Smart meter installation & design - seeking info

dydderent

I'm in the position of having old, dumb meters in my house, neither are in a great position and I'd like to slightly move one or both eventually as part of some renovation works. The gas is by the front door and probably improved by just some better boxing in. The elec is in a box in the hallway that is way too big and just at head-bumping height for my OH. There is loads of room in the box, it just hasn't been very well thought out, so my plan would be to eventually move the meter slightly to the left and up. The sticking point is the main fuse, which can't be moved without major hassle, but as this is on the far left of the box it should be able to get a neater solution by just boxing this in next to to the door coving. I also would like to move to smart meters, My electrician told me that the utilities will not want to change the position of the meter when they swap it out, so I think getting that done first is best, then he can move it slightly (which he's qualified to do) once it's installed.

I'm currently with Octopus but out of contract. They are being woefully slow about their SMet2 rollout. I'd like to move to a company where I can get this done relatively soon, so my first question is whether there's any data around who is doing the best with smart meter installations? I am not willing to wait for Octopus to get their act together so getting the new meter installed promptly is high on my shopping list for a new supplier.

The second question is about the design: Given the objective is to take up less space, is any info readily available as to who is using which designs of smart meter? I heard that the British Gas one is very large and has a separate receiver, so possibly not a contender, although the below could factor in:

And lastly is the connection likely to be ok? I know they use the GSM network to connect to their servers, phone signal is pretty poor in our hallway. Although saying that it seems to have improved somewhat since a new phone mast was installed down the road a few weeks ago.

Any help or info gratefully recieved!

MWT

Right now pretty much all smart meter installation has stopped as it is 'non-essential' work.

When it restarts everybody is going to have a long queue so your best chance is probably to stay where you are, if you switch you'll be joining the back of an already long queue unless you get lucky and happen to live in an area where work is already planned ot take place.

Not quite sure what you mean by being 'out of contract' with Octopus?  They have no penalties to leave any of their tariffs, so there is certainly no benefit it being on anything other than the cheapest tariff they have that suits your needs.

Re the meters, keep in mind that the gas meter has to connect to the electricity meter using a battery powered network device so you don't want too many obstructions between the two of them, and poor phone reception in the meter location doesn't bode well for a successful install...

As to which meters, Octopus install the L+G 470 series meters typically. Reasonably compact, but like most of them, the gas meter is larger than the electric.

dogshome

The meter boxes belong to you - may have been installed by the supplier, but if one breaks for whatever reason, you pay for it.

If the Gas meter box can be altered, then do so - The only criteria is that it can be opened for readings

Same with Elec meter, chances are that the box was put in by the house builder or a later DIYer - If there is room below the CU and Main fuse, then raise the lower face of the box or even make one that can be lifted off in it's entirety

matelodave

If your gas pipework is fixed then there's probably not a lot of scope to move the gas meter without incurring a significant cost to have the pipework rerouted.
Likewise the incoming mains fuse is pretty well fixed and any flexibility in moving the meter is probably only within the scope of the meter tails between the incoming fuse, the meter and your fuse box.

I don't know whether the meter installer might  have the authorisation to change the tails between the incoming and meter but those between the meter and your fuse box are yours and it's unlikely that he will interfere with the household fuse box.

dydderent

Hi guys, thanks for your thoughts. It's all possible stuff, @dogshome you're right, the boxing in looks like a dodgy DIY job. The electrician who's qualified to work on pre-CU stuff said he can replace the tails to the main fuse from memory.

MWT said:

Right now pretty much all smart meter installation has stopped as it is 'non-essential' work.

When it restarts everybody is going to have a long queue so your best chance is probably to stay where you are, if you switch you'll be joining the back of an already long queue unless you get lucky and happen to live in an area where work is already planned ot take place.

Not quite sure what you mean by being 'out of contract' with Octopus?  They have no penalties to leave any of their tariffs, so there is certainly no benefit it being on anything other than the cheapest tariff they have that suits your needs.

Re the meters, keep in mind that the gas meter has to connect to the electricity meter using a battery powered network device so you don't want too many obstructions between the two of them, and poor phone reception in the meter location doesn't bode well for a successful install...

As to which meters, Octopus install the L+G 470 series meters typically. Reasonably compact, but like most of them, the gas meter is larger than the electric.

I assume you don't mean physically connected, but rather connected by a wireless network connection?
Well, I guess by 'out of contract' I mean just that, I'm free to move tariff without penalties, just like everyone else, fair point though about going to the back of the queue. Has there been any data published about how the utilities companies are doing with the SME2 rollout? I know there was a mini-scandal about how crap a lot of them were, but I'm guessing that won't be in the public eye for a while now.

The elec one will probably be fine, but the size-critical one will be the gas, as  like @matelodave points out, the piework can't move, or more to the point, the recess in which it sits can't move, without moving the whole meter to somewhere more prominent at great expense. That's why I'm looking to find some data around this. I'm probably best contacting the companies directly and finding out which they use.