Advantage of having smart meters

kimp22

I have had a look at the meters tonight never really need to. Pressed a few buttons and hoping in morning I get the right numbers on them. The electricity will almost be gone by the time they come it's the gas I am worried about. 

Thanks 

Kim

kimp22

Well been waiting all day and they haven't come yet.
Kim

schiff

I find the bills from OFTM very informative. Last month my elec cost £1.17 per day and my gas £3.46 per day. I don't have a smart meter but report my readings on the last day of every month. I live on my own in a 2-bedroom detached bungalow, double glazed, loft floored. Is that a lot, or a little?
I can afford it and I don't want to sacrifice my comfort to save money.

wild666

lohr500 said:

wild666 said:

wittynamegoeshere said:

I got a smart meter then caught covid shortly after.  It's all a conspiracy.

Note: The above is complete rubbish but no worse than some of the nonsense you'll find on the internet about them.  They're just a meter, no more and no less.  It won't transform your life in any way at all, either good or bad.

Totally agree, the only way to decrease the usage of electric or gas is by turning the appliances off at the socket or decreasing the temperature on the thermostat. No appliance uses what it claims in the standby mode.
If everyone turned off everything in standby mode at the socket then they might be amazed at how much less electric they used over a set period of time, the more appliances turned off at the socket the more electric will be saved. In the case of gas it won't be such a great saving, maybe £40 per year, depending on how low you turn the thermostat down. Personally my temperature is set to 19 degrees and if I'm not using an appliance it's off at the socket, that's where the most electric is saved, personally I save around £170 per year turning everything off at the socket and that means the little red mark on the switch isn't showing as that means the plug is drawing power, although miniscule it's still power. There is only three appliances I have switched on 24/7 and they are the fridge, freezer and router. 

£170 a year sounds like a very big saving just by switching everything off that would normally be on standby. That's close to £0.50 per day. Say £0.20 per kw/h means 2.5kW of electricity per day or 100 watts per hour consumed on standby appliances if my maths is correct. I need to look at our standby device consumption if that's the case.

These are the figures I will save having 3 smart speakers, surround sound, blue-ray play, games console and a 65" TV plus numerous other gadgets that I turn off when not in use. Before Avro went under my kWh usage was 6 to 6.5 kWh per day now it's only 3.6 kWh per day except on the day I wash and dry clothes/bedding when it's around 7.4 kWh, that's a weekly average of under 28 kWh. 
Most appliances that people buy now are put in standby mode, whether it a TV or a cooker, yes a cooker is in standby mode running the clock on all but the cheapest models, ALL these appliances run perfectly well firing up after they are turned off at the socket.
My lowest daily usage is 1.9 kWh and the highest usage is 8.3 kWh and in a year I expect my usage to be, without the SC added, to be less than £290. 

I have looked at standby power usage by gadgets and appliances on You Tube and the figures in the manuals normally 0.5 to 1.5 WPH are nowhere near the figures that the manual says. There are three items that could be left on 24/7 and they are the Fridge, freezer and router, everything else can be turned off at the socket.

wild666

QrizB said:

lohr500 said:

£170 a year sounds like a very big saving just by switching everything off that would normally be on standby. That's close to £0.50 per day. Say £0.20 per kw/h means 2.5kW of electricity per day or 100 watts per hour consumed on standby appliances if my maths is correct. I need to look at our standby device consumption if that's the case.

Wild666 is a special case (at least among those of us who have commented); they have a big but older TV that used several tens of watts in standby.

My night-time phantom load is 80-110 watts even without going to the extremes of switching everything off bar the fridge & freezer.

QrizB My TV is a 2020 65" model but it's G rated and the washer, fridge and freezer are 2016 models with either an A+ or B rating. I don't watch live as shown TV only Netflix and a games console are used on the TV though a surround sound set-up. My monthly kWh usage has gone down from 195 kWh to between 116 kWh and 124 kWh per month, my kWh charge is 20.01p, that's a £15.80 saving if the usage is 116 kWh or £13.80 if I use 126 kWh per month.  

jrawle

There was a similar thread a couple of weeks ago, and I posted my view there:

I have so far resisted having a smart meter not because I have something to hide or am a conspiracy theorist, but because I don't like having things messed with unnecessarily. My meters work perfectly well at the moment. I have seen several accounts of people who have had gas leaks following a meter exchange. It seems that just about every job I have done at home by a tradesman is substandard, or results in damage being done to my property. If my meters genuinely wear out and need replacement, I would be happy for the replacement to be a smart meter, but not for them to be changed just for the sake of it. There is also an environmental impact of having a meter changed before the end of its life.

I also do not like the way the adverts give the impression that smart meters magically save energy, with small print such as "consumer action required" the only disclaimer. Non scientifically minded people may well believe this, and actually do less to save energy once they have smart meters.

