I've just changed Power supplier to E-0n and they want to fit smart meters. At the time of change I apparently agreed to smart meters to be supplied, but I never noticed it.
I've followed the discussion over the past few months about smart meters on this group. Do the objections still apply or has experience moderated peoples views? Oeter
Don't, you'll be throwing millions of meter readers out of work. The meters are radioactive. Criminals will raid your house in the holidays. The in-house displays listens to your deep thoughts. Your electricity gets billed in kVAh instead of kWh. The cable screws will be never tightened enough and your house will burn down after 10 minutes of use. A man will ring from India and want your bank details to make your electric meter secure.
As long as it is a second generation one then it should be secure. Having sight of what electricity you are using in real time will probably shave 10% off your bill in the first year, but after that no further improvement. If you already have an Owl then it saves nothing.
First generation ones are complete crap, stop working when you change supplier and sometimes give readings wrong by insane amounts. Apart from that they are OK but if you have no mobile signal they cannot fit them.
Another situation where there can be problems I have seen with a 1940's era house that has never been rewired is if they fitted a new meter they said they would have to set the main supply fuse to 20A! It was academic since not having any mobile signal trumped everything so the guy left without doing a thing. Hazards of living against a cliff face.
No UK models were shown to use Rogowski coils ..
I moved from E.on a few months ago for this reason (and the fact that they had jacked up the prices a lot; I had done some fancy footwork before and was on a very cheap tariff which expired in April).
So Energy have been trouble free and have actually just reduced my monthly payment. No meter compulsion and no exit fee.
Can't see the problems! Happy with mine.
How did it enable you to save 10%?
Owl?
I did get a similar claim from E-On, when I asked for evidence of this they backed off. They accepted by refusal to have one but they did say that they would keep nagging!
I take it that the gas meter has to be changed. Just wondering what the replacement is like and how much of the pipework the fitters alter? I ask because of the way additions have been made to the pipes means the earth strap is not quite correctly placed and the cut off valve lever has been awkwardly placed tight up against the wall.
Richard
on 27/11/2019, Tricky Dicky supposed :
That depends.
The gas meters are around the same size as a standard meter, so should fit in place of the old one. Having said that, a friend of mine had his in a very awkward spot next to his front door and buried behind pipes, rather than in a proper meter cupboard. The first installer gave up untouched and it took two installers working together and entire morning to eventually sort the mess out and fit the meter.
My own meters are in proper cupboards with easy access, no modification was necessary and both meters dropped straight in within an hour.
They still don't work though, I keep changing suppliers :-)
Max Demian brought next idea :
They don't, but knowing what you are using when, can empower you to work out ways to save.
By reducing the 24/7 base load to an absolute minimum. There were a couple of long lost iron wall warts sat behind furniture using a few watts each continuously. TV default standby was over 20W and sound system for the PC consumed as much power in standby as when it was on!
Most of my other gear had sensible standby currents <<1W.
A couple of smart master slave extension sockets later and base load was much reduced. It depends on you being at least curious as to why power consumption is a bit high with nothing apparently switched on.
Residual base load is now kitchen white goods, router, alarm and emergency lights. All of which are essential to stay on power.
DIY clip on smart meter (other brands are available).
My main objections are that they are a waste of money, don't save me money, and allow the supplier to remotely disconnect my supply. In addition in the North of England they more likely not to work as the network back to the supplier is different.
The only one of these things that has changed is that some suppliers are surcharging those of us who choose not to have a smart meter, presumably in order to reach the government target....
... so if the cheapest tarrif needs a smart meter go for it
Dave
They also make it possible to determine when a property is unoccupied, or likely to be.
Tee, the answer as always is somewhere between paranoia and sensible. I personally don't think there will be much difference, since eventually you will shove the readout in a drawer and forget about it. Brian
Tee, the answer as always is somewhere between paranoia and sensible. I personally don't think there will be much difference, since eventually you will shove the readout in a drawer and forget about it. Brian
Doesn't seem to prevent them giving crazy readings from time to time that the computer takes at face value.
Even in the days of manual readings you get get some pretty insane bills. They did it to our VH because the system thought we had a 6 digit meter and the meter only had 5 digit display. The clueless meter reading muppet zero padded at the wrong end and we had a quarterly electricity bill for half the national debt. It was 9x a decade of actual usage!
They didn't mention the VIR wiring then ?.
Until you realise that far from being 'free' you will ultimately pay for it twice over, over its lifetime.
Does empower mean let?
Bill
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