Octopus want 80.00 to check 'their' smart meter?

Flugelhorn

Swipe said:

Surely if the meter is faulty, it would have also been over reading when you had the fish tanks?

perhaps they will also discover that he meters  weren't registering enough when the tanks were there

Keep_pedalling

If the meter is over or under reading I would still expect a change after getting rid of 10 tropical fish tanks. Can you give us some daily usage figures from before and after please?

If you are not on half hour readings I would get that changed and ask Octopus for one of their Octopus Mini devices (supplied for free) you can get som real time usage.

debitcardmayhem

Could you present us with some readings in kWh eg from the readings from the Octopus app/website, for say 6 months worth or as many as you can that include with and without the aquaria
Oh and do you have an immersion heater for water?

EssexHebridean

First up, like a lot of threads of this type, the "smart" aspect of the meter is a red herring - this is a simple question of whether an energy meter may be over-reading. in fact, that it is a smart meter  should at least make it easier to check the detail, so that could be helpful. 

As someone else says - if the meter was over-reading, then that would very likely also have been the case when you had the fish tanks too. (Also - sorry to hear you have had to give up your hobby, you must really miss it.)  The question of raising a charge if a meter is checked and found to be OK is also standard practise - pretty much every second person who feels their bills are a bit high immediately defaults to "my meter must be faulty" so it would be impractical to check every single one of those meters without any charge. As a result the general response is as with you - to explain that the majority of meters they check are in fact accurate (and those tolerances are also pretty industry-standard with that sort of technology) and to underline that there is a charge for checking if the meter is fine - this of course makes most people stop and think, and then start looking into whether in fact they just use more than they think, and that is generally the case!

You've had good advice above on providing readings - I take it that the readings from the physical electricity meter match those being used for your billing? Let us have readings from a set period prior to decommissioning the tanks, and after, and we can perhaps shed some light on things, or at least suggest your next move. 

Do you check the readings yourself and if so, do you still have any of the notes you made of those "eyes on" readings, too? 

FreeBear

The alternative to paying Octopus £80 to do a meter check is to purchase an energy monitor of your own. For example, one of these -> https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/285979533476 - The current sensor clips around one of the cables between meter and consumer unit (fuse box), and just needs to be wired to the mains (best fitted in to a box fixed to the wall). Whilst not certified to be accurate, it should be close enough to determine if your meter is misreading wildly. Or you could purchase your own MID approved meter and get an electrician to wire it up in series with your existing meter. Won't be cheap though..

I have been using something very similar (a PZEM-016)  to monitor my electricity consumption. Over the years, it has been within 1% or so of the main meter.

meggsz

Yes could well have been. Its showing itself to me I feel for sure as they have now gone and daily readings are pretty much the same as when I had them running... I just don't see why I have to risk 80.00 and then you've only got their word for it tooif they say its fine. Well they defiine fine as being up to 3.5% over...

Reed_Richards

And they've only got your word to say that it isn't fine.  If there was no charge to send someone out to "verify" your meter then everyone would be asking for it.

EssexHebridean

meggsz said:

Yes could well have been. Its showing itself to me I feel for sure as they have now gone and daily readings are pretty much the same as when I had them running... I just don't see why I have to risk 80.00 and then you've only got their word for it tooif they say its fine. Well they defiine fine as being up to 3.5% over...

You're missing the point though. Let's say your general daily use amounts to 3kWh, and the tanks were using an additional 5kWh - so your actual use would amount to 8kWh per day. If the meter was overreading, then you would have been seeing that 8kWh use PLUS however much the over-read was. The reduction from the tanks being switched off would still be showing, regardless - even if the over-read continued - that you are seeing your use continue unchanged then that in itself indicates that something is wrong. 

Ie - with tanks:
base 3kWh + tanks 5kWh + overread (let's say another 5kWh for argument's sake) = 13kwh daily
without the tanks:
base 3kWh + that assumed overread at another 5kWh = 8kWh daily. 

See? 

hubb

They try their best bless them to get me to have a smart meter but I keep sidestepping. I have had stick on these forums until mse closed the thread as it didn't follow the narrative. And surprise surprise there has been some controversy in the media about their inaccuracy in Northern England, No thank you! 

Btw - has anyone every won anything on spin the wheel after giving readings ? It's a swizz. 

vacheron

This isn't a smart meter problem, it is just a "meter" problem as both types can be inaccurate.

Performing an accuracy test on a whim incurs costs. They have already said that you won't have to pay if it turns out to actually be faulty, but (as they stated from their first response) almost 9 out of 10 meters tested turn out to be fine, so who else should pay the costs for testing these 9 perfectly accurate meters? I don't see why other customers should have to foot the bill?

If you want. you can buy something like this which you can clip round the meter tail by your meter, no electrical work needed, which you can use to compare.