Overheating Electricity Meters ?

[billy bookcase]

[Tim+]

Sounds right.

No.

It’s a con.

Tim

[Dave Plowman (News]

Crikey. Is this something else the Tory government managed to suppress?

[alan_m]

Yes, that's 7.7 million faulty electric metres in the UK

[Martin Brown]

Sounds exactly like a scam to me. The sort of people executing this scam are far likely to leave your electrics cupboard in a state where it might well catch fire as a direct result of *their* meddling.

They should ring up their electricity provider and ask them!

NO. Mine was only upgraded to a digital readout last year.

My supplier had been mithering about it for ages. It was an antediluvian mechanical mechanism with counter rotating dials and had clocked through all the digits back to zero (been with the house since at least 1977).

At that point they wouldn't take no for an answer.

I think it would have made the news by now if *that* were true.

Don't let them set foot in the property!

It is the responsibility of the electricity supply company to provide and have the meter fitted by an approved competent person. My supplier outsources the work to Siemens who also make the unit being fitted.

ISTR It is an offence for anyone unapproved to tamper with the seals required to fit a new meter.

[Andy Burns]

After they extract £125 from the gullible, you don't expect them to actually turn up, do you?

[John Rumm]

in one year!

[Brian Gaff]

I was going to say sounds like spam to me. Electricity meeters cannot overheat, escepecially the really old ones as they operate by a spinning disk, They can mis read, but generally not much else.The digital ones actually cost the companies to run far more and I'd expect smart meters moor still. Certainly as I'm on my second smart meter due to the first one dying it seems that they may have jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. Brian

[Rod Speed]

Brian Gaff [e-mail] wrote

Not with meter reading.

Nope, much cheaper to read.

[ARW]

I would expect them to empty their life savings from the bank account.

£125 is never enough is it?

[alan_m]

Surely the yearly safety checks by the meter readers are still required?

With my old meters not being read for 18 months I used to get a letter asking me to make an appointment and failing that threating a court order to gain access to my property for a SAFETY CHECK*.

If a safety check was required before it still must be the case witn smart meters.

*The safety check seemed to be the (non-gas safe registered) meter reader just reading the meter :)

[Robin]

Ofgem dropped the requirement for routine checks (which was every 2 years) in 2016.

[Rod Speed]

alan_m [e-mail]> wrote

It would be stupid if that was so. And even if it was, that would be a lot cheaper than a meter read every 3 months.

Not if they changed that.

[Dave Plowman (News]

Sounds about right. Can't remember the last time a meter man called.

[Martin Brown]

One called on me 3 days after my smart meter was finally installed. (on the second attempt)

*YOU COULDN'T MAKE IT UP!*

[Dave Plowman (News]

Is taking two attempts common then? My first chap muttered about needing help to change the gas meter - and took pics - and said there wasn't room for the electric one. Second chap, some weeks later, knew nothing of this and just did the job.

[Jeff Layman]

It all sounds like a modern version of Flanders & Swann's "The gas man cometh"!

[Animal]

no

It's a security check, not a safety check. They call it a safety check for better public relations

They're looking for signs of tampering & checking they have a definitely correct reading.

[Martin Brown]

Where I live complete failure a couple of months after installation is the norm. Dodgy mobile connectivity tends to cause chaos.

I was amazed that mine worked at all.

[Dave Plowman (News]

My IHD isn't working correctly. Only displays gas and not electric. And the money cost given for gas usage years out of date.

Phoned them up, and they said it might correct itself in a couple of weeks. But my company is getting the readings from them.