn't indicate the wiring error unless E.ON have already adjusted it.

One thing you haven't mentioned is the exact economy tariff. Was it Economy 7, Economy 10, or some other fancier tariff?

Another thing, was the PPM forced on you (except the meter screw-up and resulting high bills was an E.On problem)?

I think you said E.ON admitted their 2002 meter installation error. Have they made an offer yet?

Actually I've just re-checked the figures that E.ON sent to me and the matter gets even curiouser. Their figures [I'm copying these numbers very carefully this time] are:

02/02/2007 Standard meter 62309 Off-peak 27851

27/02/2007 Standard meter 63388 Off-peak 29181

i.e. standard usage over 25 days= 1079 kwh, off-peak usage = 1330

How could the off-peak usage be higher than the standard usage, given the faulty wiring of the off-peak meter through the standard meter? Numbers above have been double and triple checked for typos!

As for obtaining pre-2002 readings, E.ON says this is impossible as all readings were destroyed when they were migrated into a new system.

Hi Wendy,

Not as far as I know. What is the problem with Heatwise?

Sarah

Hi

is your father on heatwise by e-on i know a lot of people have been having trouble with this

wendy

Thanks, Jalexa. There are some very strange things in my father's meter readings.

First of all, between 1990 and 2002 my father's average use was 13,425 kwh a year, despite him being out most days, living alone in a small house, and having very few mod cons. Heating was 2 storage heaters & one electric fire latterly in that period. It seems high to me, but I'm far from knowledgeable. In the last month before he had his PPM fitted the figures were:

2/2/07 Standard meter 62309, Off-peak 27851

27/2/07 Standard meter 63888, Off-peak 29181

Thus, in 25 days my father used 1579 standard units [average 63.16 per day] and 1330 off-peak units [53.2 units per day]. Is this realistic?

Between 1990 and 2007 the off-peak meter had 4 different serial numbers, even though it was never changed.

Sossiebar:

E.ON can easily correct the standard rate readings since 2002 by subtracting the off-peak consumption from the standard rate indicated consumption.

To prove your concern that the fault existed prior to the 2002 meter change you could compare the corrected standard rate consumption with the pre-2002 standard rate consumption. If it's similar E.ON is probably right but if the pre-2002 standard rate consumption is significantly greater your concern could well be justified.

Don't rely on the term "excessive". Bills in electrically heated homes always appear excessive. Concentrate on obtaining the pre-2002 meter readings.

My 83 year old father had lived alone in a small semi-detached house for 24 years when it was finally discovered that his two electricity meters had been wrongly wired. The property is electricity only. The Ofgem Meter Examiner found that the off-peak meter was wired through the standard rate meter, with obvious dire consequences for my father's electricity bills. E.ON did not even notice the faulty wiring when they fitted a PPM at my father's property in Feb 2007. I am now in dispute with E.ON over when exactly the faulty wiring was installed. They insist it was in 2002, when a new standard rate meter was fitted. However, my father's bills seem to have been excessive for many years before that. Bearing in mind that he lived alone, was out in the daytimes [being very active until about 5 years ago, even walking marathons!], had only two night storage heaters, one TV and a washing machine and used only one ring of his cooker to heat up meals, I wonder what sort of kwh/year figures we should be looking at?