Smart meter installation gone a bit wrong

Bluey87

Okay, I’ll keep this short. Smart meter installed today and immediately the guy installing has (in my opinion, proven by the pics of my old dial meter I had been taking daily) entered a much higher reading:

My reading 28/11 9841
His reading 29/11 10852

Now my energy account is up the wall. I’ve emailed octopus explaining this and also with an image of the meter from earlier in the week. 

I’m hoping it gets sorted. Also they’ve provided me with an energy monitor which I think is faulty because after going around the house and switching everything off at the plug it was showing I was using 72p/3.10kwh. 

Are these smart meters as stupid as people seem to say they are? 

Netexporter

The IHD is showing what you've already used. Press a different button for the instantons usage.

Bluey87

It says “being used now” under the graphic and the needle is in red. 

I’m not particularly concerned about that, it’s the vastly out of whack meter reading I feel I’m going to be having a tussle with them over, even though I have images stating otherwise. 

Lorian

What's the reading on the meter swap card? Should be by the new meter. Are you sure you immersion heater is not on, they tend to be 3kW.

Gerry1

It's very easy to misread an old rotary dial meter; most of the online guides get it hopelessly wrong, often making hideous errors such as showing some of the numbers upside down.

Post a photo of the old meter and we'll be able to tell you the correct reading.  Remember that the correct figure for each dial is the digit that the pointer has just passed, which is not necessarily the nearest one.

Clue: If you think this meter shows 60279, you've made two mistakes !

Keep_pedalling

Bluey87 said:

Okay, I’ll keep this short. Smart meter installed today and immediately the guy installing has (in my opinion, proven by the pics of my old dial meter I had been taking daily) entered a much higher reading:

My reading 28/11 9841
His reading 29/11 10852

Now my energy account is up the wall. I’ve emailed octopus explaining this and also with an image of the meter from earlier in the week. 

I’m hoping it gets sorted. Also they’ve provided me with an energy monitor which I think is faulty because after going around the house and switching everything off at the plug it was showing I was using 72p/3.10kwh. 

Are these smart meters as stupid as people seem to say they are? 

The 72p / 3.10kWh figure is the amount you have used, real time data is displayed in kW not kWh.

We need to see the image you took to see if it was you or the engineer reading the dials incorrectly. 

Bluey87

Here is the image of the meter from the evening before the new smart meter was installed. 

If you zoom in the 10,000 dial isn’t past 1 so I’m reading that it starts with 9 on the 1,000 dial. 

This could be a learning opportunity for me : ) 

Reed_Richards

I read 9841.23.  That's very close to 10,000 which is why the indicator on the 10,000 dial is very close to 1.  If the reading was 10841 then the indicator on the 1000 dial would be near the 1. The best thing you can do is send your photo to your supplier.

Swipe

This is why taking a photo is so important when having a meter replaced. It's an open and shut case here.

Bluey87

That’s very good, I was almost excited to be proven wrong. 

I’ve contacted the supplier with an image so let’s see what they do from here. 

On to the second part of the query. The monitor is a trio, the display says “being used now” so whilst the kettle was on it shot up (as you’d expect) but now it’s back to a normal level. So far today, we’ve used £1.37 but nothing has been on. We’re back to 0.02/hr after the kettle boiled. 

I do have an unvented cylinder which is connected to Hive and comes on between 3.30am and 4am and I think it has an immersion heater to keep the temperature up but to be honest I can’t see that kicking in very much and making a large difference because there is only two of us in the house and it’s 250 litres, for the next people who may move in with kids etc. 



I’d perhaps disregard the “Today” side of the screen because on the top image it was plugged in from around 1.30/2pm. In the second image it’s had a full run since midnight to now. I can’t think what would have used £1.37 so far, everything has been off. 

Alnat1

The standing charge will show each day and that is probably around 65p of the total