Help! How to read meters?

tim_p

Nope!  Have managed to avoid smart meters so far but had one been fitted I’d have made a point of asking the installer how they worked, did he have an instruction leaflet etc. 

Inforapennyinforapound

To be honest I thought that you just read them as per the old ones. No instruction leaflet except for the small display unit in the kitchen which,unfortunately,doesn’t give the meter reads.
You are doing the right thing I think. What on earth is the point of them if I still need to read them? What is the actual benefit? Anyone?

[Deleted User]

Inforapennyinforapound said:

Thank you all .r
Note to frugal: No it may not be difficult for you(same as many things when you know) but when you have new meters with 2 buttons many things showing when pressed and NOT even an explanation from anyone then it is guesswork. Prior to this I just looked at reading and there it is! Secondly one of the reasons I had these meters is that they are located in a very low awkward position and the idea was(so Lowri Beck told me) that I no longer needed to read them myself! Haha what a joke!
Finally, nobody on here has explained what the B button is for so would welcome any more expert input. Easy?..
I do appreciate everyone’s help. But please don’t patronise me with how easy it all is.
I am rather annoyed with a simple job causing me to come here asking for help for something I have done for 50 years.
Many thanks...

Have a look at this link. Scroll down to the L&G section. I use Button B to access my solar export data.

https://help.bulb.co.uk/hc/en-us/articles/360038457032-How-to-take-an-export-reading-from-a-smart-meter#h_5d454044-b8fe-4007-84c1-19ba3aa4b2d1

Inforapennyinforapound

Dolor thanks BUT even that doesn’t explain my big black and red buttons on the gas meter. The electric is green and grey.

David28

Inforapennyinforapound said:

To be honest I thought that you just read them as per the old ones. No instruction leaflet except for the small display unit in the kitchen which,unfortunately,doesn’t give the meter reads.
You are doing the right thing I think. What on earth is the point of them if I still need to read them? What is the actual benefit? Anyone?

My Scottish Gas IHD gives meter reads.

milgo

My 2016, Scottish Power installed smets1 (dumb since 2017) still give me gas & electric meter readings.

mac.d

On your electric meter, pressing the A button will bring up the current time, then you just continue to press the A button to cycle through the various readings. Usually it's something like time, date, rate 1 (import), rate 2 (import), total (import) then maybe export readings. Since you have a gas supply, its likely you will only have a single rate meter so only need rate 1, and even if rate 2 and total are showing, they should be at 00000.00 and not change. The B button is usually not needed for consumer use, it'll access a utilities menu meant for meter fixers to give access to other readings & settings etc or to update/reset things.

Pretty much the same for your gas meter, it's the red A button which you press and hold to wake it up, should say please wait, and then the reading will display Meter Index 00123.000 m3. Again the B button will be for access to other menus you don't need.

On both meters, you always take the full 5 digits before the decimal point, and ignore anything after.

The small display in your kitchen (IHD) will potentially give you meter readings, sometimes you have to go into the menu and find them, they don't always though, and I think some used to give you the gas reading in kWh which you don't want anyway (maybe that was just the early models?).

[Deleted User]

It is a pity that meter manufacturers are not required to follow the Kaifa meter model. No buttons for the user to press, it just scrolls through the information; eg, date/time; import reading and export reading.

mac.d

Except when they scroll too fast and you have more than one reading to take, so end up having to watch it cycle through them all again   

tim_p

Supplying a basic instructions card would help too, maybe having it on a pull out or fold down flap as part of the meter (so it doesn’t get lost over the years).