Friday, December 10, 2010

How to find out if you are paying for someone else's electricity

We at the Power Panda thought we would tell you how to tell to see if someone else is using your electricity.
Before we share this simple and no cost way of determining this we want to briefly say that it is very rare for you to be paying for someone else's electricity.  Usually it is limited to situations where a block of units has been renovated.  What happens is that the electricians occasionally do the new wiring incorrectly and wire all of the wiring into one meter.
Another situation is with granny flats.  Even if the flat is on a separate meter sometimes the original power points inside the flat are wired to the main houses meter.

What this means is that there are some situations where you are paying for someone else's electricity.
What is the best way to determine this?

What you do is wait until dusk (8.30 in summer, or 6-7pm in winter) and go out to your meter box.  You should see a main switch (or two).  Turn all of the switches to the 'off' position.  This will stop all power to your house.
Quickly look around to see if any of your neighbor's lights have just gone off.

Also now is a good time to visit your neighbors and see if any of their electrical devices are not working.

If this action results in some (or all) of your neighbor's power going out then you are paying for their electricity.  If your neighbor's power is still working they are paying for their own power.

Hopefully you'll never need to use this trick, but it is 99.9% accurate and of course doesn't' cost you a thing.

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