Bulb - Smart Meter can't be fixed. True or false?

cannugec5

EssexHebridean said:

On the issue with reading the meter in the holiday let - can the person who "turns" it for you in between bookings not take the readings for you? 

That was going to be my suggestion. I live in an area where Smart meters don’t communicate (although they were happy enough to install one) and it is commonplace for the cleaners of holiday lets to take regular meter readings - every time they are in. It really is no big deal. The owner of one property lives in Jersey, we are in Scotland. Of course he is not going to physically read the meter once a month! 

SAC2334

EssexHebridean said:

On the issue with reading the meter in the holiday let - can the person who "turns" it for you in between bookings not take the readings for you? 

I was just going to suggest that. Its something I ve done by text  when renting a holiday let in North Norfolk along with other minor jobs in the past . The modern holiday letter never sets foot in a property all year.
Other than that you could ask the cleaning person/company  who comes Saturday morning to get ready for the new ones in at normally Friday or Saturday to text the two readings . People do like to help.. I certainly do.  

Searcher2

SAC2334 said:

EssexHebridean said:

On the issue with reading the meter in the holiday let - can the person who "turns" it for you in between bookings not take the readings for you? 

I was just going to suggest that. Its something I ve done by text  when renting a holiday let in North Norfolk along with other minor jobs in the past . The modern holiday letter never sets foot in a property all year.
Other than that you could ask the cleaning person/company  who comes Saturday morning to get ready for the new ones in at normally Friday or Saturday to text the two readings . People do like to help.. I certainly do.  

That is something I have considered but unfortunately the meters are at the rear of the property and in a courtyard which belongs to an elderly gentleman who I suspect has mental health issues and has a tendency to 'interfere' and I don't really want to risk subjecting anyone else to potential rants.  That is why when Bulb emailed and asked if I wanted a Smart meter stating

"We got in touch recently to let you know we’re installing the new generation of smart meters (often called ‘SMETS2’) in your area. 

If you didn’t have time to book there are appointments available in the next few weeks, so don't miss out.

Our smart meters:

• Can be read by any supplier, even if you decide to switch in the future
• Take meter readings automatically, which means no more estimated bills
• Give you the information you need to help cut your bills and reduce carbon emissions"

... I was very happy and took them up on it.  I do take the readings when I go up but that generally doesn't coincide with the price hike days - so I know that bills are not accurate.  

I was just questioning the claim by Bulb that the meters could not be fixed because they are in the North.  They have given me misinformation before so I just wanted to check if anyone knew if this was likely to be more misinformation.

Chrysalis

Its the flaw with the current system really, once a meter is fitted there is seemingly no more targets to keep it working properly.

The good news is though you are in the process of being migrated to the one provider who cares about smart meters, so once you fully migrated Octopus might have a go at getting it fixed.