Smart meters

Casdon

I’ve just had a letter to say my electricity meter has to be changed because the radio service that supports it is being switched off, and a smart meter is the only alternative. It is legitimate, I checked on CAB, the radio service is being terminated in June 2025, so I will be without power if the meter isn’t changed.

I've not heard that one anywhere - re them having a radio service to our (traditional) meters. I'd be investigating thoroughly if they told me that one - I guess electricians ought to know?? I'm certainly not having a smart meter ever - they can take a running jump on that. I do know about the excuse to change them of "Oh well - your meter is ever so old (think that's 20 years??) and so it has to be changed now". My meter is only about 10 years old (goodness knows why the electrician that virtually rewired my house when I moved here changed it - but he did - and got an absolute rocket out of the overall meter inspector the law said he had to call in at that point). I don't want the fuel people (and any Tom/Dick/Harry scammer) to be able to spot from afar what fuel I'm using and when and make an educated guess from that as to whether I'm in or no! The thought of some scally thinking "Ooh that's a couple of days in a row when she must have been away - as it's only been a low level of electric used. Good time to break in and thieve". I don't want the government to know either. Add that my electric meter is in a cupboard the other side of my bedroom wall (ie I'd be very near it for hours daily). It's no big deal for me to read my meters myself every couple of months when they tell me to do so. I don't see any point in knowing what fuel I'm using and when - as it won't make a scrap of difference to what I actually use.

Nannapat1

Marydoll
Ofgem says that you cannot be charged for energy usage beyond 12 months.

We haven't been charged for it, but they are basing their estimates on the incorrect bills.
It is an ongoing battle to rectify it.

We are pretty savvy and have followed every path available, but no-one will listen. The right hand does not know what the left hand is doing and they do not communicate with each other.

Heaven help those, who are not savvy.

my electricity company keeps asking me to get a smart meter but it would mean changing from my pre-paid meter that i have used for 20 years, i don't use my radiators and kept my bill for july 23 to july 24 to under £600, an older lady in my building got one and started to worry about heating the house as she was always checking the meter, there is pros and cons to everything.

Marydoll
Ofgem says that you cannot be charged for energy usage beyond 12 months.

My husband insisted on a smart meter
I insisted he have it out in his shed
They emit radiation
They also communicate our business to who knows where
Not my suspicious mind - this was corroborated my a scientist friend who said he would never have one
Of course they lure you in with incentives which in itself is slightly suspicious

We have a smart meter with EON. Next. We are in a flat with underfloor heating and have Economy 10 which gives us 10 hours of cheap electric. 4 hours in an afternoon, 2 hours in an evening and 4 hours during the night. These are our current prices but due to increase from 1st October.

Marydoll We've just had a similar (but not so serious) ongoing argument with a supplier.

After we had the smart meter put in it was nothing but trouble for weeks trying to reconcile the previous payments with what we owed. We could not get it through the assistant's head that they had already overcharged us (a minimal amount) and been paid for it, so we weren't paying for it again. MrA spoke to 3 different people in words of two syllables explaining it, resent photos of the meter we had already sent in but not one of them seemed to be able to do any simple deductions. In the end they agreed to start the new bill using our calculations but it was still wrong.

MrA responded to the usual 'Did we solve your problem?' enquiry with a short 'No. Please employ some people who can count.' - which is a bit rude but after two weeks of it I didn't really blame him.

M0nica

Marydoll We pay our bills on actual figures and not by spreading the bills evenly over the year.

Could you, after the winter, start setting aside a steady monthly amount in a teapot somewhere and just ask for monthly bills based on actual usage and dip into the teapot in the high bill months?

Monica, you seem to have missed the point.

We are on our third meter in a year, the third meter for some reason hasn't been recorded on the system. When the meter reader came to check the readings because they were not registering on the system, the serial numbers did not match.
Consequently Scottish Gas, ( different depts. do not appear to communicate with each other ) are trying to base our usage on the faulty readings from years ago.

We know exactly how much we use and owe and DH sends in monthly readings which are ignored. Furthermore, I do not have a teapot, but a pot in my bank account, where I put additional cash, to cover any problems with fuel payments. We are pretty canny when it comes to finances.
In fact we could have a 5* holiday abroad with what I have saved (but know I don't owe), unfortunately I cannot get travel insurance.

We have an electric smart meter, which works perfectly well.--Touch wood--

We were moved to Eon when our fuel company went bust. We have found them very good. I have smart meters and love them. They have reduced our monthly payments twice since we started with them and I have now fixed the price.

Marydoll We pay our bills on actual figures and not by spreading the bills evenly over the year.

