Smart Meter Faulty - Needs Changing

suemacd22

I've been in my new build property since 02/22 and have been waiting all this time for my gas smart meter to be changed as, according to Scottish Power, it's faulty and needs changing.  I have contacted them on numerous occasions as I'm still having to give them manual gas readings and have been told it's on their to do list and it will be changed in due course.  I'm just wondering if anyone else is, or has been in the same situation and if theirs has been changed, how long they had to wait.  Thank you 

Reed_Richards

If you believe your manual readings are accurate then it would not be regarded as a serious fault.  Your gas meter communicates via your electricity meter and this may not work if the two meters are too far apart.

LCMSEAcct

I had a smart meter for years, which never worked from the point it was installed.  OVO only changed it after I refused to send in customer readings for around 20 months.

According to a news item I saw the energy companies are not measured on how many working smart meters they have, just how many smart meters (working or not) are installed in their customer base.

FlorayG

Yep, still waiting for new meter I moved here in August 2022
You have to hassle them to get them to actually do anything
I have an appointment for fitting finally on 10th October

suemacd22

Reed_Richards said:

If you believe your manual readings are accurate then it would not be regarded as a serious fault.  Your gas meter communicates via your electricity meter and this may not work if the two meters are too far apart.

They are next to each other.  Scot Power have admitted the gas meter is faulty and are going to replace it at some point... 

Tescodealqueen

We had three engineers who confirmed gas meter not working and need replacing but since I send readings every month to keep bills in order nothing is done. The engineers all said not a priority unless both meters stopped sending information 

MeteredOut

Tescodealqueen said:

We had three engineers who confirmed gas meter not working and need replacing but since I send readings every month to keep bills in order nothing is done. The engineers all said not a priority unless both meters stopped sending information 

I've seen reports of others refusing to send meter readings every month (but keep your own records and money aside to cover your usage) and eventually it'll make someone at the supplier do something. That will takes months though.

molerat

Martin Lewis has written to Ed Milliband on the subject

https://blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2024/09/martin-lewis--letter-to-the-energy-secretary-on-smart-meters/

SAC2334

molerat said:

Martin Lewis has written to Ed Milliband on the subject

https://blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2024/09/martin-lewis--letter-to-the-energy-secretary-on-smart-meters/

Nearly all of them work as meters but just act as a normal dumb meters . Using the word "broken " is overdoing it . The In House Display should not be counted at all as a "broken " meter 

 We have probably the exact same number of dumb ( and smart )  digital gas meters blank screen with flat batteries and   electric digital meters with blank screens knocked out with power surges or just cheap and not up to the job small Ampy meters packing in .
 I found hundreds of these blank screens on digital meters   with occupiers getting estimated readings until suppliers could be bothered to replace .
Faulty analogue meters were a true rarety until solar panels started making the electric meter run backwards with not many reporting it .

Ildhund

Tescodealqueen said:

We had three engineers who confirmed gas meter not working ... I send readings every month ...

I've written this so often ever since Martin Lewis made his deliberately alarming claim back in March that "20% of smart meters don't work" ...
It's a meter's job to measure. If you're able to take readings, then it clearly is working. The fact that it's not transmitting these readings automatically to the supplier is an inconvenience, not a fundamental failure of the meter to work. You're in exactly the same situation as before you got a smart meter.

Submitting readings regularly (e.g. once a month) as you did before is in your own interest, as you obviously understand. The supplier isn't required to take readings, just 'reasonable steps to obtain meter readings at least annually' (SLC 21B.4). Failing - even refusing when asked - to submit regular readings may lead to unpleasant surprises when eventually one is taken, as many customers have discovered.

Chrysalis

molerat said:

Martin Lewis has written to Ed Milliband on the subject

https://blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2024/09/martin-lewis--letter-to-the-energy-secretary-on-smart-meters/

Agree with pretty much everything Martin says there although I expect in home displays will be argued as not important.

For me the ideal future would be to scrap IHD's as they are over built and awkrawd to use, replace with something akin to the octopus mini which has it accessible on a smart phone app, and of course consider every smart meter acting as a dumb meter "not" in the government target count meaning suppliers are incentivised to do repairs as much as installs.  The mini would also be optional, not an automatic thing given to people who have no interest in it.