Moving into a new house with a prepayment meter

t0rt0ise

Some companies won't change the meters at all, some want you to pay a large fee to do so, others want you to be a customer for several months first and so on. You may have to change suppliers to find a company that will help. That will take time. So it all depends who the current suppliers are as to how easy it will be.

Gerry1

Don't forget to come back and tell us how everything went !

Also read the water meter when you take possession.  Then check that the property's stopcock works (probably under the kitchen sink), ditto the water company's one in the street.  Sometimes they can be jammed, but the ones that can really catch you out seem to work fine but don't actually turn the water off completely.  This can happen in hard water areas because they get furred up.

Can be a problem even if you want to do something simple such as change a leaking ballcock valve, and an absolute nightmare should you be unlucky enough to have a burst pipe when you're away.

I found that the house stopcock didn't stop the flow and the street stopcock had jammed.  The water company unjammed it but failed to notice that it also didn't stop the flow !

Fortunately nothing worse than a permanent discharge through the overflow pipe, but it took a while before the water company dug up the pavement and replaced the meter and stopcock.

tomnookfan

Gerry1 said:

Don't forget to come back and tell us how everything went !

Also read the water meter when you take possession.  Then check that the property's stopcock works (probably under the kitchen sink), ditto the water company's one in the street.  Sometimes they can be jammed, but the ones that can really catch you out seem to work fine but don't actually turn the water off completely.  This can happen in hard water areas because they get furred up.

Can be a problem even if you want to do something simple such as change a leaking ballcock valve, and an absolute nightmare should you be unlucky enough to have a burst pipe when you're away.

I found that the house stopcock didn't stop the flow and the street stopcock had jammed.  The water company unjammed it but failed to notice that it also didn't stop the flow !

Fortunately nothing worse than a permanent discharge through the overflow pipe, but it took a while before the water company dug up the pavement and replaced the meter and stopcock.

@Gerry1 I absolutely will, thank you for all your advice, that's very helpful 😊 

niktheguru

Gerry1 said:

Don't forget to come back and tell us how everything went !

Also read the water meter when you take possession.  Then check that the property's stopcock works (probably under the kitchen sink), ditto the water company's one in the street.  Sometimes they can be jammed, but the ones that can really catch you out seem to work fine but don't actually turn the water off completely.  This can happen in hard water areas because they get furred up.

Can be a problem even if you want to do something simple such as change a leaking ballcock valve, and an absolute nightmare should you be unlucky enough to have a burst pipe when you're away.

I found that the house stopcock didn't stop the flow and the street stopcock had jammed.  The water company unjammed it but failed to notice that it also didn't stop the flow !

Fortunately nothing worse than a permanent discharge through the overflow pipe, but it took a while before the water company dug up the pavement and replaced the meter and stopcock.

Make sure you have some towels and tubs/buckets to hand too, in case it starts leaking at the tap after you check it. It happened to me some years ago when i lived in a flat and the stopcock was an ancient relic. I turned it off and back on again to "test" it, and it then had a spritely leak....must have unsettled it.....had to get it changed but it made the cupboard it was in into a sprinkler system in the mean time!

tomnookfan

Hi all! Update a month on just to let you know how it went and to thank you all again for your advice.

On the day we got the keys we rang our suppliers (turned out to be eOn Next) and they told us they'd set up our new account, and will send details to our closest paypoint so we can pick up a new card etc. Luckily, the house had some electricity but no gas, but we figured we're moving in the next day – we'll sort it then.

The next day, we move in, my partner goes to the shop and says we need some sort of number that we weren't provided with and thus begins hours stuck on the phone being passed around to everyone and disconnected until we end up on the first number we started with where the guy from eon changes our name on the account and we get new keys sent out to us. Unforuntately, eOn next apparently don't have the capability to put normal credit meters in so we swiftly changed to EDF. 

So good news, we have working gas and electric - yay! Bad news is that we may be stuck on them because with the October price hikes and whatever agenda EDF has, we're being told that the cheapest option is to be on the prepayment meter. I don't fully believe that put my partner seems to think so. So we might be on prepayment meters til next year lol. 

Anyway, all this to say that it was a stress but it did work out in the end!

slipthru

I was in a similar situation to you moved at the end of June, except I only had an electricity pre payment meter. I moved to British gas and managed to get it changed to a non smart meter. Pre payment is always a touch more expensive and a hassle.

MsPennyMinder

If it makes you feel any better, I'm going through the same struggle right now. I just want credit meters but Energy companies ain't interested in helping.