Electricity issue

geeky

Interesting poser, this... (mods, please move to appropriate forum if I've posted incorrectly!)

Basically, we moved in to a house during April - a few promises were broken as regards cleaning up, and a window seems to be 'on order' since back then, but nothing major. Next door to the house, a garage/extension houses what we believe is the landlord's family business.

On Friday, we were hit with a bill of €900 after the first meter reading since mid-February (we got bills after moving in, but they were estimates). this is pretty off the wall - in our last property, we never broke the €100 for electricity use. It was DD'd out of the account.

Over the weekend, with the help of my father-in-law (a former electrician) we turned off the mains, trip switch, fuses, everything. No electricity working in the house - and yet the little meter still kept turning around...

We've two theories about this: either the ESB meter is faulty, or the business next door is using our electricity (previously, the owners appeared to operate a lodger system while living in the house themselves)! I called the ESB to get them to come out and look - that way, if it is next door using our electricity, we can come to them with the ESB's say so. However, they say they won't send anyone until we get an electrician to check out the wiring and certify that the problem is with them.

The normal thing to do, obviously, would be getting on to the landlord and getting them to send someone. However, I'm afraid that if we do, they'll know that we've twigged something's up, and might switch off their electricity - leaving us without a comeback.

What do you think? Should we take the hit on an electrician ourselves? As you can guess, straight after a €900 bill coming in unexpectedly, we're not exactly flush!

lisasimps

why dont you pretend you had an electrician out and say he cant find a fault?

Solair

You should post on the electrical forum on boards.ie they might have more technical help!

D3PO

why dont you go to the landlord tell him you dropped the trip switches and the meter is still moving so there is an issue.

he will either have to fess up to sharing the power or will have to get an sparks out to check it out.

geeky

Well, I've done a lot of work on this and it appears that we've wronged the landlord! The estate agent insists his office rang in the reading we both took when I moved in during April, which the ESB initially said they had no record of. Thanks to an absolute gent on the 'talk to' section of this site, that phonecall has been located - he's apparently digging it up now.

The meter continuing to spin after the switch has been tripped is another issue - we're getting the landlady to get an electrician out. The ESB's theory is that there's an earth leak. However, the electricity use since the last reading was taken hasn't been off the wall, so it's not as pressing an issue.

lisasimps

thats good to hear!

Solair

Glad you got to the bottom of it.
Earth leaks are potentially dangerous so get it sorted out asap!
Best of luck