The whole set-up is very confusing. I wonder if that old meter is connected to a 2nd supply somehow? It used to be 2 houses but was knocked together some 10 years ago.
My guess is that at some point whichever part of the house the boards in that first photo feed was rented out separately by whoever owned the other part, hence a privately installed meter to charge the tenant for his usage. Quite likely before that it had a second supply; that unpainted patch on the right of the board looks as though it might have held another meter at some point, although the ELCB mounted over part of that patch would suggest it was moved or installed after the second supply was disconnected, if such did in fact exist.
But am I still finding things, like the council tax being set separate for both places.
Are there still any overhead power lines in close proximity though? In many rural areas there are still overhead distribution lines, but when a new (or replacement) service drop is run to a home, it's run underground from the nearest suitable pole.
Good point, but isn't the council-tax exemption for empty houses only for about 6 or 12 months at most? I would have thought the owner would still have wanted to minimize the tax.
"Never say Never" There is no reason why a conductor could not be enclosed by two layers, both of which were specified in terms of their insulating properties.
In practice, your (oft-made) point is fairly pedantic, since I doubt very much that the insulating properties of the average 'sheath' are any less than those of the 'insulation' which the sheath surrounds.
Good point, but isn't the council-tax exemption for empty houses only for about 6 or 12 months at most? I would have thought the owner would still have wanted to minimize the tax.
In fact, worse than that with at least some LAs. As you say, Council Tax on an unoccupied property becomes payable after a period of exemption, but if the non-occupancy continues, some LAs will charge double the normal rate after a year or three.
"Never say Never" There is no reason why a conductor could not be enclosed by two layers, both of which were specified in terms of their insulating properties.
I'm not totally sure what you mean. It's a question of the specification of the materials used for the two layers, and the tests undertaken to demonstrate that they comply with that specification.
Indeed - I also think that's what he was trying to imply (i.e. it was essentially a rhetorical question) - but I still don't really understand what point he is making. One can test the insulating properties of the material of the 'sheath' just as much as one can test the insulating properties of the material of the 'insulation'.
I'm not sure that any 'rules' have ever changed - I think that, in general, individual LAs are free to choose how to structure and administer Council Tax charges (and how much to charge).
IIRC, the concept of charging 'rates' on unoccupied buildings was introduced back in the 60s/70s as a disincentive to those builders/developers who, during a period of rapid property price increases, built buildings and deliberately left them unsold for years because of the greatly increased sale price that they would ultimately be able to achieve (far outstripping the cost of their having tied up capital for a long time)
I know they can set the rate they want to charge for the "middle" band home, and the higher and lower bands are a fixed percentage above or below that rate, but I wasn't aware that they ever had the authority (at least under the Council Tax system) to charge extra for unoccupied properties.
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