Moving of the Gas meter?

[Caspar]

Has anyone done this? All I want to do is move the gas meter, credit meter, from inside the kitchen in direct line to outisde the kitchen, in an external meter box.

My elec/gas company, Powergen, told me to phone Transco. They sent me a pack and it costs £220 for the moving and some complicated figure for the reconnection of the meter.

Can I just get a CORGI guy to do this all, it must be cheaper elsewhere? Any experience in having any of this work done?

[gary_580]

i believe its illegal to touch the gas supply up stream of the meter

[Julian]

AFAIK only Transco can touch the supply lines " their " side of the meter. :(

And isn't the meter their property?

[Caspar]

I think you're both right, the meter is theirs...we only own the pipe coming from the meter....

All this hassle just to make room for a dishwasher!!!

This 'project' started out as "let's get a dishwasher'!...then "oh!, we'll have to ge tthe meter moved to make room", then "let's have a new kitchen too"....so from a £200 idea...now the 'project' could cost me £3000!! ! :(

I might hire a cleaner to do my washing up! :p :)

[Nugget]

And isn't the meter their property?

My brother used to be a plumber / gas fitter, and he was never allowed to move meters - I think that the suppliers DO own the meters

[Caspar]

no wonder it's costs the earth to move the meter then!...it's a monopoly!...let's call the monopoly commision! :p

[Dave Stones]

brother jsut got a new house a couple of months ago and required the gas meter moving from inside to outside... be very careful with transco. they are notoriously bad for keeping appointments (eventaully got the meter moved about 3 weeks after the first call) and if it doesnt say precisely what needs doing on their spec sheet they wont do it.

eventually brother got the meter moved though, he got annoyed with transco call centre person and said that if someone didnt come out and do it then he would move the meter himself. he got warned this was a criminal offence and could face 6 months in jail over the phone. he hung up, and within 20 minutes 2 transco vans were outside the house, as they got a report that someone was tampering with the meter.

apparently the meters give off radio signals as well that alert transco/whoever if they have been tampered with too... big brother style or what :shocking:

[paulyoung666]

i also looked into it , and the cost was going to be about the same , deffo you can only touch the pipework after the meter :)

[Julian]

Just a thought Caspar, is there any way that you could say that the meter is in a kinda " dangerous " position?

You know - where someone could bump into it or hurt themselves?

If you could then Transco had better move it FOC. ;)

[Caspar]

Yeah, I hear where you're coming from Julian - an Irish company offers on their website that they'll move it for free if it's in a dangerous position.

Mine, however, is under the sink! :(

[Scarlett]

When you say it's a credit meter, do you mean that you have to put a card in to top it up each week or so or is a reading taken every 3 months or so ?

If it's the former, I'd suggest getting it changed to the later as well as moving it.

Scarlett

*visions of casper in his night shirt trying to prize the outdoor box open at 11pm because the gas supply has gone off :D

[Caspar]

lol Scarlett! :p (I wouldn't need a torch just glow the light!)

I mean pay monthly via variable direct debit, i.e. we get the gas on credit then pay for it. As opposed to prepay meters where you have to pay for the gas first, via the old coin operated boxes and cards

[SMHarman]

I think you're both right, the meter is theirs...we only own the pipe coming from the meter....

All this hassle just to make room for a dishwasher!!!

This 'project' started out as "let's get a dishwasher'!...then "oh!, we'll have to ge tthe meter moved to make room", then "let's have a new kitchen too"....so from a £200 idea...now the 'project' could cost me £3000!! ! :(

I might hire a cleaner to do my washing up! :p :)

Now thats what you call scope creep. :eek:

Yes only the suppler can move the meter. They have to cut off the supply line into the house (possibly the street) which your corgi guy cannot do. The gas coming in is at a pretty high pressure too.

It's only a monopoly in the same way that the ntl cable network is a monopoly and you cannot get a sky engineer to (legally) work on it. Anyone can sell gas down the network, which is more than can be said for ntls network and other cable providers (look at the Warner Cable network in the states to see how reselling can be done!).