No, I am not talking about the meter reader that is looks in the bathroom window when he is suppose to be reading the meter.
Dave I am trying to help a woman in another forum with electric consumption that is about 2-3 times typical of her neighbors.
She is in a mobile home park and compared usage with similar and slightly smaller homes.
Both she and he husband have medical problems and it is hard getting straight answers from her.
As far as I can tell I have eliminated anything that could be using excessive power (pumps, heaters) “unknown”.
There is possibility of a bad underground cable between the meter and MH.
She kept thinking that the problem was the meter. Apparently the meter was checked by the POCO and claimed OK, but they they won’t replace unless she pays up all of the back payments and agrees to accept totals to date. That whole thing is confusing and could not follow all of it.
And I doubted that a meter could be that far off.
I did find that there was problems in the past (30’s) where lightning strikes did demagnetize the magnets in the meter and cause fast reading. And she reported lightning strike (but I have not idea how close) And apparently this was fixed with different magnets.
I finaly got her to run two test. One was with only a heater as a load. Turned off all breakers except for the one circuit and used a 1500 watt heater. Measuring the rotation of the disk show that it was using 1480 watts. Clearly not reading 2-3 times high.
The other test was a creep test.
The disconnect at the meter was turned off an the disc continued for make 5 turns in 3 minutes until it stopped.
While small, if that amount was continous (which it wasn’t) it would be about 500kWh over a month, which would be about 1/2 of her overage.
I found that the disc should not make one turn in 10 minutes with no load.
I did not find any details on how fast the meter should stop. My thoughts are that it should be a second or two.
If you know anyone in the meter department can you see if you can find out more about this.
http://www.usbr.gov/power/data/fist/fist3_10/vol3-10.pdf
8.3. CREEP. The disk of a meter may move, either forward or backward, when all load is disconnected. A meter in service is considered to creep when, with all load wires disconnected, and test voltage applied, the moving element makes one revolution in 10 minutes or less. (ANSI Standards, C12-1965.) Meter disks usually have holes or slots punched in them to stop creep when the holes or slots reach a position directly under the potential coil pole.
Observation of creep should, therefore, be based upon at least one complete revolution. Creeping may be caused by: (
1) Light-load adjustment used to compensate for instead of removing friction. Examine for friction. If the friction has since disappeared, or is found and eliminated, the meter will be found fast on light load under test, and the creep will disappear when the meter is adjusted at light load.
(2) Short-circuited turns in potential coil.In this case the meter will be found inaccurate at low power factor. Replace coil or entire electromagnet.
(3) Vibration. Remove cause of vi-bration. Move meter. (
4) Stray fields either internal or external.(
5) Too high voltage which has the sameeffect as overcompensation of light-load adjustment.
(6) The potential circuit being connectedon the load side of the meter.
(7) Short-circuited turns in current coils.Replace coil or entire electromagnet. (
8) Mechanical disarrangement of the electromagnetic circuit. A high-resistance short or ground in the customer’s circuit can cause a turning of the rotating element which may be mistaken for creeping; therefore, residence wiring should be isolated from the meter when checking for creep.
Although the definition of creep permits one revolution in 10 minutes or less, the serviceman should persevere in eliminating any tendency of a meter to creep.
Replies
Keep an eye on the serial number of the meter. Meter swapping has been known to occur where there are multiple meters in a bank. Roger
Interesting. In this case, AFAIK they are'nt in a bank, but rather individal posts with meters and disconnect at each lot. But it could be done their also, I guess. Just a little harder.But this has been going on for months, as I understand it, so the meter would have to be swapped each month. And if they did not find one with a higher reading each time there would be a big negative jump sometimes.
Swaping meters is a new one on me. If the meter reader is doing his job, that is caught immediately. The meter seal tag has to be broken and the meter serial number won't match with the number on his list. Newer meters have bar codes andget scanned with a hand held unit, then the reading is entered by hand. Even if someone swaps out a meter with a high reading, he is still going to get billed for the meter assigned as his account.
Without knowing what your public service commission guide line are, it would be hard to offer a solution. I would start with a call to them and see what they require of the poco on meter testing, repalcement and reconciliation of problems. Generally speaking the PSC will lean toward the custmers interest and the poco has to prove that they don't have faulty equipment.
We would temporarliy install a recording meter on the service for at least 1/2 of a normal billing cycle. While many people have the same type of housing, thier power consumption habits may vary greatly. A recording meter will reveal a great deal about how much or how little someone is energy concious.
I'll see if I can contact someone in our meter shop and in our testing department.
or pull the meter and see if anyone around's trailer goes dark. someone could be tapped in somewhere?
"There is possibility of a bad underground cable between the meter and MH. "
Don't disconnect at the meter, but switch all of the breakers off and recheck.
