Smart Meters, displays/remote reading dont work if you switch supplier

matelodave

deanos wrote: »

They can also use more water , something that's not mentioned

Are you confusing condensing with combi.
A condensing system boiler won't use any more water than a non-condensing.
A combi bolier (condensing or not) might, if you have to run it for a minute or two to get hot water.


Have you noticed how the thread has been neatly diverted from smart meters to condensing boilers - stange eh?:rotfl:

[Deleted User]

Smart meters will be an absolute godsend to hard pressed prepay users eliminating stupid 20 th century top up methods and opening up reduced tarffs for pay as you go users. There should be no reason why prepay users should nt be getting cheaper yearly fixes. No upkeep and no prepay point visits, no costly trips by meter readers to decomm/recomm or emergency credit visits and best of all..no freebie energy use ( for too long anyway ) for the vast army of renters not paying a bean on credit and prepay meters and expecting us to pay for their theft. Anyone against smart meters are not doing the least well off any favours at all spreading bad advice and petty reasons for refusing them. They are the future and make sense for everyone

Andy_WSM

sacsquacco wrote: »

They are the future and make sense for everyone

Make sense for some people. I can't think of a single advantage of having one. Disadvantage being the costs incurred I'll end up paying.

Advantages for the person that send in regular readings, checks his bill and makes sure he's paying the correct amount? - Don't say "automation" - I wouldn't trust most utility companies to run my bath, let alone my account!

[Deleted User]

Andy_WSM wrote: »

Make sense for some people. I can't think of a single advantage of having one. Disadvantage being the costs incurred I'll end up paying.

Advantages for the person that send in regular readings, checks his bill and makes sure he's paying the correct amount? - Don't say "automation" - I wouldn't trust most utility companies to run my bath, let alone my account!

I ve got them, dont think I paid any extra or more green energy tax. The electric smart is nt that more than a normal electric meter, £120 each or so.Youre paying a lot more anyway than you should due to the vast army of fiddlers throughout the UK. I met a manager of a meter installation company today ( actually offered me a job ! ) who said he could nt believe how rife theft is in the big city of Leeds. Showed me a few tampered meters hed kept and also the latest way of fiddling g4 gas meters I was unaware of.
If anyone can enlighten me how I ve paid a penny extra in the 2 years I ve had mine I would be grateful. Thats one of the big rumours circulting that the new meters are going to hit you in the pocket

Andy_WSM

sacsquacco wrote: »

If anyone can enlighten me how I ve paid a penny extra in the 2 years I ve had mine I would be grateful. Thats one of the big rumours circulting that the new meters are going to hit you in the pocket

The prices we pay for our fuels include the cost of the metering infrastructure as you well know. Smart meters DO cost more than the standard "Ampy" type meters, about 6 times more (based upon your £120 figure) - then there is an ongoing cost of transmitting the data back to the providers - this amount to millions of £s a year, I know as that was my line of work. Who's paying for that? We, the consumer. In fact, I don't even have a smart meter, yet I'm contributing towards others having them. At the moment too, due to the lack of co-operation between the energy suppliers millions of £s are being wasted by fitting smart meters, that become "dumb" meters at the change of supplier. A totally stupid situation.

I've heard the "vast army of fiddlers" spiel before. If the utilities were publicly owned then I can see how reducing fiddling would save money - however, they are privately owned, so "saved money" will simply equal bigger profits / share dividends - making no difference to me, whatsoever. The Government should have enforced years ago that utility companies are held to task to find / stop the fiddlers - but again, I know you know as well as me that the utilites see revenue protection as an expensive inconvenience - there is no motivation at all to save money!

So, I ask again. What would be the benefits of ME having smart meters? That was your original claim, that they make sense for everyone.

[Deleted User]

Andy, will you be happy to pay the metering costs of £60 a year if you refuse a smart meter ? thats what eventually will happen at some time in the distant future.People who refuse to accept the new meters, for whatever reason, must pay the cost of keeping the old obsolete inefficient metering infrastructure in place unnecessarily. Surely you ve got better things to do than mess about imputing readings every month, and you can rest knowing that people like me are not wasting millions every year driving around all day for no reason other than to knock people out of bed, on christmas eve, to rummage under their stairs or knock the tree over getting to the meter
Its not "spiel " about the army of fiddlers but it is area led. Weston Super Mare I expect to be pretty clean of them but I bet Bristol is nt. Certain areas in my town of Doncaster its a given that energy theft is rife and any of the big Northern Cities are a lot worse. Then again, I ve worked in the lovely town of Howden and only found 2 in ten years. Smarts will cut the theft (from me and you ) right back , thats if all the error codes on the meters are actually followed up and actioned.We definitely all pay more because of the free for all, and its getting worse.

Skie_2

We had British Gas rock up one day and install a Smart meter. Must have been back in 2012 (possibly earlier) as it was only when they were beginning to be mentioned. It was part of their scheme to get their meters in early so they had more leverage for the main part of the roll-out, but unfortunately it means their customers will have meters that don't meet the standards for the nationwide roll-out. Weirdly they enabled monthly pay as you go direct debits for a while then disabled it and said their systems didn't support it, probably because they realised it would kill the current scam of pre-charging you an amount calculated by some sort of finger in air mechanism.

Anyway, the in-home display worked fine when we left BG to go to Scottish Power and similarly with Flow. The tariff rates aren't automatically updated and only BG get the readings sent to them so with any other provider you would need to use the panel to get your meter readings.

Andy_WSM

sacsquacco wrote: »

Andy, will you be happy to pay the metering costs of £60 a year if you refuse a smart meter ? thats what eventually will happen at some time in the distant future.People who refuse to accept the new meters, for whatever reason, must pay the cost of keeping the old obsolete inefficient metering infrastructure in place unnecessarily. Surely you ve got better things to do than mess about imputing readings every month, and you can rest knowing that people like me are not wasting millions every year driving around all day for no reason other than to knock people out of bed, on christmas eve, to rummage under their stairs or knock the tree over getting to the meter
Its not "spiel " about the army of fiddlers but it is area led. Weston Super Mare I expect to be pretty clean of them but I bet Bristol is nt. Certain areas in my town of Doncaster its a given that energy theft is rife and any of the big Northern Cities are a lot worse. Then again, I ve worked in the lovely town of Howden and only found 2 in ten years. Smarts will cut the theft (from me and you ) right back , thats if all the error codes on the meters are actually followed up and actioned.We definitely all pay more because of the free for all, and its getting worse.

I've never said I'll refuse a smart meter - just that I don't see the benefits for me. Sure, I get that it will stop some of the fiddling, but it won't stop it all. People will just bypass before the meter and there is nothing the meter can do about that!

As for having an army of you guys trotting about - actually, I'm all for it, I'd rather smart metering money was used to put more feet on the streets and increase the revenue protection teams. I think it is vital that eyes and ears are maintained on the streets. Once the utility companies lose sight of their customers how would they even know what scams are being pulled?

Yes, yes, automatic metering - fantastic - what a shame that most utility companies are so inept they won't use the data correctly. I mean, look at nPower...we've all seen the horror stories on the forum. They can't cope now - automate that sorry story and there will be a huge mess needs fixing! :rotfl: