Smart meter U-turn?

EachPenny

MeterMan wrote: »

What are the two identical items on offer? I fit 4 types of electric meter depending on what the customer has requested.

You fit four, but does everybody?

I would like my meter changed Mr MeterMan. I don't like the meters with digital displays, I'd like one of the ones with a spinning disc and nice clear numbers printed in contrasting colours on revolving registers. Could you come and fit one of those for me please?

House_Martin

Believe it or not but there are no rules stopping you buying a nice Sangamo Weston analogue meter and arranging your own fitting with a qualified electrician. So long as the meter is properly certified and registered..Same go s for gas meters. Ebay is full of rogues selling gas meters so thieves can use them as substitute meters and has been for many years.
Meterman , you say you have problems fitting the larger Landys and Gyr E470 electric meters. I could see that problem coming on my rounds all the time. I wonder why in cases like this the much smaller domestic smart meters by Elster can t be used by BG.Other suppliers are using more than one make of electric smart meters.
As for bypassing electric meters..I never found one electric smart meter in the ten years working for BG on smart electric meters which had been bypassed, and my colleague who worked for G4S revenue protection only ever saw one meter tampered in 8 years.They are that much more harder to bypass and then the supplier will know that tampers have taken place. The vast majority of electric tampers are ham fisted efforts by rank amateurs on prepayment meters and the dangers are incredible but so many people do it. Make the meters a harder task to defeat and less people will risk their necks trying. The old Actaris/Itron etc electric prepays are so easy to bypass they are almost optional if you would like to pay for your electricity or get it free.

MeterMan

EachPenny wrote: »

You fit four, but does everybody?

I would like my meter changed Mr MeterMan. I don't like the meters with digital displays, I'd like one of the ones with a spinning disc and nice clear numbers printed in contrasting colours on revolving registers. Could you come and fit one of those for me please?

No, those meters are no longer installed. And yes I am pretty sure all suppliers fit at least 4, come to think of it, I can fit 6 types of electric meter:- Smart Credit, Smart Prepay, 'dumb' credit, dumb prepay, 2rate credit and 2rate electric. all meters are digital and not mechanical. You must be ok with the digital age because of your participation in online forum discussions.

House_Martin wrote: »

Believe it or not but there are no rules stopping you buying a nice Sangamo Weston analogue meter and arranging your own fitting with a qualified electrician. So long as the meter is properly certified and registered..Same go s for gas meters. Ebay is full of rogues selling gas meters so thieves can use them as substitute meters and has been for many years.
Meterman , you say you have problems fitting the larger Landys and Gyr E470 electric meters. I could see that problem coming on my rounds all the time. I wonder why in cases like this the much smaller domestic smart meters by Elster can t be used by BG.Other suppliers are using more than one make of electric smart meters.
As for bypassing electric meters..I never found one electric smart meter in the ten years working for BG on smart electric meters which had been bypassed, and my colleague who worked for G4S revenue protection only ever saw one meter tampered in 8 years.They are that much more harder to bypass and then the supplier will know that tampers have taken place. The vast majority of electric tampers are ham fisted efforts by rank amateurs on prepayment meters and the dangers are incredible but so many people do it. Make the meters a harder task to defeat and less people will risk their necks trying. The old Actaris/Itron etc electric prepays are so easy to bypass they are almost optional if you would like to pay for your electricity or get it free.

Yeah it happens, just depends where the electric service is, in the house or what has been built around it. We do have new L&G meters coming out towards the end of the year which incorporate a built in communication hub, but this makes the meter taller by about 2cm. The hub is detachable though if there is a need.

As for bypassing, I find probably one a month and yes, always on prepay dumb meters. But the principal remains the same when it comes to stealing electric either via a prepay or via a smart meter.

EachPenny

MeterMan wrote: »

No, those meters are no longer installed.
...You must be ok with the digital age because of your participation in online forum discussions.

Which is the point I'm making - things are only optional so long as you have the option. If the supplier says you can only have this one then there is no longer a choice. You like it or lump it.

I have no problem living in the digital age - but people who are partially sighted have complained about how difficult the digital displays on meters are. And with smart meters, having to push buttons to get the right digital data displayed makes it even harder.

MeterMan wrote: »

As for bypassing, I find probably one a month and yes, always on prepay dumb meters. But the principal remains the same when it comes to stealing electric either via a prepay or via a smart meter.

This is going to be interesting - some people on here have been maintaining that it is impossible to steal electric with a smart meter - smart metering is meant to eradicate energy theft.