I do not believe automatic meter reading will cut excessive credit balances, either. This has little to do with estimated readings, and anyone who gives their supplier a regular reading well knows. It is more to do with suppliers deliberately running up a credit to make a few extra pennies out of each customer.

kimp22

Update so now I have to wait till the 12th of January. I have had a few telephone calls which they said it wasn't on there system that we had an appointment. But I had received emails from them so they couldn't get out of it. They are supposed to be sending £30 compensation for the missed appointment. I was thinking of switching suppliers because my credit on meters are so low.

Thanks kim

wittynamegoeshere

jrawle said:

There was a similar thread a couple of weeks ago, and I posted my view there:

I have so far resisted having a smart meter not because I have something to hide or am a conspiracy theorist, but because I don't like having things messed with unnecessarily. My meters work perfectly well at the moment. I have seen several accounts of people who have had gas leaks following a meter exchange. It seems that just about every job I have done at home by a tradesman is substandard, or results in damage being done to my property. If my meters genuinely wear out and need replacement, I would be happy for the replacement to be a smart meter, but not for them to be changed just for the sake of it. There is also an environmental impact of having a meter changed before the end of its life.

I also do not like the way the adverts give the impression that smart meters magically save energy, with small print such as "consumer action required" the only disclaimer. Non scientifically minded people may well believe this, and actually do less to save energy once they have smart meters.

I do not believe automatic meter reading will cut excessive credit balances, either. This has little to do with estimated readings, and anyone who gives their supplier a regular reading well knows. It is more to do with suppliers deliberately running up a credit to make a few extra pennies out of each customer.

All meters have a lifespan, they always have had.  The components inside wear over time and they lose accuracy.  I remember getting our old cogs and gears one replaced with one with a digital display back in 2000-odd.  This is just exactly what has always happened.  It just so happens that the latest meters do a bit more than older ones.

They definitely do save energy, evidenced by the huge number of threads on here where people are trying to work out what is costing them however much per hour or whatever - people are alerted to this consumption by their meter.  They work out what's needlessly costing them money and switch it off.  In the old days they wouldn't have known any of this.

wild666

wittynamegoeshere said:

jrawle said:

There was a similar thread a couple of weeks ago, and I posted my view there:

I have so far resisted having a smart meter not because I have something to hide or am a conspiracy theorist, but because I don't like having things messed with unnecessarily. My meters work perfectly well at the moment. I have seen several accounts of people who have had gas leaks following a meter exchange. It seems that just about every job I have done at home by a tradesman is substandard, or results in damage being done to my property. If my meters genuinely wear out and need replacement, I would be happy for the replacement to be a smart meter, but not for them to be changed just for the sake of it. There is also an environmental impact of having a meter changed before the end of its life.

I also do not like the way the adverts give the impression that smart meters magically save energy, with small print such as "consumer action required" the only disclaimer. Non scientifically minded people may well believe this, and actually do less to save energy once they have smart meters.

I do not believe automatic meter reading will cut excessive credit balances, either. This has little to do with estimated readings, and anyone who gives their supplier a regular reading well knows. It is more to do with suppliers deliberately running up a credit to make a few extra pennies out of each customer.

All meters have a lifespan, they always have had.  The components inside wear over time and they lose accuracy.  I remember getting our old cogs and gears one replaced with one with a digital display back in 2000-odd.  This is just exactly what has always happened.  It just so happens that the latest meters do a bit more than older ones.

They definitely do save energy, evidenced by the huge number of threads on here where people are trying to work out what is costing them however much per hour or whatever - people are alerted to this consumption by their meter.  They work out what's needlessly costing them money and switch it off.  In the old days they wouldn't have known any of this.

If it doesn't need to be on in my place then it's off at the socket the only appliances that stay on 24/7 are the fridge, freezer and router everything else is off and stays off unless I want to use it.

jrawle

wittynamegoeshere said:

All meters have a lifespan, they always have had.  The components inside wear over time and they lose accuracy.  I remember getting our old cogs and gears one replaced with one with a digital display back in 2000-odd.  This is just exactly what has always happened.  It just so happens that the latest meters do a bit more than older ones.

As I said in my comment, I would have no objection to a new meter being a smart meter when the time came for it to be replaced anyway. What I object to is meters being replaced before it's necessary, due to waste, and the potential for unnecessary damage to be done to my property.

I also dislike the deceitful letters the big suppliers send out saying my meter is "obsolete" and must be replaced as soon as possible. Clearly twaddle, motivated by targets for smart meter installation set by the government. It's little better than the situation at the start of privatisation when salesmen would call and say you had to switch supplier as the old one had "run out of gas". Lies, plain and simple.