Interesting article about smart meters

JohnB47

From a national newspaper consumer champion:

I am having the most absurd argument with E.ON after the power firm’s smart meter installation wrecked our five-year-old gas boiler and it then refused to pay for the repairs.

It started when we moved our gas and electricity supply to E.ON in April. Our new tariff required us to get a smart meter for each and so in August E.ON’s contractor, Morrison Utility Services, arrived to install them. But when it turned the electricity supply back on after installation, our previously working boiler would not restart.

Fortunately, we still had boiler insurance with SSE and its contractor managed to fix the faulty circuit board that was seemingly damaged by a power surge during the installation. Had we been warned of this risk before the installation I don’t think we’d have gone ahead. Since then, we have been trying to get E.ON to reimburse us the £90 we had to pay SSE. Calls with E.ON’s various departments have got us nowhere and it is flatly refusing to pay, except for a £20 goodwill gesture.

EE, London

E.ON is badgering thousands of customers to allow it to install smart meters – I know because I am one of them. But there are so many cases of boilers not restarting after a smart meter installation I’ve decided that it’s not worth the risk. The fact that E.ON refused to help someone whose boiler was less than six years old only accentuates this view.

I asked E.ON to take a second look and it still refused to help, even after I pointed out that it would cost it more that the paltry £90 you were asking to fight the case at the ombudsman or elsewhere.

“The gas engineers’ report confirmed the fault was with a part of the boiler – the printed circuit board – that we had absolutely no interaction with during the installation,” E.ON says, avoiding the obvious point – that the boiler was working perfectly well before the installation.

Happily, the Energy Ombudsman has since found in your favour and awarded you the £90 plus £60 compensation. Meanwhile, E.ON has lost another customer, and even fewer people will be prepared to sign up for one of its smart meters – all to save itself £90.

MWT

Standard advice is always turn off any electrical devices when the mains power is going to be cut.

Boilers are just another electrical device.

Once power is restored just turn everything back on.

Odds are the boiler in the case above would have died when the next unscheduled power cut happened.

This has nothing to do with smart meters and everything to do with how to correctly handle a planned power outage...

badmemory

Surely at the very least the installer should have said "turn everything off at the wall". 

Carrot007

badmemory said:

Surely at the very least the installer should have said "turn everything off at the wall". 

I have had 5 electric meter changes and it was always pointed out to me that I should turn off senssetive eqipment myself. And had to sign something a couple of times I think.

And do remember the only reason the electric companies want you to install a smart meter is that the government will fine them unless they can proove theat the customer refused and was then educated on the requirement and refused again. They really would prefer not to. (though it is a good idea). Same !!!!!! would of occured with a non smart change anyway. And current meters have a 10 years span rather than the up to 35 of the old mechanical ones.

brewerdave

Carrot007 said:

badmemory said:

Surely at the very least the installer should have said "turn everything off at the wall". 

I have had 5 electric meter changes and it was always pointed out to me that I should turn off senssetive eqipment myself. And had to sign something a couple of times I think.

Last leccy meter change I had , the fitter never said a word about shutting off power.(I did anyway at the main panel) Furthermore, a couple of years ago ,neighbours came home to find a card bunged thru the door with the old meter details on. The meter had been changed without them even being at home!!

matelodave

We have regular power cuts, outages, surges and voltage dips and nothing has broken or gone wrong so it pretty unlikely that shutting the power off to swap a meter is going to cause any more damage than switching stuff of at the wall or tripping a fuse or circuit breaker.

TBH the OP has posted a load of old tosh.

MikeE67

E.ON is badgering thousands of customers to allow it to install smart meters – I know because I am one of them.

That didn't happen to me when I joined E.ON 
Once I told them that I had SMETS2 meters, they said that there was no need to replace them.

I wouldn't mind if my meters were working but they aren't and E.ON refused a home visit to see what the problem is. 
Both of these things they agreed to when I joined and as they have gone back on their word, I am leaving them.

rags58

read this a few days ago about a smart meter installation...the supplier left 90 yr old with no heating 
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/sep/27/installation-of-smart-meter-leaves-elderly-woman-facing-4000-bill

Bark01

Carrot007 said:

 And current meters have a 10 years span rather than the up to 35 of the old mechanical ones.

Smart meter are spec'd to last 15 years but they don't have a fixed recertification date like non-smart meters. I can't remember the exact specifics but Ofgem will require suppliers to test a certain amount of each Manufacturer / Model  meter by age and then after a certain % of them fail Ofgem will set an industry wide recertification age for that meter / model. 

Ones thing is certain though, suppliers will want to keep them on the wall for as long as possible as the amount they pay to rent them drops significantly with age.

unforeseen

rags58 said:

read this a few days ago about a smart meter installation...the supplier left 90 yr old with no heating 
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/sep/27/installation-of-smart-meter-leaves-elderly-woman-facing-4000-bill

35 year old boiler didn't restart? Surprise, surprise.
Not compatible with Smart Meter? That's another load of cobblers. It's the same gas at the same pressure getting to the boiler. 

badmemory

Not totally sure that is true.  If the old boiler had a small bore gas pipe it is possible that the new meter didn't provide enough pressure which a much larger internal pipe would have done.  Been there had to have a new much larger pipe all through the house - meter to boiler.  Although I would have expected it more to have kicked in then out then in then out.

Actually I doubt it is the gas that is the problem, more likely the electricity.