Can smart meter be fitted without my permission and when not present at the property?

Gerry1

[Deleted User] said:

mmmmikey said:

I personally think that one of the best things that "they" could do would be to stop pressurising people into having smart meters. I suspect that there are a lot of people who are holding back because they don't like being told what to do. Although I am a big fan of smart meters I really detest the kind of strong arm marketing that has been used to roll them out. Much better, IMHO, to back off the heavy handed tactics and to allow them to sell themselves. Once people realise how much they can save through TOU tariffs there will be long queues and riots in the street as folks demand their right to have a smart meter fitted NOW! OK, maybe overstating it a bit but you take the point I'm sure.

BTW if there are power cuts where you are because there aren't enough people with smart meters on TOU tariffs shifting their demand away from peak time, feel free to pop round to mine for a cup of tea while you wait for power to come back. I have a battery system to keep the lights on, a log burner and bottled gas for cooking so a power cut for a few days is no big deal. You'll find me easily enough, I have a 10m high light chaser in the garden with an illuminated sign at the top that says "Power cut, what power cut?"

The biggest mistake was giving people the right to refuse. When gas injectors were changed (coal gas to natural gas) the guys just turned up. Any dissenters had their gas capped. I don’t recall any riots in the streets.

Not a fair comparison by any means.  There were no disadvantages in being switched from town gas to natural gas.

On the contrary, natural gas is safer.  It seems surprising now, but town gas was 50% carbon monoxide (hence accidental deaths and suicides) and 50% hydrogen (more leaky).

mmmmikey

[Deleted User] said:

mmmmikey said:

I personally think that one of the best things that "they" could do would be to stop pressurising people into having smart meters. I suspect that there are a lot of people who are holding back because they don't like being told what to do. Although I am a big fan of smart meters I really detest the kind of strong arm marketing that has been used to roll them out. Much better, IMHO, to back off the heavy handed tactics and to allow them to sell themselves. Once people realise how much they can save through TOU tariffs there will be long queues and riots in the street as folks demand their right to have a smart meter fitted NOW! OK, maybe overstating it a bit but you take the point I'm sure.

BTW if there are power cuts where you are because there aren't enough people with smart meters on TOU tariffs shifting their demand away from peak time, feel free to pop round to mine for a cup of tea while you wait for power to come back. I have a battery system to keep the lights on, a log burner and bottled gas for cooking so a power cut for a few days is no big deal. You'll find me easily enough, I have a 10m high light chaser in the garden with an illuminated sign at the top that says "Power cut, what power cut?"

The biggest mistake was giving people the right to refuse. When gas injectors were changed (coal gas to natural gas) the guys just turned up. Any dissenters had their gas capped. I don’t recall any riots in the streets.

...but wasn't society different then, with people of my parents and grandparents generation being much more respectful of and less likely to challenge authority? Don't you think that pressurising people to have smart meters has been counterproductive, creating a situation where (some!!!! not all) people are being bloody minded out of principle and objecting out of principle because they don't like being told what to do?

[Deleted User]

Gerry1 said:

[Deleted User] said:

mmmmikey said:

I personally think that one of the best things that "they" could do would be to stop pressurising people into having smart meters. I suspect that there are a lot of people who are holding back because they don't like being told what to do. Although I am a big fan of smart meters I really detest the kind of strong arm marketing that has been used to roll them out. Much better, IMHO, to back off the heavy handed tactics and to allow them to sell themselves. Once people realise how much they can save through TOU tariffs there will be long queues and riots in the street as folks demand their right to have a smart meter fitted NOW! OK, maybe overstating it a bit but you take the point I'm sure.

BTW if there are power cuts where you are because there aren't enough people with smart meters on TOU tariffs shifting their demand away from peak time, feel free to pop round to mine for a cup of tea while you wait for power to come back. I have a battery system to keep the lights on, a log burner and bottled gas for cooking so a power cut for a few days is no big deal. You'll find me easily enough, I have a 10m high light chaser in the garden with an illuminated sign at the top that says "Power cut, what power cut?"

The biggest mistake was giving people the right to refuse. When gas injectors were changed (coal gas to natural gas) the guys just turned up. Any dissenters had their gas capped. I don’t recall any riots in the streets.

Not a fair comparison by any means.  There were no disadvantages in being switched from town gas to natural gas.

On the contrary, natural gas is safer.  It seems surprising now, but town gas was 50% carbon monoxide (hence accidental deaths and suicides) and 50% hydrogen (more leaky).

It is not a question of safety, it is a question of a Government doing what they said they would do. The ‘ mistake’ was giving people a choice. As a result, the smart meter rollout has been costly and inefficient. 

Gerry1

As I posted, the Government (the Secretary of State) stated many times that no-one would be forced to have a smart meter. but later they (BEIS) reneged on it.

