Do some homes have TWO working electric meters fitted???

Question

i viewed a house the other day (which im going to move into)

i asked about the bills and they informed me that they had TWO electric meters and so get billed twice.

one of the bills are very cheap and come up to around £10 per quater

and the other electic bill comes to £170 per quater

they said they rang the company but was told that many homes do infact have 2meters ... i dont understand why this would be necessary nor believe this to be completely true as i have never come across such a thing in my whole life

so i wanted to know, if anyone else out there has TWO electric meters in their home ?????????????????????????

Answer 1

This could be an economy 7 setup where there are two circuits, one for the day rate (expensive) and one for the night rate (cheap). The night rate circuit is usually connected to electric storage heaters and can control when they come on. Most modern meters have a single meter that automatically switches between two counters at the apropriate time. If the house doesn't have electric storage heaters and you will mostly be using the electricity during the day, the electricity company can put you back on a standard rate/single meter tariff, although there may be a small charge if they have to do any re-wiring.

I lived in a house once that had an additional meter for the pump on the septic tank, but that was just so the cost of running it could be shared with the other houses using the same tank - and it also helped us to spot when it had packed up! The electicity company never read this meter.

Answer 2

They used to be more common than they are now....one usually is a white meter and is used with economy 7 heating...it uses off peak electric to heat water or storage heaters and is therefore cheaper...the other meter is just like a normal meter....the white meter is cheaper but I have found it to be more than £10 a Quarter...which is very cheap....You can of course have the economy seven system taken out and just revert to one meter.

Answer 3

yeah

Answer 4

Well it does sound strange but only one can monitor certain electric sockets so maybe one is for lights and one for everything else. As long as you don't get double-charged for anything then what's the problem.

Answer 5

I used to have two meters. One a "White" meter for off peak heating, and the other for everything else. I once had to ague with an electric company official that I had a white meter!

Answer 6

In the US, it's unusual but not entirely unheard of. Typically, it's a case where, sometime in the home's past, the separate service was paid for by another party.

For example, if someone had a home office and wanted to have a separate billing for just that portion of their electric bill. Perhaps, at some point in time, a room was rented out to a non-family member. Since there's such a drastic difference between the two bills, I'd suspect that may be the case.

Another possibility may be that the original service capacity wasn't sufficient and that adding a second service was cheaper than upgrading the original service. Yet another possibility is the the home was expanded and the second service only provides electricity to the addition.

Answer 7

Yes its quite true. For properties on night-storage heaters, there is a two-tier tariff which requires two meters operated by a timeclock. For off-peak electricity you pay a cheaper rate, say from 1.00am to 6.00am. Then during the day ,you pay normal rates on the other meter.  Ask your local electricity provider if they offer off-peak tariffs.

Answer 8

I think they were fitted for night time storage heaters which is/was a different tarrif hence another meter was just wired up to the heaters, they stored the heat up only at night.