Could you, after the winter, start setting aside a steady monthly amount in a teapot somewhere and just ask for monthly bills based on actual usage and dip into the teapot in the high bill months?

I rang Octopus yesterday, said I was looking to fix my payments, don’t have a SM, don’t want one, no exit fees, couldn’t see anything on line that matched that, all on offer seemed to need a SM.

The adviser soon came up with a suitable fix, assured me no SM required, so have fixed for 15 months.

They just didn’t seem to promote it online.

I wonder why?

🤷‍♀️

We tracked our bills too, Monica, but Scottish Gas refused to listen, despite DH producing spreadsheets of consumption for the previous two years, which clearly proved something was wrong..
We thought we had resolved it, it took nearly a year. However, we appear to be back to square one, because our monthly DD has reverted back to being based on the erroneous bills, despite us being thousands in credit.
It is a shambles.

I can Kim19. My gas meter is at the back of the cupboard under the stairs and reading it means taking half the contents out - it is the broom cupboard, etting down on the floor, with a torch, reaching in to press buttons, trying to write it down, thn crawl out of cupboard, put everything back in.

The eectricity meter, a smart meter is outside at the back and requires the use of a clumsy plastic key, except as it is the smart meter it sends the reading in automatically, so I do not have to fiddle with it, nor need I go outside in the rain.

I check my bill when it comes, sitting in comfort at my desk and can immediately see whether the bill has jumped as I have been tracking my quarterly, now monthly, consumption on a spread sheet for over 20 years.

I'm with BlueBelle on this. Can't find a single hardship in the five minutes it takes me to read meters and transmit the findings on line. Also keeps me alert to any unexplained jumps in consumption.

We are with Ovo and are told that our meter’s time limit has expired. Looking into it I find some regulation of 2014, no doubt introduced for the express purpose of making money for meter manufacturers. So we’ll prob be forced to have one.

I dread a problem like Mary doll’s or being told Oh dear we find you’ve been underpaying since 2014. Meters were introduced for the convenience of providers, not consumers and I resent being fobbed off with a twopence halfpenny reduction if I do the laundry in the middle of the night.

We had the original British Gas smart meters for gas and electricity. They didn’t show any screen readings except to say whether items were high, medium or low usage. No cost was indicated. A few years ago we received a letter from them asking us to read the ,meters as they were no longer able to receive our readings. Since then we have read the meters and when I asked via the app about a new one the reply was that there was a shortage but we were on their list!!!However we had a phone call a few months ago from another company employed by BG to”mend” our meters. As I had just seen a report on the news about “mended” meters causing a lot of trouble I said I would have a new one but not a mended one. As I heard they were not reliable and also the old one gave me no payment information. We are in our eighties and the last thing we want is aggravation about possible errors.

Shinamae

Been with Octopus a few years now, absolutely no complaints about them at all
Don’t have a smart meter, don’t want a smart meter, won’t have a smart meter 🤓

You may, eventually like us, be forced to have one. Our electricity meter had apparently reached the end of its life, it was the old type with dials where one read clockwise and the next anticlockwise. We refused to have the gas meter changed, there's nothing wrong with that one. We've been with Octopus for a few years and I've found them very good. We didn't want the remote display unit and just use the app which according to Octopus is more reliable.

We finally had a smart meter put in when the solar panels were installed earlier this year. Without it we don't get paid for electricity we send back to the grid - not that it's really worth it as we get next to nothing for it, but we were concerned about possible future arguments with the power company about our low grid usage. At least they can't argue with their own smart meter. So far it's made no difference to us and seems to be working okay.

I’ve just had a letter to say my electricity meter has to be changed because the radio service that supports it is being switched off, and a smart meter is the only alternative. It is legitimate, I checked on CAB, the radio service is being terminated in June 2025, so I will be without power if the meter isn’t changed.

Been with Octopus a few years now, absolutely no complaints about them at all
Don’t have a smart meter, don’t want a smart meter, won’t have a smart meter 🤓

We've had a smart meter for over two years and never had any issues. We're on Intelligent Octopus Go which I think costs us about 7p per kw for about 6 hours overnight. Have a look at the tariffs available to you on their website. We have an electric vehicle and have a charger which obviously works well for us.

My sister has one with British Gas and has no complaints. She takes advantage of the occasional offers of cheaper electricity between certain hours, but it’s not an every day thing.

Sorry meant to add I’ve not got a smart meter don’t want one.

I’ve been with Octopus a long time now and I’ve just fixed for 15m no exit fees starting in November. I’ve had nothing but good service from them.

Jane43

Which tariff are you on? It must be the one that I missed out on.