New smart meter……huge shock.

Shinamae

I am trying to lose a bit of weight and I’ve decided to eat soup for my meal in the evening so I went to Tesco and see that Heinz soup are 95p and their own brand is 55p so I have bought their own brand and I had a minestrone tonight with granary bread and it was fine…(I do have a soup maker in a cupboard somewhere must really try to find it)

Sorry wrong thread ?

I am trying to lose a bit of weight and I’ve decided to eat soup for my meal in the evening so I went to Tesco and see that Heinz soup are 95p and their own brand is 55p so I have bought their own brand and I had a minestrone tonight with granary bread and it was fine…(I do have a soup maker in a cupboard somewhere must really try to find it)

StarDreamer

Do you have a refrigerator and/or freezer on? I think they take at least two units each day. So that could be 50p these days.

I found some time go that I was not usng my fridge-freezer, so I switched it off. So maybe saving around at least £180 a year now.

Of course, many people need a fridge-freezer facility. It just happens that I don't these days.

They might not be using as much as you think, StarDreamer

I have both a medium-sized fridge-freezer and a medium-sized chest freezer.

Last September, when we were going away for 12 days, I decided to see how much they used while we were away, as they would be the only things left running.
.
Only 19 units had been used when we got back, so if my maths is right, that only worked out at about 1.6 units a day for two appliances.

That was less than I had expected - though still enough to make it worth turning off unused appliances!

I couldn't care one way or the other. We had one of the mark 1 smart meters fitted. It worked, we put the consumer end of the device in a drawer and never looked at it. After six months we changed supplier and it no longer worked.

2 years ago, as part of a building project the meter had to be moved and a new meter installed. They never consulted us over what kind of meter we wanted, just fitted a new non-smart meter. This quite surprised us as we thought a smart meter was the default option.

Well, that is their problem now. They chose to put a non-smart meter in, we are just assuming they did it for good reason, so we will be doing nothing to query it. Why should we?

Ashcombe

This might be of interest to those of you who are considering a smart meter:-

www.goodenergy.co.uk/smart-meters/

Still a no from me …

This might be of interest to those of you who are considering a smart meter:-

www.goodenergy.co.uk/smart-meters/

Do you have a refrigerator and/or freezer on? I think they take at least two units each day. So that could be 50p these days.

I found some time go that I was not usng my fridge-freezer, so I switched it off. So maybe saving around at least £180 a year now.

Of course, many people need a fridge-freezer facility. It just happens that I don't these days.

If you are one a recent (high!) tariff, fifty pence- worth of electricity overnight might just be the standing charge!

Even for electricity that seems a lot overnight... we would only spend that in 24 hours and only if we had the oven on a lot and we still have a few children living at home so several tvs etc on the go

We have one and so far fingers crossed haven’t had a problem. Mr B goes around before we go to bed and unplugs nearly everything. Our over night usage for elec is below 50p and gas below a £1.

i got a very large gas bill years ago even though i had not used the gas, it seems i was getting charged just for having a gas meter in the house, you should call the gas company and find out why.

We’ve had a smart meter for electricity for some time although I don’t take much notice of it. I received my 6 monthly bill this morning and it wasn’t as bad as I was fearing. My £70 pm d/d is to be increased to £97 which doesn’t seem too bad under the circumstances. ?

The gas on an smart meter is updated half hourly. Electricity is updated in real time. Easy to see if you put the kettle on. It also tells you when you are exporting to the grid. I love having control. Knowledge is power.

FlexibleFriend Ensure the charger you buy is one that you can set to take the power from your solar panels only otherwise you will draw from a combination of domestic and solar which is OK if you need a faster charge but if you are happy with a slow charge most of the time then not every charger will do that.