House_Martin

I can t believe how you react EachPenny.You constantly backbite all the time By "some people " you mean me and of course I would never say "impossible" ..Stop inventing dialogue which never took place and injecting your own . All electric meters can be bypassed .! I have posted the absolute truth that I have not found ONE smart meter bypassed in ten years and hundreds and hundreds of dumb prepays in that time..I might add that Meterman is a meter fitter and does not visit anywhere near the number of properties a day ( 200 ) against his 4 or 5 so my experience of meter bypassing is so much more than Metermans, but you go on a meter fitters evidence over mine.... Smart meters are extremely difficult to bypass. Meterman, as a meter fitter won t have come across a smart meter bypassed . They are so difficult that I have nt found any in the ten years that BG have been installing them, and , get this in your head , neither has my colleague who worked for G4S Revenue Protection for 8 years ( hes just left 2 months ago ) and hes has only come upon ONE electric smart meter which had been ham fistedly bypassed and that the supplier KNEW that the meter had been bypassed and sent him round to investigate. Now please stop irritating me more than Tim Farron does. He plays exactly the same pathetic game as you constantly back biting about Brexit .You two are very similar in how dislikeable you are, and everyone dislikes Tim Farron.. Now stop making your daft comments on my posts

EachPenny

House_Martin wrote: »

I can t believe how you react EachPenny.You constantly backbite all the time By "some people " you mean me and of course I would never say "impossible" and who the hell ever said the word "eradicate "..Stop inventing dialogue which never took place and injecting your own .

Please, can you actually take the time to read posts if you are going to respond that way, or just skip them if you prefer.

Did I say "House Martin says..."? Is HouseMartin the only person on the MSE Energy forum who is suggesting smart meters are resistant to theft, perhaps to the point of it being impossible?

Did I say HouseMartin claims smart meters will "eradicate energy theft" - I didn't even claim it was said by someone posting on the MSE forums.

I just found it interesting that someone who appears to have inside knowledge of metering said the "principal remains the same when it comes to stealing electric either via a prepay or via a smart meter" - because that shoots a great big hole in the argument put forward by some that smart meters will eradicate energy theft (which is one factor being claimed as a justification for the inflated cost of the programme).

mac.d

Part of the attraction of smart meters for industry was definitely that they were supposed to aid revenue protection, perhaps it was just more woolly thinking and not such a great idea in practice. Much like many other aspects of smart metering.

brewerdave

House_Martin wrote: »

Now please stop irritating me more than Tim Farron does. He plays exactly the same pathetic game as you constantly back biting about Brexit .You two are very similar in how dislikeable you are, and everyone dislikes Tim Farron.. Now stop making your daft comments on my posts

...not everyone "dislikes" Tim Farron - I find him mildly irritating...but much less so than Queen Theresa and Red Jeremy:rotfl:

House_Martin

I am the only person on here who has ever claimed that smart meters will drastically lower meter tampering EachPenny so obviously its me you are !!!!!ing about . The problem with the old electric prepayment meters is that they are so easy to defeat they invite tampering.Anyone who wants to see a few photos of the method used and how dangerous it is just PM me with your email and I will send you some photos..Smart electric meters are like Fort Knox compared to them. I am not going to give info on here how they can be defeated but its much more difficult so the lady in Gainsborough who fiddled the outside box electric prepay meter for two years is going to have to go much bigger lengths than cut off 4 inches of earth wire for her free energy. Photo anyone ? lol
Meterman sees tampered meters every month which in its self shows you the scale of theft seeing as how he visits maybe 80 meters a month at a guess., and so do every other meter fitter. I dont think Meter fitters will spot many ex tampers because the clues can be quite difficult to spot . Most tamperers will reinstate the meter back to its untampered state when a meter fitter is due and It all depends on where a meter fitter works as energy theft is area led. Howden for instance is one place I ve worked for many years and only found one bypassed meter..Whereas Hexthorpe area in Doncaster every other house is bypassed as is Kings Street in Edlington..
I ve retired a couple of months ago so I feel free to send out photos of the way the scumbags operate. My big gripe and it always has been is that only BG try hard to stop it. The Europeans who have steamed into the UK on a rape and pillage exercise of our energy industry are paying next to nothing from their profits to stop the scummers stealing my energy. They turn a blind eye to energy theft purely by doing nothing to stop it..and I am paying for it in the long run just the same as some people who constantly get in the dig of the 11 billion smart installation costs

House_Martin

mac.d wrote: »

Part of the attraction of smart meters for industry was definitely that they were supposed to aid revenue protection, perhaps it was just more woolly thinking and not such a great idea in practice. Much like many other aspects of smart metering.

are you trying to say that smart meters will not make any difference at all to energy theft ? I beg to differ . You obviously think I m telling porkies when I say I have never found one smart meter tampered/bypassed in the ten years that I have seen them in operation working for British Gas and I have seen upteeen thousand. In that same time i have found many hundreds of tampered and .damaged by tampers on dumb meters..Don t forget, I only find a tamper when the occupier is either drunk/drugged up/stupid enough to admit me to read the meter, or when another occupier who s not aware of her spouses work lol lets me in..That happens a lot.. Not only are smarts hard to crack, the supplier then knows when zero consumption is supposed to be taking place so they then have the upper hand if a visit to the property is scheduled.all they have to do is program our handheld computers to say something like " zero consumption in use " and they are nabbed if even one light is on in the house.. I could even feel the heat coming out of the letterbox if the central heating is on..