Smart Meters - Rant!

wr1ght

House_Martin wrote: »

They re trained just to change a meter, gas or electric and they do not have to be Gas safe registered to change a gas meter. From what I ve been told its quite a long training period and it involves going out with a trained meter fitter for months.
I have just taken an old gas cooker out and it involved unscrewing a big nut and switching the gas off at the meter, should I have had a Gas safe registered bloke round to do this vital bit of skilled work for a £100 ! no thanks.

they most certainly do have to be gas safe registered to change a gas meter.

molerat

Yes but only qualified to change a meter, they need to know (or care) very little about general gas, monkeys could be trained to do it. People think gas safe registration actually means something !

System

We need to be careful when referring to GSR accreditation. If you look at the website, you will see that GSR engineers may only be qualified to undertake certain types of work. For example, a GSR engineer qualified on vented domestic heating systems cannot legally work on unvented cylinders. Whether they do or not is another matter.

System

The qualification needed to change a gas meter does not include being Gas safe registered. They train to level 2 Diploma in Smart Metering , dual fuel.Takes around 12 weeks..Seems like overkill for just switching a meter. People I know are doing it all the time fiddling the gas and screwing in a substitute meter and they certainly are not gas safe registered.

MeterMan

No, you dont need to be gas safe registered to exchange a gas meter.

You do however need to be gas safe registered in order to turn the gas back on after exchanging the meter.

C_Mababejive

One quality training centre i am aware of is offering the diploma course in smart metering (dual fuel) It takes 15 weeks and costs £5,500

C_Mababejive

molerat wrote: »

Yes but only qualified to change a meter, they need to know (or care) very little about general gas, monkeys could be trained to do it. People think gas safe registration actually means something !

It does. It means according to the law, you can work on gas installations and appliances in the course of trade.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1998/2451/regulation/3/made

I do agree that many training establishments are giving away bits of paper for money these days and it isnt just in gas. It is in the whole spectrum of training and accreditation.

Pretty soon we will have doctors, lawyers and dentists who will have done a bit of a course and been deemed qualifed but useless.

spiro

House_Martin wrote: »

BG do lots of three phase smart meter changes and have been doing them for years but only for business meters. Your property may have had a small business in the past which needed extra power.
i think you should employ a private electrician to rewire to the meter to make it single phase and then organise a meter change and get your set -up back to a standard domestic meter to avoid future problems when SMETS2 meters eventually start to be fitted. It could be many years before you get a SMETS 2.. Dont stay loyal to BG, as Martin Lewis was saying on the TV a couple of weeks ago, switch to their cheaper option with Sainsburys Energy. My smart meter continues to work smart switching from BG to Sainsburys Energy by the way.

It is not Smart meters they are fitting at business premises they are AMR (automated meter reading). There is a requirement for business to have these.

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

I got to the point of being a BG Dual Fuel customer and fell off my chair and dropped my thirst cup of tea!

The I read the bit about gas safe, and thought. Every year I clean out my gas fire and furnace. Have done do since I was about 14 when my dad showed me. Not blown the house up yet.

I'm off back to bed, Zzzzzzzz.

System

AMR electric meters and domestic smart meters are basically the same thing using the same technology sending off readings in real time every half hour .Business users don t have an IHD but can view their usage on the internet via an app. They don t seem very reliable as I am constantly reading many AMR meters manually because they for whatever reading are nt working and in some cases have never worked from day one.