smart meter faulty?

damonthebuilder

Evening all,

SSE are our current service provider for both gas and electricity, and a number of years ago we had smart meters fitted to both utilities.
Prior to that a bloke would come out and take physical readings, or we'd send one in via the web or over the phone, but we figured that having smart meters would be less of a hassle.
Our habits haven't changed since the meters were fitted (in fact there are less people in the house now than when they were installed), but our usage seems to have risen year on year.
I've changed all the lamps in the house to LED, bought A or A+ rated appliances, turned the 'stats down, managed to shift 3 kids out to their own places, and yet our energy monitor still showed £1.50 of energy used by 0630 this morning!! In comparison, one of my daughters runs her hairdressing business from a salon in her garden at home, and her daily usage is about £3.50 - the other half and I are out at work all day, and at time of writing the energy monitor is showing over £6!!
I have a sneaking suspicion that something's not quite right...
I made a call to SSE to ask if they could assist, but the lady I spoke to was more interested in telling me the rising cost was due to wholesale energy increases and the tariff i was on and blah blah blah, and my protestations that all of that was irrelevant to my actual usage fell on deaf ears.

So my question is "can a smart meter give inaccurate readings, and what can I do about it?"

Hopeful of some helpful advice

Many thanks

DTB

Carrot007

If you provided the kWh increase people might believe you, talking in £ is going to get nowhere.

SHould you do that then contact SSE online as ringing them is never (99%) going to get anyone who knows anything.

[Deleted User]

The IHD information is not used for billing. If the supplier hasn’t set the correct tariffs in the electricity and gas meters then it is a case of ‘garbage in and garbage out’ as far as IHD costs are concerned. Your supplier will bill you on meter index readings pulled from your smart meters using the tariffs that you have signed up to. As far as accuracy is concerned,  a smart meter is no different from any other meter. 

It is worth checking that the supplier is using the correct volume to kWh conversion for gas.

Astria

Work out how much your bill is yourself by taking meter readings and then compare it against the smart meter IHD, it might be something as simple as having the wrong tariff installed in it. Personally I would never trust them as there's too many things that can go wrong. Just read the meter readings and calculate yourself, it causes less stress.

Note that some smart readings start the day with the standing charge, so account for this in your calculations.