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Three Phase Meter Undereading

Hello,

I wonder if someone has any ideas about the following scenario. I bought a house last year that had a three phase supply but was only using 1 of the phases. This meant I only had 3KW available from my 9kw supply which was inconvienient. I got the electric company to install a 6k monophase meter and have noticed that I'm using, on an average month, 3 times as much electricity as before.

I figure that the old meter was under reading but does anyone know how/why this was?

The guy I bought the house from was a bit of a "dodgy geezer" so may have done something himself with the supply. There was no obvious reason for having 3 phase in the house.

regards, David

Reply to
davidof
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these numbers seem very small for typical home service

I got the electric company to

does your actual bill come to 3 times as much $ ?

the calculation for consumed power of a 3 phase circuit is a bit tricky as compared with single phase.

when reading the watt-hour meter make sure you know and use the correction factor to obtain the true KWH used. the correction factor is usually on the meter in some obscure location.

it is very strange to the point of improbable that you had 3 phase power to a house and did NOT have a 3 phase panel. (or am i making a faulty assumption?)

Reply to
TimPerry

Your numbers do not make sense, at least here in the US. Ed

Reply to
ehsjr

Which ones? I live in France, here you get a certain supply level. Before we had a 9KW 3 phase supply of which only one phase was in use hence our 3KW total (we don't have stuff like Air-con in France). We now have a 6KW monophase supply (the main circuit breaker trips if we go over this). I noticed that for the same 6 month period the bill is about

3x as much but we have about the same consumption.

Hence I wondered if the previous owner had done something "clever" with the meter.

Reply to
davidof

perhaps you rates are different now? i.e. with 3 phase you were getting a better commercial rate and now you pay residential.

Reply to
TimPerry

It's quite common in UK small industrial units. You get 3 phases to the meter board, but only one is connected up until you actuallly need more than 24kVA or you need 3-phase for some piece of machinary. In UK, 3-phase cabled to a house is less common, unless it's large. You can ask for it though.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

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