British gas can't install a smart meter due to haveing storage heaters and economy 7.

Nummy01

Anyone else had this issue? I've also just signed up for a new tarrif and past the cooling off period and of course there's a charge to change providers, think it would be possible to say they can't provide a service and if I switch, tell them to sod off?

al3xp

I have storage heaters and had economy 7 when EDF fitted my smart meter in 2021. Switched to Octopus last year and they took over the meter no problem on Eco 7 tariff.

QrizB

Smart meters are fully compatible with storage heaters. However I don't think that BG declining to install a smart meter is a good enough reason for you to avoid an early termination charge.

Does your tariff specifically require a smart meter?

EssexHebridean

BG have a bit of history with smart meters and E7 as I recall - there have been a number of cases on here where people have had SMs installed by BG only to them find that they have "lost" their E7 off peak circuit. I thought we had heard a while ago that this issue was now fixed, but from this, it would seem as though perhaps not. 


In our last property we had E7 and I avoided getting a smart meter purely because for a long while we were always with smaller providers and I was concerned that getting SOLR'd over to BG could cause a significant issue. 

ianfromnotts

I am on a fixed contract E7 tarrif with BG.  About 3 months ago they started to bombard me with emails telling me I had to switch to a SMART meter because my old meter was going to stop working.  Took me about 5 attempts to book the install - their web site kept saying they weren't installing SMART meters.  Engineer arrived and said he was told it was a single tariif - but set it up as E7. 

All was working fine BUT and its a big BUT.  BG seem totally unable to get their billing system to accept the 2 register data so they keep swapping me without my consent or discussion to a single rate tariff.

Additionally have re-issused statements going back 18months plus and used incorrect date, in their favour, of course.

It now Nov 2024 and despite the issue being with OFGEM there is no sign of a fix nor compensation for the extra costs involved let alone the time and hassle it is causing me.

The E7 issue is clearly not fixed and it is impossible to have any meaningful converation with BG about it - my advice is steer well clear of BG even if the prices are higher eslewhere the pain and suffering is not worth it. 

Search facebook for "British Gas Incompetence" to what you risk. 

EssexHebridean

Interestingly BG had significant issues with smart meters and E7 for a good while - but we’d had reports that they seemed to have sorted it out. From what you are saying, it suggests that maybe those reports were a bit previous! 

Timmos1983

Can anyone advise the the BG issues have been resolved. I have just been pressed into having a smart meter installed and I am currently on an E7 tariff with storage heaters. If the radio signal that controls the storage heaters  is being switched off, does anyone know how the new smart meters will communicate with the storage heaters? 

Ildhund

I take it your smart meter hasn't actually been installed yet. The normal arrangement is that storage heaters are currently on a dedicated circuit switched on and off by the RTS. The smart meter will do just the same, except that the switching times will be set in the meter itself. With E7, that setting will be more or less permanent (although it may change during British Summertime). The switched circuit (which may also cover a water heater) will be fed by a separate cable from the meter; this shouldn't be a problem if the RTS and the current 24-hour meter are close together. The circuit will only be live during E7 offpeak hours. There will often be separate 24-hour connections to the heating equipment, e.g. to power storage heater controls or to allow for a top-up boost if you run out of hot water during the day. 

The meter receives instructions and sends data over a dedicated smart meter wide-area network (WAN) which uses a different type of connection in the northern and southern halves of Britain, changing at about the latitude of Manchester. This network isn't involved at all in controlling the heaters; that's all done by the meter itself.

QrizB

Timmos1983 said:

Can anyone advise the the BG issues have been resolved.

People have stopped complaining about BG, smart meters and storage heaters on this forum. It seems as though whatever the problem was, it's been fixed.

Timmos1983 said:

If the radio signal that controls the storage heaters  is being switched off, does anyone know how the new smart meters will communicate with the storage heaters? 

There's an entirely different communications network used with smart meters that doesn't rely on the BBC Radio 4 long wave transmitter.

Qyburn

Timmos1983 said:

Can anyone advise the the BG issues have been resolved. I have just been pressed into having a smart meter installed and I am currently on an E7 tariff with storage heaters. If the radio signal that controls the storage heaters  is being switched off, does anyone know how the new smart meters will communicate with the storage heaters? 

Make sure there'll going to install a "five terminal" meter. There's two aspects to E7, the price change between peak and off-peak times which affects all your use, and the separate off-peak circuit which is energised only off-peak.

SAC2334

Very odd that the largest supplier cannot handle E7 in smart meters .
I worked for BG for approx 20 years reading their meters and the big problem I had was that nearly all their Eco 7 digital  meters were transposed in my area of South Yorks  and occupiers mostly did not know about it or were even  concerned . 
I would place the night rate in the correct field on my handheld computer which got the customer complaining about big bills so BG then switched my correct reading back again.
It was all to do with how digital meters in S.Yorks were configured . All the old day/ night analogue meters never had any probs because they were all correctly labelled with low/night at the top row and the day/normal rate at the bottom and every meter reader or customer always got it right.
 Digital meters had the capacity to always get it wrong .