No room for smart meter?

Reed_Richards

My attempt to have a smart meter installed failed today because the engineer thought there was not enough room.  My existing dumb-but-digital meter is about 13 cm wide by 9 cm high with no space above and only a little below.  The meter my installer had brought was a good deal larger with the "communication box" attached and trying to fit it in was a squeeze that the installer did not wish to attempt.  Is there really no smart meter available that is as compact as my existing one?  I'm in the north of England where meters use a dedicated communication network, if that has any impact on size.     

QrizB

The short answer is no, there isn't. Sorry to hear you have this problem.

EssexHebridean

The question here is I guess then, what happens when the OP's meter reaches a point where it HAS to be replaced, and there is no traditional meters remaining to supply instead? Our electric meter is in a quite confined space, with no ability to enlarge that space, so I'm slightly curious to know whether we might have an issue here too! 

CanNeverThinkOfAUsername

I have no idea what the Ofgem rules are on this. But i have known when a End of Life meter needs to be replaced and the space is too small the DNO needs to come out to move the meter, then the meter exchange can happen.

victor2

EssexHebridean said:

The question here is I guess then, what happens when the OP's meter reaches a point where it HAS to be replaced, and there is no traditional meters remaining to supply instead? Our electric meter is in a quite confined space, with no ability to enlarge that space, so I'm slightly curious to know whether we might have an issue here too! 

Good question!

I know someone in the same position as the OP. They had Eon out to install a smart meter in a ground floor "cubby hole" in two storey flats, and they said there's no room. The only way the tenant can read his meter is by lying on the floor in the cubby hole with a torch. The IHD wouldn't have worked either, in the upstairs flat.

Not easy for a pensioner in his eighties!

macman

The meter could be fitted without the comms hub, which of course would render both gas and electricity meters as dumb. But at least they'd then be new dumb meters...
It's not usually the meter installer's fault. People tend to build kitchens and cupboards around existing meters without giving adequate room for access or repair.

greyteam1959

I may be in the same position in the near future re having a smart meter installed.
What size are the smart meters including the comms hub ??

EssexHebridean

macman said:

The meter could be fitted without the comms hub, which of course would render both gas and electricity meters as dumb. But at least they'd then be new dumb meters...
It's not usually the meter installer's fault. People tend to build kitchens and cupboards around existing meters without giving adequate room for access or repair.

Ours is still in the original cupboard that the original meter would have been installed in in 1956 - it’s just not a very big cupboard! 😂

[Deleted User]

This is one commonly used model.

If the graphic isn't clear, it's 146mm wide x 64mm deep x 178mm tall.

There's obviously some space around it needed for making the connections etc, but I think they're all on the bottom.

edit: Just checked the L+G E470 (Octopus preferred) and that's 175mm W x 55mm D x 126mm H according to the manufacturer's specs. 

EssexHebridean

That turns out to be barely bigger than what we have - slightly deeper, slightly higher, and slightly narrower, so fingers crossed we may be Ok. Thanks Sparky! 

[Deleted User]

Just checked the L+G E470 (Octopus preferred)

It used to be. My E470 (they all seem to annotated E470 and SMETS2 comes in 2 sizes - 100 and 120mm) was replaced* with a Kaifa MA120. To date, Octopus claims to have installed over 100k of these meters.

* The E470 was fine but it wasn’t playing nicely with a Powerwall 2. The meter was recording a constant phantom load when the Powerwall was powering the home.