Ozlander
Some people require a lot more heat than others so their bills are higher.
Comparing bills with neighbor don,t match each other lifestyles. Those that are home all day naturally use more.
See if the Electric Company has the consumption rate for previous years and/or months.
Someone has to check the meter at different times with everything unused to see if someone is stealing electricity. Find a time when the meter is spinning fast and shut off just that breaker to slow it down, someone who is stealing may turn it back on.
I read your post yesterday and when I went to sleep last night for some reason this thought popped in my head. If the meter does keep going for about ten revolutions after the switch to it has been shut, then what is to keep it from going ten revolutions while it is on?
Let me clarify. Know how the wheel spins at differing rates of speed, depending on how much current is being used? Let us say that the load on it is 2 Kw. Once the load is reduced (by the dryer shutting off or an oven turned off, isn't it possible that instead of the wheel immediately slowing down to account for that it keeps going at the rate of speed it was when 2 Kw for ten revolutions before finally slowing down to its reduced load?
It is just a thought. It is one way that a meter can show more use than actual use because of a wheel that is not slowing enough to account for actual load. I can see that happening, and it reacting instantly to an increased load but not to a reduced load.
Handyman, painter, wood floor refinisher, property maintenance in Tulsa, OK
Yes,That is a possibility.
I talked to a couple of our service guys. We no longer have meter shop that rebuilds electric meters, but we do test them randomly .
The service guys tell me that they have never seen a fast meter, that meters are more likely go be slow.
Our policy is about the same as your poco. If we catch a slow meter the customer has to pay the difference. If they are behind in the payments, they have to catch up before we will invest ant time, manpower, and money in investigating thier claims. I was suprised that "fast meters claims" are a common complaint from customers that get behind in thier payments.
Every year I get similar calls ... sometimes from the same folks, even after they've moved to a different park. I am beginning to see a pattern here.
One of my ways of narrowing down the problem is to compare instantaneous amp readings between different trailers / campers. I generally do this before I approach the complaining tenant. Most of the time, trailers are drawing about three amps .... while the complaining trailer draws 9 amps.
I then approach the tenant, and I ask him to turn off his space heaters. Voila! The amp reading drops to 3 amps.
The next tool in my arsenal is my "Kill-A-Watt" meter. This $30 gem plugs in between an appliance cord, and the outlet. It lets you measure what each appliance is using. With it, you can get a real good idea just how much it costs to run the new fridge, the aquarium, the waterbed heater, etc. One can then know where the problems are.
The short version? Let's see ... 1" of moldy fiberglass insulation, sandwiched between masonite and an aluminum skin .... single pane unsealed windows, with aluminum frames ..... the real surprise is that I don't get more of these calls. These folks are paying as much in lot rent and heating bills to match a really nice apartment, maybe even a house payment.
Or ... to put it in a similar perspective ... my 400 sq ft. 1940 hut costs me nearly as much in utilities as a neighbors brand new 1600 sq. ft. home.
So ... what can our trailer folks do? Well, the first thing is to replace those glorified toasters with electric oil-filled radiators. There's something to be said for the thermostat that's built into them. Other posters may disagree, but the simple fact is that the red hot elements ARE less efficient - the radiators let you get a lot more comfort out of your energy dollar. Better yet ... speaking of waterbeds ... all that water, kept at 95, will noticeably improve the comfort of the entire place.
The next tool in my arsenal is my "Kill-A-Watt" meter
We set up a few of those on workstations in our office building. A couple of them ran totals for the period of the study.
It is suprizing how much energy is used by pc that is asleep. Then you throw in the "wall warts" for phones, calculators, and the other hi-tech. toys that business people can't do without. If they have an individual printer, the numbers jump even more.
Even showing the people the numbers doesn't always work to reduce thier usage. Old, bad habits are particularly hard to change when they aren't paying the bill.
I've seen 'bad' meters ... when meters go bad (it's currently in a theatre near you).
More often ... the wrong multiplier is used on a good reading. Never seen a meter move much after power off ... meter creep.
Another thing ... medical conditions ... special equipment that MAY draw a lot more power than you think ...
Turn off everything except a known load for one hour ... read and check to ensure it's right. It should be easy to estimate/document their lifestyle and check against their meter usage. A little sleuthing. Lifestyle needs may make a difference of half/double easily in low income situations like this. Check each item in their energy use and determine if the use is unusually high (e.g. showers vs. baths). Is their a disability that will make it difficult to communicate or get accurate information?
You have a pretty finite use boundary ... should be able to check many possibilities fairly quickly ... I'm used to buildings of say 10,000 to 200,000+ sqft ... can be tougher to find that 'energy leak'.
Edited 11/4/2008 12:34 am ET by Clewless1