I bought a holiday home in 1999 and shortly after decided that we would make a new life here in south west France.
We sold our London property and invested in a larger family home here in our village in 2000.
During the lengthy massive total renovation, I have replaced all the old wiring with new, although the ancient power supply and meter remain in place.
We are now invited to have the new smart meter ’Linkey’ fitted this month.
To my horror, I now realise that some of the EDF lead seals are in fact missing, although I have never interfered with the installation.
I recently read about a customer being charged a fine with estimated consumption and interest with his new invoice being 4 times the normal amount imposed by EDF (Enedis) to pay off this arbitrary debt!
Help! What do I do as the innocent party?
Any advice would be appreciated,
David , near Perpignan
As long as there is at least one seal on both the meter and the main cut-off box it will be just fine.
We have just had a Linky fitted here, and I asked the technician about the matter of there being unused seal locations on our boxes. He said that it was normal and that only one seal is required on each box. Anyway, the Linkys are fitted by subcontractors rather than EDF employees.
Your meter must have been read many times since 1999, and if there was a problem with the seals it would surely have been pointed out before now.
I think you should just relax and not worry about it.
@david-leslie . It is likely that you will have no problems, but if your peace of mind is affected…I can supply you with a couple of up to date plombs at the cost of P&P.
Frankly, @david-leslie would be best off NOT touching the boxes.
As has already been said… since 1999 there was ample time for the EDF folk to notice and/or remark.
If @david-leslie now puts some “plombs” on… he could well be charged with “tampering” and not have a leg to stand on.
Update: We’ll, my Linky meter was installed last week and the technician when asked didn’t seem to think I had a problem with the missing seals.
However, he had to replace the ancient fuses, which are now no longer available. He had real difficulty getting the fuses out and had to resort to levering them out with a large screwdriver.
After a few days, I noticed that the fuse box (which is made of Bakelite), was extremely hot!
I managed to get another Linky technician to take a look and he confirmed that there was a serious problem.
He phoned for advice and an EDF crew arrived within 2 hours and cut the power to the house from the wires in the street.
They then replaced both the fuse assembly and the main disjoncteur assembly… so I am totally up to date with modern equipment!
I am impressed and thought I would let you all know!
Thanx for the replies.
Glad to hear all is now well…
(I went straight down and felt the boxes in my cupboard… I wonder if anyone else has done the same after reading your post… 
)
Hello… yes, perhaps a good idea for people to quickly check (obviously after there has been a substantial load on the system for a period of time- perhaps chauff-eau on for an hour or so, or heaters/washing machine etc.)
I have seen some criticism of the new ‘smart meter’ system regarding fire risk, so perhaps this is due to a partial replacement as I initially had done.
The Linky technician cannot work beyond the fuses in the house as this needs EDF isolating the power supply from the street. This means that the original (potentially over 50 years old) fuse receptacle cannot be updated.
Well, the sun is due out today down here on the Mediterranean coast with 20 degrees, so I wish everyone a good day!
Had the same experience of ‘burning fuses’ a couple of years ago just before the Linky meter was installed, this followed on from a transformer fire twenty metres from the house which knocked out power to three communes.