Smart meter still running when main switched off

[Irfi]

 

 

I was wondering why would electricity smart meter still be running when i switched off mainboard (inside unit) and went out with family for 3 hours?? In these 3 hours snart meter reading jumped from 17771 to 17775 kwh. I am testing because my consumption have jumped nearly 3 times even when i hardly use fan heater during winter and have gas water heater

[Lester]

Regardless of whether a smart meter might use a miniscule amount of power sending info every 5 mins (or whatever) to the power supplier, nearly 4kw in 3 hours is ridiculously high.

Get a sparky around, any competent electrician will be able to tell if there is any power consumption with everything off (which there shouldn't be), and then once armed with some facts about any probable meter fault, you can probably ask for the meter to be tested.

The meter is the power suppliers responsibility I think, that should be shown on your bill.

[NeilC]

@Irfi 

When you said you switched off mainboard do you mean that you turned off all power to your unit.

Your meter indicates you used 3.9 kWh of power during this time.

Could you take another photo of the whole meter box showing all fuses and isolating switches.

[Irfi]

@LesterD My daily consumption has been constant fro last few yrs around 10kwh per day mac but from last 2 months its jumped to more than 30 kwh per day

Sparky coming in tomorrow morning to have look, lets see what he has to say

[Irfi]

@NeilC  This is the main switch which i turned off that day to test smart meter (this pic is taken today).  This switch board is located inside my unit (inside closet)

There is another main switch which is located in the panel box in basement car park for the building. I tried to switch off from that panel but nothing happens and electricity is still flowing inside my unit.

Sparky coming in to check tomorrow morning, lets see

[NeilC]

@Irfi 

So where is your actual meter located then, I expected to see the meter and circuit breakers together?

[Irfi · Accepted solution]

@NeilC 

Smart meter and another main switch with circuit breaker are located in the basement car parking of the building (i live in a building apartment).

And there is one main switch board inside the unit (the one shown in the picture above).

[Irfi]

Well the sparky checked and found out that main switch and smart meter located in the basement of building car park are labelled/marked incorrectly, unit 4 mains and meter is supposed to be unit 5 and vice versa. Its a cross metering issue which means i was paying for my neighbour's electricity and neighbour was paying mine.

Rang AGL and they said get the NMI from neighbour, which is actually mine, and will cancel previous 3 months bills (i moved to AGL 3 months ago) and they will cancel previous bills and reissue with correct NMI readings (which in this case is my neighbour's readings for last 3 months).

I only moved to this unit a year ago.

[NeilC]

@Irfi 

Thanks for the answer

[Lester]

WOW, what an error.

Obviously whoever did the metering perhaps many years ago, but all the same good that AGL will take those steps to sort it out for you at least.