First Utility Switch. Smart Meter Install?

Babycakes

Hi there

I have recently switched to First Utility.

Does anyone know how long it takes for them to arrange a Smart Meter installation?

firefox1956

I switched to FU in March of this year they have not mentioned a fitting date for the smart meter.
I wish they would hurry up & fit it......it would save me messing about reading the meter every month.
HTH

0rsen

Before rushing to get a smart meter installed, you might like to read this: http://stopsmartmeters.org.uk/

firefox1956

0rsen wrote: »

Before rushing to get a smart meter installed, you might like to read this: http://stopsmartmeters.org.uk/

Wondered how long it would be before someone brought this up again !!!

Mobyduck

firefox1956 wrote: »

Wondered how long it would be before someone brought this up again !!!

So, how does a smart meter save you money? It doesn't actually do anything except provide information to the supplier. As for reducing your costs, why would any business promote something that would reduce their revenue? British Gas even went so far, at one stage, as trying to tell customers that Smart meters were mandatory, so desperate are they to get these things installed. Before I retired, I worked in electronics, including with micro-wave equipment, which is what we are talking about, and I wouldn't have one for a gold clock.

matelodave

What are you talking about?
It uses a mobile phone sim and is therefore working at mobile phone frequencies which aren't exactly microwaves and are using significantly less power than most microwave devices.
An electricity meter in a cupboard or even on a wall isn't transmitting any more power than a mobile phone which is used clamped to your ear cooking your brain or sitting in your pocket cooking your innards.
If you feel you want to put your tuppence worth in at least get the facts right and don't start scaremongering by giving incorrect and spurious information.

Fruit_and_Nut_Case

matelodave wrote: »

...mobile phone frequencies which aren't exactly microwaves...

They are actually in the microwave part of the spectrum.

matelodave wrote: »

...are using significantly less power than most microwave devices....

This I'll grant you if you're talking about ovens. To be pedantic, I suspect, however, that most microwave devices these days are mobile phones.

matelodave

What about wi-fi then, at 2.4Ghz & 5Ghz it is further into the microwave region than any of the mobile phone frequencies but everyone seems quite happy to squirt it all round the house and to even have a lap-top which is squirting it back again sitting on your knees cooking you as well. How about a Bluetooth earpiece at 2.4Ghz sitting in your ear all day

There's far more radiation floating about than you'll ever get from smart meters and most of it is being generated by stuff actually being carried around in your pockets and handbags.

As I said using the word microwave is just scaremongering - anything above 300MHz could be called microwaves but that would include all the TV bands and a lot more besides.

[Deleted User]

Mobyduck wrote: »

So, how does a smart meter save you money? It doesn't actually do anything except provide information to the supplier. As for reducing your costs, why would any business promote something that would reduce their revenue? British Gas even went so far, at one stage, as trying to tell customers that Smart meters were mandatory, so desperate are they to get these things installed. Before I retired, I worked in electronics, including with micro-wave equipment, which is what we are talking about, and I wouldn't have one for a gold clock.

They were mandatory in the first few years until the Lib/Dems voted against them last year to make them optional. My information is that suppliers will be allowed to charge metering costs to all the refuseniks of approx £60 a year which is fair enough. Refusers will be making the suppliers run greater costs which they will pass on to the rest of us.otherwise. There are serious flaws in normal non smart meters which must be overcome at all costs regardless of petty reasons of the few

C_Mababejive

Are they still rolling out smart meters? I think BG are mostly the only company to install them in big numbers anyway.

Did you know that the smart meters out there are not the same as traditional meters with regard to how they measure?

Your traditional big box meter is mechanical and measures by positive displacement of known fixed volumes in the mechanism as it rotates.

Smart meters dont do this. They are inferential meters i,e they take an inferred measurement of gas volume passed based on other parameters.

They have their flaws..nuff said..

[Deleted User]

C_Mababejive wrote: »

Are they still rolling out smart meters? I think BG are mostly the only company to install them in big numbers anyway.

Did you know that the smart meters out there are not the same as traditional meters with regard to how they measure?

Your traditional big box meter is mechanical and measures by positive displacement of known fixed volumes in the mechanism as it rotates.

Smart meters dont do this. They are inferential meters i,e they take an inferred measurement of gas volume passed based on other parameters.

They have their flaws..nuff said..

BG, in my area at least, are the only one of the big six to get the rollout underway. They are now in the 7 th year. First Utility also have been fitting them for 4 or 5 years. All new electric meters are digital. Smart gas meter is a small digital E6 meter, the same model as the prepay meter. Metric gas domestic meter is, as you say , a G4 mechanical meter. Smart meters are badly needed for all our benefit. Every customer is paying approx £60 a year extra per year,( including the ludicrous tin hatters ) to cover the ever increasing energy thieves and the professional non paying gas/electric bill renter. In the 7 years I have been reading smart meters I have so far never found a bypassed or tampered smart meter.