QrizB

Gerry1 said:

As I posted, the Government (the Secretary of State) stated many times that no-one would be forced to have a smart meter. but later they (BEIS) reneged on it.

Secretaries of State say lots of things. None of those things are binding on their successors, and relatively few of them are enforceable.

[Deleted User]

Gerry1 said:

As I posted, the Government (the Secretary of State) stated many times that no-one would be forced to have a smart meter. but later they (BEIS) reneged on it.

Isn’t that how all Governments’ work: they change their minds. If the electorate is not happy, we vote them out at the next election.

As said many times, the BEIS decision was a pragmatic change based on the fact that Meter Asset Providers were no longer offering analogue meters, and many of the smaller suppliers didn’t have access to old analogue meter stock.

ArbitraryRandom

Gerry1 said:

mmmmikey said:

Gerry1 said:

mmmmikey said:

Zandoni said:

matt_drummer said:

EssexHebridean said:

I do slightly find myself scratching my head wondering what someone who y1 considers a saving of potentially several hundred pounds a year is doing on a money saving forum...

My setup is worth £5,000 a year or more.

I couldn't do it without a smart meter.

I need more of an explanation than that.

A twenty year old gas meter coming to the end of it's certification period is coming to the end of a certification period that was established by the manufacturer of the meter twenty years ago

Do gas meters have certification periods?

I don't know what the manufacturing costs are but I wouldn't be surprised if a mass produced electronic smart gas meter actually costs less than an old-fashioned gas meter

@mmmmikey I'd be very surprised.  It seems that gas smart meters go to landfill as soon as the battery runs out, hardly very green.  Some forumites have also reported some cases of low batteries causing phantom overcharging in only five years or so.  In contrast, my trusty mechanical meter is well into its fourth decade, can be read accurately by moonlight and OFF always means OFF.

Oh, and don't forget all the costs of having to replace all the comms hubs when 2G/3G conks out in just a few years' time.

Fortunately for me, there's virtually no O2 signal around my electricity meter, so I'm probably safe for a while. 😈

I'm surprised they'd go to a landfill (or slightly more likely recycling) - the traditional meters were often refurbished and reused, so I would have thought the same would happen with smart meters (battery replaced and recalibrated). 

There can't be that many at end of life already, so it could be the models being 'retired' are old technology? 

ArbitraryRandom

mmmmikey said:

[Deleted User] said:

mmmmikey said:

I personally think that one of the best things that "they" could do would be to stop pressurising people into having smart meters. I suspect that there are a lot of people who are holding back because they don't like being told what to do. Although I am a big fan of smart meters I really detest the kind of strong arm marketing that has been used to roll them out. Much better, IMHO, to back off the heavy handed tactics and to allow them to sell themselves. Once people realise how much they can save through TOU tariffs there will be long queues and riots in the street as folks demand their right to have a smart meter fitted NOW! OK, maybe overstating it a bit but you take the point I'm sure.

BTW if there are power cuts where you are because there aren't enough people with smart meters on TOU tariffs shifting their demand away from peak time, feel free to pop round to mine for a cup of tea while you wait for power to come back. I have a battery system to keep the lights on, a log burner and bottled gas for cooking so a power cut for a few days is no big deal. You'll find me easily enough, I have a 10m high light chaser in the garden with an illuminated sign at the top that says "Power cut, what power cut?"

The biggest mistake was giving people the right to refuse. When gas injectors were changed (coal gas to natural gas) the guys just turned up. Any dissenters had their gas capped. I don’t recall any riots in the streets.

...but wasn't society different then, with people of my parents and grandparents generation being much more respectful of and less likely to challenge authority? Don't you think that pressurising people to have smart meters has been counterproductive, creating a situation where (some!!!! not all) people are being bloody minded out of principle and objecting out of principle because they don't like being told what to do?

People are people... I think the lack of social media would have had more to do with it than any change in attitudes towards an imposed 'authority'  

Spoonie_Turtle

On the topic of savings:

I've not kept up with my spreadsheet (had other more urgent things needing attention for much if the year) but in the first 5 months of this year, being on Tracker saved us £548.48 compared with the SVT.  By investing absolutely nothing, and with, if I'm honest, fairly minimal load shifting because the price has been pretty stable.

To be 100% fair and accurate, at that time we were legacy customers having joined before smart meters were required, so at that time we didn't actually have one, but I sent frequent readings for the billing to be as accurate as reasonably possible.  (That's one reason I've struggled to keep up with the spreadsheet, because of the billing being so 'bitty' with all the frequent readings.  But monthly billing has resumed since having the smart meter installed, so once I've caught up it should be easier to keep up.)

So with Tracker there isn't necessarily an inherent need to have a smart meter, like there is with Agile, it was a business decision on Octopus' part, but they're obviously wanting to bill based on accurate usage rather than readings and that's fair enough.  If any of the other suppliers bring out innovative tariffs, chances are they'll require smart meters too, to bill using the half-hourly usage.  Because multi-rate non-smart meters aren't made any more, and smart meters give TOU tariff flexibility to households without needing complex meters or specific wiring.

