[James 1077]

We get our electricity with Mercury and have two meters on the property. Mercury have us on a "low user - night" plan which seems about right for us (but if it isn't then they rebate the difference after a year anyway).

The idea of the plan is that our hot water cylinder goes onto one of the meters and is switched on and off by the electricity company in order to allow them to cope with fluctuating demands (so different to our UK 2 meter plan where everything switched over to the night rate at night (and some things would only come on once switched (ie storage heaters and hot water))).

However it doesn't seem to work the way that it should as the "second meter" reading never changes (and seeing that we have hot water this can only be because the cylinder is wired into the main meter).

Anyone know how difficult it is to change this so that the cylinder is connected to the right meter? And how much it is likely to cost if we need someone to do it? Or is it possible that something more sinister is afoot and I need to kick some Mercury butt? :)

Thanks for your help.

[Tia Maria]

Sorry can't help, but go kick Mercury butt anyway! Sound Cool! :D

Cheers

Tia

[Milliemoo]

Well my money's on James....

I reckon he could kick some serious Mercury butt! :p

Milliemoo

[BaldyBeardyBloke]

Give 'em hell.

[PeteS]

:wahWe get our electricity with Mercury and have two meters on the property. Mercury have us on a "low user - night" plan which seems about right for us (but if it isn't then they rebate the difference after a year anyway).

The idea of the plan is that our hot water cylinder goes onto one of the meters and is switched on and off by the electricity company in order to allow them to cope with fluctuating demands (so different to our UK 2 meter plan where everything switched over to the night rate at night (and some things would only come on once switched (ie storage heaters and hot water))).

However it doesn't seem to work the way that it should as the "second meter" reading never changes (and seeing that we have hot water this can only be because the cylinder is wired into the main meter).

Anyone know how difficult it is to change this so that the cylinder is connected to the right meter? And how much it is likely to cost if we need someone to do it? Or is it possible that something more sinister is afoot and I need to kick some Mercury butt? :)

Thanks for your help.

You may like to query it with the electricity company on the basis that you'd like them to check the metering as it is not recording. Cost unknown, but if the meter is faulty, should be free.

If the meter is working ok, the remedy is to get an electrician to check the wiring within the meter box and the distribution board for you. Your Distribution board (fuse box) and meter box may be one and the same item or they may be seperate. Cost? A bit of travel time, and maybe the time it takes to swap a few wires around.

As a householder you are not allowed to carry out work in your "Main Switchboard". It has to be a card carrying (certified) tradesman.

Or, you think your water heater is on the meter that does not record, you could do nothing:D......... but you may get "assessed" for usage at some date in the future!:wah

[Tia Maria]

I notice in the local North Shore Times, they are going to be installing new meters in the area anyway, although who knows how long that will take?!

Cheers

Tia

[DB]

With two meters, you are on (and presumably paying for) a plan which gives you low cost electricity for water heating. Theres no legal requirement that you can only use low cost electricity for water heating, you can use full price juice if you want, it'll just cost more per KWH, and you pay more per day for two meters rather than one. So assuming you are wired wrong, you've broken no laws, you are just failing to get value for money. Or you could be wired right and have a busted meter :)

With the two meter scheme, the way it is supposed to work is that the water heater only gets electricity at night, and even then, it can be subject to interruption if required. Everything other than the switched load runs off the normal meter, and pays the normal rate.

If you've got two meters, then the ripple controller and the wiring is almost certainly set up for two meter supply, needing just your house wiring changed to make it work properly. You probably need a sparky to come in and reroute your how water heating to your cheap electricity supply.

You compare the scheme with the UK scheme where everything overnight runs on cheaper juice; you can get that in NZ too, with a single "dual rate" meter. However, these schemes charge more for normal juice that either a standard single rate meter or dual meters so be careful. We used to have this type of metering, and a few years of readings convinced me I was being ripped off!

The plan names seem optimised to cause confusion. I'm with Contact Energy, and they have a day/night plan, and a day+night plan. The former is a dual rate meter, the latter two meters...

Finally, you don't have a wetback or other non-electrical water heater? Now we have dual metering, we can see that we haven't used any eleccy for hot water for weeks, as the wetback keeps the water hot enough.

[James 1077]

Thanks for your replies - I'm pretty sure that it isn't the meter that is broken unfortunately as the hot water works throughout the day and, if it were the meter, then I would expect our electricity bills to be substantially below the $200pm that they currently are!

I'll probably get a sparky to come and look at it at some point (and see if I can push this cost on to the landlord!) but, until then, now that I'm aware of the situation, we'll just manually turn the hot water on and off.