I had one installed on the 4th May this year and I'm really pleases with it. The old electricity was very noisy and I suspected it was running fast. Tried getting them to change it but no. So only was ask for a smart meter which was arranged very quickly and now my D/D has remained the same but I'm now in credit. Before I was making top up payments which are now not necessary. I'm using less than the D/D every month with a daily usage currently of £3 for Electricity and 30p for Gas. I've not cut back on anything just doing what I always have. My fixed tariff ends at the end of this month and will no doubt then get a sharp increase. Apparently the meter takes half hourly readings which I'm told is essential once I have solar panels and EV charger installed. So far so good.

I would not have a smart meter...I'm with British gas and I send monthly meter readings that they request and am billed monthly and pay direct debit £46.

my gas smart meter was installed by BG, new build and was set to send readings to BG, I quickly transferred to octopus. Octopus cannot read the gas meter via smart meter, different signals. They are going to start sending a meter reader around from the end of this month. Ridiculously situated gas meter, virtually on the soil sideways outside. I can still bob up from kneeling but they are sending a person anyway. They do take care of older people

Electric meter is sending readings ok but I have no monitor, they cannot get hold of any due to chip shortage

Oh dear re iron, I have a generator iron and it is always on when sewing

Yay! Chewbacca. A fellow ironing hater. Definitely leave the iron where it is. Mine's in a kitchen cupboard and is going to stay there.

I'm so pleased to hear that ironing is ridiculously expensive.

Me too! I've still not unpacked mine from when I moved house 3 years ago, so this is an excellent excuse to leave it where it is!

We have also resisted having a smart meter despite the constant emails requesting us to. We are careful with our use of both electricity and gas and don’t see how a smart meter could make a difference.

I'm so pleased to hear that ironing is ridiculously expensive, Esspee. What a good excuse for me not to do any, - unless absolutely essential.

Eon have contacted us so many times about installing a smart meter. Last time they said they had made an appointment so my DH said well you can unmake it as we don't want one. We submit monthly readings to them. I follow Martin Lewis advice on smart meters.

Next month our payments are double so £160 pm. We have always been very careful with our energy usage.

H1954

We have been with EDF for a while. They kept hounding us to have a smart meter installed but initially we weren't bothered. Eventually, we gave in and agreed. Arrangements were made and the day and time set, the installation guy turned up, looked at our existing meter ( seemingly they position something just below it ) and said " there's not enough room, you will have to get your meter relocated!
This was to be at our expense and we refused.
EDF constantly bombard us with requests to get a smart meter installed, we explain why we can't but they don't get the message.
Our existing meter in tucked neatly away with the consumer unit and there is nowhere else for it to go.
Also, we don't need a smart meter to remind us to turn off lights, to put a jumper on before turning up the heating when it's cold, to close doors to keep the heat in!

Please don’t waste your time trying to explain,they are not interested and most of it is computer generated anyway.Just ignore..

We have been with EDF for a while. They kept hounding us to have a smart meter installed but initially we weren't bothered. Eventually, we gave in and agreed. Arrangements were made and the day and time set, the installation guy turned up, looked at our existing meter ( seemingly they position something just below it ) and said " there's not enough room, you will have to get your meter relocated!
This was to be at our expense and we refused.
EDF constantly bombard us with requests to get a smart meter installed, we explain why we can't but they don't get the message.
Our existing meter in tucked neatly away with the consumer unit and there is nowhere else for it to go.
Also, we don't need a smart meter to remind us to turn off lights, to put a jumper on before turning up the heating when it's cold, to close doors to keep the heat in!

I finally gave in and had a smart meter fitted, albeit that I'm sceptical about it and mobile signals in this area are still unreliable.

The man who came to fit it gave minimal information about how the small screen works, but was concerned to check that the central heating was OK. As it was turned off for the summer (we have a solar hot water panel backed up by an immersion heater for hot water) I turned down his offer of trying the central heating. We had to re-set the timer on it and have had it running since.

We've had one bill - less usage than last year apparently - and I'm just waiting to see whether the thing is worthwhile long term.