Zandoni

mmmmikey said:

Zandoni said:

mmmmikey said:

Zandoni said:

matt_drummer said:

EssexHebridean said:

I do slightly find myself scratching my head wondering what someone who considers a saving of potentially several hundred pounds a year is doing on a money saving forum...

My setup is worth £5,000 a year or more.

I couldn't do it without a smart meter.

I need more of an explanation than that.

Why? It should be blindingly obvious to you by now that there are lots of people here who, for all kinds of different reasons, are making savings that they would not be able to make if they didn't have smart meters. 

Every objection you have given to having a smart meter has been shot down.

You started by completely missing the point about certification dates. A twenty year old gas meter coming to the end of it's certification period is coming to the end of a certification period that was established by the manufacturer of the meter twenty years ago and that is nothing whatsoever to do with smart meters. Even if smart meters didn't exist, the old meter would still be replaced.

Then you went on to question the benefits of smart meters, and they have been clearly explained to you. Firstly, there are benefits around management of the grid and you have been given a summary of the main points and links to further information if you want it. Secondly, you have been shown tariff information that shows cheaper prices that are only available to customers with smart meters. Thirdly, you have been given examples of customers who are actually making savings by virtue of having had smart meters installed.

Before asking further questions, if you genuinely want to better understand the situation, could I suggest you take time to review the information you have been provided with already?

Unfortunately, there is all kinds of spurious nonsense posted on the internet from people who for whatever reason obstinately refuse to listen to the answers to questons they have asked. I wonder if you have put rather too much store on the views of those people before forming your own view based on an objective review of the facts?

Hope this helps, Mike

Yes some people are making small savings with smart meters after making huge outlays.

None of my objections have been shot down.

No points about certification dates have been missed, they were only introduced when electronic meters were brought into service.

I was a government gas meter examiner for twenty years and was present at meter manufacturers when electronic meters were introduced. All my knowledge of gas metering comes from experience not spurious nonsense on the internet.

So Mike it didn't help.

Zandoni said:

mmmmikey said:

Zandoni said:

matt_drummer said:

EssexHebridean said:

I do slightly find myself scratching my head wondering what someone who considers a saving of potentially several hundred pounds a year is doing on a money saving forum...

My setup is worth £5,000 a year or more.

I couldn't do it without a smart meter.

I need more of an explanation than that.

Why? It should be blindingly obvious to you by now that there are lots of people here who, for all kinds of different reasons, are making savings that they would not be able to make if they didn't have smart meters. 

Every objection you have given to having a smart meter has been shot down.

You started by completely missing the point about certification dates. A twenty year old gas meter coming to the end of it's certification period is coming to the end of a certification period that was established by the manufacturer of the meter twenty years ago and that is nothing whatsoever to do with smart meters. Even if smart meters didn't exist, the old meter would still be replaced.

Then you went on to question the benefits of smart meters, and they have been clearly explained to you. Firstly, there are benefits around management of the grid and you have been given a summary of the main points and links to further information if you want it. Secondly, you have been shown tariff information that shows cheaper prices that are only available to customers with smart meters. Thirdly, you have been given examples of customers who are actually making savings by virtue of having had smart meters installed.

Before asking further questions, if you genuinely want to better understand the situation, could I suggest you take time to review the information you have been provided with already?

Unfortunately, there is all kinds of spurious nonsense posted on the internet from people who for whatever reason obstinately refuse to listen to the answers to questons they have asked. I wonder if you have put rather too much store on the views of those people before forming your own view based on an objective review of the facts?

Hope this helps, Mike

Yes some people are making small savings with smart meters after making huge outlays.

None of my objections have been shot down.

No points about certification dates have been missed, they were only introduced when electronic meters were brought into service.

I was a government gas meter examiner for twenty years and was present at meter manufacturers when electronic meters were introduced. All my knowledge of gas metering comes from experience not spurious nonsense on the internet.

So Mike it didn't help.

Hi - sorry it didn't help.

However, you still appear to have mis-understood the information given to you about tariffs and potential savings. 

Although some people have invested in additional technology to help make the savings, others have done so with no investment in additional technology whatsoever. I'm somewhere in the middle. Perhaps my earlier post was wrong and your misundertandings have arisen because things have changed since your undoubtedly valuable past experience, which nobody is questioning? 

None of your experience changes the fact that there are a lot of contributors to this forum who are saving worthwhile amounts of money as a direct consequence of having had smart meters installed. 

It has been explained how the savings can be made and you have been given real-life examples. 

Why do you dismiss and/or doubt the information that has been given?

I’ll happily take any questions you may have on my 20 years as a gas meter examiner.

i haven’t completely dismissed what people have said about their savings,