SMART METER

[Shallot Man]

Had a smart meter fitted yesterday. On reading the small print I notice that if I move to another company I will have to go back to reading the meters. Now if I had been aware of this in advance. !

[Pa Snip]

If we wanted a smart meter fitted here we would have to pay for it so I would not be best pleased if they then had that clause in the contract.

So glad you changed the meter from metre in the title.
One of my pet hates is the misuse of those words.

But why have you posted in 'Harvesting Q & A' lol

ahhh, leccie board harvesting in the money.

[Colin2016]

Neighbour is having one fitted this week, I asked what the benefit was he said free electric at weekend so that’s when the washing machine & tumble drier will get used.

[Geoff]

They came and fitted one here a couple of years ago but couldn't make it work so took it out again. They hadn't asked about our flaky mobile phone reception and I never thought. Don't understand why there isn't an internet version. I don't see the advantage of them (to the customer) unless you can use them to monitor specific appliances but then I know lots about my overall consumption through the monitoring I've installed for my solar panels.

[Pa Snip]

A few years ago (probably 8 to 10 ) we had what was then referred to as a 'smart meter' installed at commercial premises I used to rent.

The sole purpose of it at that time was to allow the meter to be read without the need for access as the premises were not 'manned' every day.

I've no idea what smart meters are capable of these days, a lot more than that basic model we had I bet.

[robo]

We had them fitted to both gas and lecy around five years ago ,we have changed suppliers a couple of times since but when I change I tell them if they can't access them on line they will have to send someone to read them ,I'm thinking of changing suppliers again in the near future

[Shallot Man]

robo. Let us know how you get on.

[robo]

There is an organization around here I think it's called Merseyside all together I did originally join now I've had a couple of emails saying it's time to switch if I go with them they will sort discounts out I've just not had time to do it

[Geoff]

Don’t get me started on switching!

My contract with E.ON ran out on 4th October, it was:

16.422p/day and 10.406p/unit which for 7,000 units is £788.36pa or £65.70 per month (there are some minor discounts that bring it a bit below £65 in practice).

The best E.ON offered me as a renewal was:

16.422p/day and 14.301p/unit which for 7,000 units is £1,061.01pa or £88.42 per month – a rise of 34½% !!!!

Naturally I then went to various price comparison, switching, money saving expert websites and several of them came up with the best deal as GB Energy – a tiny company near Preston – it was:

17.031p/day and 9.870p/unit which for 7,000 units is £753.06pa or £62.75 per month – quite similar to my old cost

Money Saving Expert has a facility where you can put in your current tariff and they will notify you when a cheaper one becomes available, you can specify how much cheaper before they notify. I updated my records to the GB Energy tariff and ran a new comparison and it said my cheapest tariff would be E.ON Saver Plus Fixed 1 Year v1 Online which was:

36.990p/day and 8.400p/unit which for 7,000 units is £723.01pa or £60.25 per month a reduction of over 8% from my current E.ON tariff or over 42% below what E.ON wanted to start charging me.

Delving deeper I got confirmation this tariff was only available to new customers and their representative could only offer the advice to keep checking to see if a better deal appeared for existing customers. I found this pretty ridiculous. I talked to Money Supermarket and they thought they could switch me to this tariff once the GB Energy tariff was up and running (it is a deal with no exit charge) but they were worried that E.ON would run credit checks and may reject it so I stuck with the GB Energy deal.

These figures are now out of date but I did a one year fix on the GB Energy deal quoted but you can imagine I wasn’t best pleased with E.ON. By the way, if cash flow is as important to you as actual cost some of the better deals, including GB Energy, move you from paying in arrears to paying in advance so initially you have to find an extra monthly payment.

[Monika]

We get gas and electricity from British Gas and had a smart meter fitted about two years ago. We don't monitor our usage (although we could do so) but the advantage is that there are no more visits by the meter reader (the gas meter was inside the house) and we don't have to submit any readings by phone either. Luckily, we are within sight of a mobile phone mast.

[Westi]

I read my meter each month & send them the numbers - none of that "estimated". I love getting the response which basically means "You kidding us"! We did the kitchen up & changed to an electric oven from a gas one - boy did they get confused! Kept sending the polite notice with the threat pretty obvious. Stupid people - surely the hike in electricity readings might have been a hint!
I got sent one of those little plug in things that is supposed to tell you what you're using but what's the point - need to do the washing, don't try to scare me with the wattage used & anyway need that powerpoint for the floor lamp & it never told me what it's usage was? Hmm?

Westi

[robo]

In Spain we live on solar power and bottled gas,with solar power you get used to turning lights off when you walk out of a room if you want to start the washing machine you have to start the generator first it's a pain in the proverbial but it's cheap

[richard p]

we had a smart meter fitted to the worksop last summer, it doesnt tell me anything that a dumb one didnt just sends the readings off so they dont have to send a meter reader round

weve got a dumb meter on the house , with edf , billed monthly, paid online in arrears. every month the estimated bill arrives, closely followed by robot phonecalls wanting to speak to the person responsible for paying the bill, i then pay online the day before the due date.
at the end of the three month period they send a guy to read the meter, they then send a three month bill cancelling the previos 3 estimated monthly bills, and listing some of the payments made in that 3 month period, they always miss off the last payment, i then pay them the requested figure minus the last monthly payment.
apparently the rules say they have to send an accurate bill based on actual readings every 3 months. but for some reason they dont want to move to 3 month billing instead of monthly.
this farce has been going on for years.

we binned the letter demanding we make an appointment to fit a smart meter. their customer relations skills aint the best.


changing tarriffs or another supplier seems to mean going to estimated direct debits paid in advance , experience with elderly parents indicates the estimated advance payments are always more than actual usage

[Geoff]

Well that bargain didn't last long! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38119754

[OscarSidcup]

Yes Geoff I just saw this, thanks!. I was planning to add a comment over the weekend on this thread to recommend them as I am on GB Energy Supply and they were definitely the cheapest around! I tried to shop around a couple of months ago and could not find anyone cheaper. It was nice while it lasted... Well, let's see now!

Regarding smart meters, I had them removed when I bought my house a couple of years ago, the previous owner was on the most expensive British Gas tariff. Technically i could still have used them but fit was so much faff to make a normal reading, with a little remote thingy eating batteries like they were smarties. So GB Energy Supply replaced them with normal ones, which I had to read and share every month. Well, i am now just about to take a reading as advised by the journalists to help when being forced to switch to someone else... stay tuned!