British Gas asking for meter readings when we have Smart Meters

Bogof_Babe

As per the title, we had Smart Meters installed last year by BG for our Gas and Electricity.

They have now phoned twice (recorded messages so can't speak to a real person) asking for meter readings.

What's going on? I thought Smart Meters were supposed to do away with having to read our own meters. Ours are inconveniently sited in our garage and necessitates moving OH's "pride and joy" car out of the way, that only comes out once a year for MOT!

System

Could be that they have stopped communicating for whatever reason. I work for BG meter reading and they send me out to read non communicating smart meters sometimes.more often on business meters but a few domestics do stop working.

Bogof_Babe

Thanks for that. I would have thought that if there is a problem with our meters, the solution would be to arrange for someone to come out and fix them, not just return us to the cycle of reading the darned things every few months.

footyguy

Bogof_Babe wrote: »

As per the title, we had Smart Meters installed last year by BG for our Gas and Electricity.

They have now phoned twice (recorded messages so can't speak to a real person) asking for meter readings.

What's going on? I thought Smart Meters were supposed to do away with having to read our own meters. Ours are inconveniently sited in our garage and necessitates moving OH's "pride and joy" car out of the way, that only comes out once a year for MOT!

Can't you get the reading off the IHD?

Bogof_Babe

footyguy wrote: »

Can't you get the reading off the IHD?

What's the IHD?

footyguy

Bogof_Babe wrote: »

What's the IHD?

https://www.britishgas.co.uk/content/dam/british-gas/documents/part3.pdf

Bogof_Babe

footyguy wrote: »

https://www.britishgas.co.uk/content/dam/british-gas/documents/part3.pdf

Oh we have got one of those in a drawer somewhere. The novelty soon wore off.

Didn't know it showed the current meter readings as well as the cost of what we are using. Presumably that information is buried deep within a series of menus or similar?

Anyway that's not really the point, they put in smart meters to avoid us having to do anything other than pay the bills, so it's their responsibility to ensure they work.

[Deleted User]

Bogof_Babe wrote: »

The novelty soon wore off.

There's the reason why smart meters are a waste of money.

They'll only help save money off people's bills if they are willing to faff around checking their usage every verse end, and nobody's going to be bothered with that for very long.

Bogof_Babe

jack_pott wrote: »

There's the reason why smart meters are a waste of money.

They'll only help save money off people's bills if they are willing to faff around checking their usage every verse end, and nobody's going to be bothered with that for very long.

The smart meters are so that usage is monitored centrally without the home occupier having to submit their own readings.

The usage gadget is an optional extra for those who want to see where they are using energy, and how much it is costing. We plugged it in for about a week, but it was so obvious that if we had the tumble dryer on we were using more electricity than if we didn't, etc. etc., that we decided we would rather have the use of our wall socket back!

mac.d

Bogof_Babe wrote: »

Didn't know it showed the current meter readings as well as the cost of what we are using. Presumably that information is buried deep within a series of menus or similar?

Anyway that's not really the point, they put in smart meters to avoid us having to do anything other than pay the bills, so it's their responsibility to ensure they work.

If they're asking for readings then there must be a problem with the smart meter communicating with their systems, and perhaps when they are next due to read meters in your area they will send someone out to read it and check what's up with it.

In the meantime, plug the energy monitor they gave you back in just to get your meter readings off it and then throw it back in the drawer. There's a 'Meter Readings' listed in the main menu, so its not hard to find them.

If you plug it back in and it can't communicate with your meters, then you know there is definitely a problem.

Norman_Castle

jack_pott wrote: »

There's the reason why smart meters are a waste of money.

They'll only help save money off people's bills if they are willing to faff around checking their usage every verse end, and nobody's going to be bothered with that for very long.

The in house display is like a free Meercat toy but much less fun. Its waved in front of customers to distract them from the £X billion they're paying to save suppliers £X billion.