Yet more Smart Meters

[Davey]

I read here some weeks ago that the installation of a Smart Meter was not mandatory, but I have just received a notice about the impending installation of a water meter in Essex.

It includes this note:

"Do I have to have a meter?

Yes, where technically possible. The Secretary of State for the Environment has approved our plan to meter customers' properties because we are operating in an area designated as being under severe water stress."

In this case, as the place is subject to limited occupation, say about one week per month on average, having metering may well be advantageous, and I have the option of remaining on the old payment system for up to two years.

[whisky-dave]

It doesn;t say it's a smart meter though, so maybe it won't be smart.

[Andy Burns]

Is it a water meter, or a smart water meter?

A few years ago Severn Trent had a division producing smart water meters. By the time I got smart gas/elec meters and was interested to know if they could fit a smart water meter, they'd flogged that division off, and I think the main company became USA based, and now we just have STwater in the UK and the consumer division doesn't have the option of installing one.

[Davey]

It doesn't use the term 'Smart', but it does say that it will use Automatic Meter Reading Technology, "allowing the company to read the meter by just driving past the property". I guess this qualifies as a Smart Meter.

How they install this is going to be interesting. The five flats' supplies split, with 'Y's, inside a pipe chase, which is just big enough for the pipes, but hardly for meters as well. Outside the property would meter the whole property, not individual flats.

[Nightjar]

In some flats I know, the meters are installed in each flat, where the supply enters the flat.

[Brian Gaff]

When they managed to concrete up my last water meter in the footway due to the very efficient contractor doing it, they put in a smart water meter which apparently can be read by just driving by it in a car. However I am told it still has a dial or display I can look at. I told them that I was blind so it hardly matters, but if the readings go wrong I might ask to be informed how to log in and check it! As for leccy meters, I'm being told that all properties will have to have smart meters by the end of 2020, oh good can I have one now, no, they cannot cope with enconomy rates yet, Huh? I'd sack the designers.

Apparently if you are in some god forsaken outflung place which has leccy but not much else you can still keep the old meter until a solution is found to communicate to it. Brian

[Bob Minchin]

I've had a meter inside the house for 30 plus years voluntarily due to a relatively large house with low occupancy.

A couple of years back we all got letter saying they were converting the whole road to meters and I expected us to get a new one in the street so they could be all remotely read.

However we were "passed over" for the compulsory meters as we already had one. Trouble is that the meter reader has to call every 6 months to read ours manually. Were is the logic in that? Minimal saving on not giving us a new street mounted meter - given that the contractors were in the road anyway and still having to pay Siemens for their meter reading service. Ironically I am a Siemens pensioner (I worked for a completely different part of Siemens) so indirectly Southern Water are helping to contribute to my pension.

What we could do with is a smart water board!

[Davey]

In my case, that is buried somewhere in the walls or under the floor!

[Bill]

In message , Davey writes

When I was first offered a water meter years ago, I rang NW Water and asked whether I would be able to read it myself. They didn't seem to understand the question and I never heard from them again.

I am on a quarterly bill arrangement with electricity. They sent a bill at the usual date, which I paid. Then a month later they sent an additional estimated bill to me and also one to an ageing relative, which distressed her. I emailed asking why we had a supplementary bill, when the contract said quarterly. They replied just saying the bill was due and should be paid. I then exchanged 3 more emails with them asking why the bill and why they still hadn't answered the question. At that point I decided life was too short, checked the meter myself and paid. Meanwhile the relative rang them a few times and finally got through. She said the nice young man said it must be a mistake and she should not pay. She doesn't seem to have been hauled off to court yet.

I'd be much happier if I felt I was dealing with a vaguely competent organisation.

[Davey]

This company, Affinity Water, shows a meter in the bumph which has a readable display. There is no guarantee that that is the meter which will be installed, of course. Due to the afore-mentioned installation puzzle, it will be interesting to find out if it even visible, let alone readable.

[Nightjar]

Do you not have a stopcock in the flat? If you do, it would be installed just before that.

[F]

You can keep the old style mechanical meter wherever you live. Smart are not compulsory.

[F]

This is what we have, and have had for a couple or three years now. It has the usual mileometer style readout but has an add-on that can be read remotely.

Saves me ringing them up to correct their hopeless estimates as I used to have to.

[dennis]

Water meter that can be remotely read are common. There is a cable to a plastic dome somewhere on the outside of the building and they can read it from there. Flats often have a bank of such terminations so that all the meters can be rad in one place. They sometimes fit that type of meter in the road, its why there is a plastic cap in the centre of the covers in the pavement.

[Davey]

But six hours ago I posted in this thread: 'but it does say that it will use Automatic Meter Reading Technology, "allowing the company to read the meter by just driving past the property".'

[Davey]

Good question. I'll look next time I'm there. If so, it is probably in the airing cupboard, where all the plumbing lives. It's worth finding it anyway, just in case of emergency.

[Max Demian]

However I am

A little while ago, when I lived in a place with Economy 7, I tried to find out how 'smart' meters might fit in (mainly as a matter of interest), but no-one seemed to know. Clearly there are important questions involved, such as whether the peak times will be the same - if under control of the electricity suppliers they might be too short or too long - and whether, as currently, off peak appliances (such as storage heaters and immersion heaters) will be controlled remotely. Also, if the user doesn't know when off-peak times are, how is he to know when he can take advantage of the cheaper rates to, for example, run the washing machine?

[Harry Bloomfield]

on 11/01/2017, dennis@home supposed :

No dome on our meter and it can be remotely read. It just has the brass part with the two pipes - the base, then the digits plus a plastic cased section which are able to swivel on the base to it to be set to an angle where it can be read.

YW assured us it could be read remotely from the road at the end of our drive, through the house walls to where it is located at the back of the house.

[Robin]

Thames fitted that technology around the start of the century. Then ceased to do so around 2008 when the remote readers failed one after the other. We had one. Thames replaced it with a meter-cum-stopcock-in-the-pavement. That is still their default. With no plastic cap. But readable other than by eyeball (and by eyeball).

[Tim Watts]

You know, I have been wondering what that was all about for some time...