Gas Meter Still Increasing Whilst Gas Isolated (Siemens/Landis+Gyr E6S)

MeteredOut

Update: Ombudsman closed the case with a new letter attached from EDF stating they have arranged for the meter to be tested and any billing updates will take place once the results are known.

EDF didn't afford me the luxury of emailing the letter to me, although it is addressed to me. Perhaps it'll arrive in the post with a Christmas card from them

So, its a waiting game now.

EssexHebridean

JSHarris said:

Just read this thread from start to finish.  What an appalling tale of stubborn recalcitrance mixed with incompetence by EDF.  Years ago I was pushed to go to the ombudsman over a supplier's gross failings, but thankfully I had a much easier time of it, as the supplier admitted all failings right from the start and agreed to settle, cutting the process short.

I wish you the best of luck with achieving a satisfactory outcome, if nothing else your tale should act as a salutary warning when dealing with EDF (particularly of concern to me as I'm with them at the moment!).

In my experience there are remarkably few things that EDF excel at - but the bits in bold above they are of gold medal standard, no question! 

MeteredOut

No results from the OFMAT for the meter yet, but EDF have been fairly good at communicating, with 3 "we're still looking into it" emails since 20th December. The latest (late last week):

"I am contacting you to confirm the meter is currently with the relevant department and is being tested, once the results of this test is received I will contact you  to  share these and implement and amendments to your account should any be required."

QrizB

MeteredOut said:

No results from the OFMAT for the meter yet, but EDF have been fairly good at communicating, with 3 "we're still looking into it" emails since 20th December. The latest (late last week):

"I am contacting you to confirm the meter is currently with the relevant department and is being tested, once the results of this test is received I will contact you  to  share these and implement and amendments to your account should any be required."

That seems to suggest that it isn't in a skip with 1000 other dead meters, at least. Which is a step in the right direction.

MeteredOut

QrizB said:

MeteredOut said:

No results from the OFMAT for the meter yet, but EDF have been fairly good at communicating, with 3 "we're still looking into it" emails since 20th December. The latest (late last week):

"I am contacting you to confirm the meter is currently with the relevant department and is being tested, once the results of this test is received I will contact you  to  share these and implement and amendments to your account should any be required."

That seems to suggest that it isn't in a skip with 1000 other dead meters, at least. Which is a step in the right direction.

Yup, pleasantly surprised that I've actually managed to get to someone at EDF that is taking ownership of communications.

Of course, the issue will be if it comes back as "working as expected" (the issue was intermittent and seemed to not be happening when the meter was removed), even though i have pretty conclusive proof that the meter was incrementing whilst isolated from the mains gas (both videos and time-lapse photos/videos).

If it came to that, I'd probably go down the MCOL route for the cost £70. I'd have to put some more effort into estimating what I might have been overcharged by looking at previous years usage and weather conditions, but very blunt calculations I did previously came to a total of around £500-£600 over the summers of 2022 and 2023. 

Zandoni

MeteredOut said:

QrizB said:

MeteredOut said:

No results from the OFMAT for the meter yet, but EDF have been fairly good at communicating, with 3 "we're still looking into it" emails since 20th December. The latest (late last week):

"I am contacting you to confirm the meter is currently with the relevant department and is being tested, once the results of this test is received I will contact you  to  share these and implement and amendments to your account should any be required."

That seems to suggest that it isn't in a skip with 1000 other dead meters, at least. Which is a step in the right direction.

Of course, the issue will be if it comes back as "working as expected" (the issue was intermittent and seemed to not be happening when the meter was removed), even though i have pretty conclusive proof that the meter was incrementing whilst isolated from the mains gas (both videos and time-lapse photos/videos).

Did you tape a note to the meter as I suggested?

MeteredOut

Zandoni said:

MeteredOut said:

QrizB said:

MeteredOut said:

No results from the OFMAT for the meter yet, but EDF have been fairly good at communicating, with 3 "we're still looking into it" emails since 20th December. The latest (late last week):

"I am contacting you to confirm the meter is currently with the relevant department and is being tested, once the results of this test is received I will contact you  to  share these and implement and amendments to your account should any be required."

That seems to suggest that it isn't in a skip with 1000 other dead meters, at least. Which is a step in the right direction.

Of course, the issue will be if it comes back as "working as expected" (the issue was intermittent and seemed to not be happening when the meter was removed), even though i have pretty conclusive proof that the meter was incrementing whilst isolated from the mains gas (both videos and time-lapse photos/videos).

Did you tape a note to the meter as I suggested?

The engineer who replaced it bagged it up (in an apparently special orange bag indicates to the receivers that it required special treatment), that and wrote on it that it was faulty and I have photos of that, including the engineers special spelling of "Ombasman". It's got the MPRN on it too.

He also wrote "Meter was advancing while gas was isolated" on the "other" section of the packaging, though I'm not sure if he witnessed that or whether that was based on my reports.

Zandoni

MeteredOut said:

Zandoni said:

MeteredOut said:

QrizB said:

MeteredOut said:

No results from the OFMAT for the meter yet, but EDF have been fairly good at communicating, with 3 "we're still looking into it" emails since 20th December. The latest (late last week):

"I am contacting you to confirm the meter is currently with the relevant department and is being tested, once the results of this test is received I will contact you  to  share these and implement and amendments to your account should any be required."

That seems to suggest that it isn't in a skip with 1000 other dead meters, at least. Which is a step in the right direction.

Of course, the issue will be if it comes back as "working as expected" (the issue was intermittent and seemed to not be happening when the meter was removed), even though i have pretty conclusive proof that the meter was incrementing whilst isolated from the mains gas (both videos and time-lapse photos/videos).

Did you tape a note to the meter as I suggested?

The engineer who replaced it bagged it up (in an apparently special orange bag indicates to the receivers that it required special treatment), that and wrote on it that it was faulty and I have photos of that, including the engineers special spelling of "Ombasman". It's got the MPRN on it too.

He also wrote "Meter was advancing while gas was isolated" on the "other" section of the packaging, though I'm not sure if he witnessed that or whether that was based on my reports.

I suggested the note so hopefully the examiner would give it more time. In the factory they used to freeze and cook the meters before they were tested.

housebuyer143

I know you are still waiting but how are the readings with the new meter? Are they going up as the other did? 

MeteredOut

housebuyer143 said:

I know you are still waiting but how are the readings with the new meter? Are they going up as the other did? 

It's hard to tell since the issue was previously intermittent and it wasn't clear if it was happening over the past 2 winters since I could not turn off the boiler/isolate the meter to test it. So far, in the month I've had the smart meter, my gas usage is 22% less than the equivalent period a year ago, but I can't say for sure that's down to the previous meter.

The only time I'll be able to say that for sure is from May/June onwards, when our heating was off and I have detailed records of usage with the old meter isolated from the gas, and evidence of it incrementing when isolated.  I expect to see a significant usage over the summer.

Unfortunately, I don't have many readings over the summer of 2021 (I think the meter started going faulty around September 2021 - that's when the diagnostic codes first started appearing on its LED), but from the readings I do have, i can see that my usage from April through September for 2022 was 75% more than the same period for 2021, and 2023 was 22% more for the same period.