smart meter

bluesriff7

thames water sent me a letter about installing a smart meter in my house.
it says my bills will be smarter, will have 24/7 control..spot sneaky leaks. and save money.
I can't stop laughing!

Peter999_2

Not sure why you find it funny.   I've got a semi-smart water meter and it detected a leak months and months before it would have become apparent.        It actually angers me that Yorkshire Water only supply ONE bill every year - I want a bill every month detailing how much I owe and then I can pay it.   I'd never get into debt or credit.

As it is, I have to manually read the meter every month which is a complete pain but I want to know asap if there is another leak.

dunstonh

bluesriff7 said:

thames water sent me a letter about installing a smart meter in my house.
it says my bills will be smarter, will have 24/7 control..spot sneaky leaks. and save money.
I can't stop laughing!

You cannot stop laughing at the people that don't realise that a smart meter can be a good thing?

bluesriff7

I pay my bill monthly by direct debit , so do they take a monthly reading.  Currently paying £33
a month that’s just for mains water.
sewerage is on a tank shared between houses
cost about £45 a month to empty and service the pumping station . 

I am not laughing about that!

Peter999_2

I am also paying £33 a month but Yorkshire Water take smart readings from the meter every 6 bloody months which is ridiculous.   They were hopeless when I had a leak as well.    

Are you sure they are taking a monthly reading?   Yorkshire Water certainly don't and I was fortunate enough that the leak happened about a month before their 6 monthly reading.    So backwards.

Robin9

I went Smart and cut my bills for 50%


Read other posts on here where users have been able to identify leaks were a problem - even constantly running toilet cisterns -  after they received big bills

Go for it

QrizB

bluesriff7 said:

cost about £45 a month to empty and service the pumping station . 

I am not laughing about that!

That seems a lot.

My sister has a septic tank and has just paid £250 for her annual pump out. I'd have expected a shared system to cost less per household, not twice as much!

Brie

Not Yorkshire water but I have the problem of only getting a bill every 6 months and assumed the readings are done that infrequently as well.  In fact despite having a supposed smart meter the water company was using estimates for a couple of years and hadn't noticed that the meter itself had stopped working.  The meter isn't accessible to me (under the road, not on our property) so I have no way of checking on it.  The one positive thing is that as the meter stopped working they couldn't support the readings they were using and I was refunded about 3 years worth of payments.

Peter999_2

Yes, it is very frustrating.

I actually have a leak bot which is a genuinely great device.   You clamp it to the water pipe and it reads the water going through it - if there is a constant use i.e. leak it sends you an email to advise you.    I put one in my parents house and it detected a leak which was hidden underneath the sink. I got it off ebay for £30.

It didn't work for me because the leak was actually between the meter and my internal stopcock so I had no way of knowing.   It took Yorkshire water two visits and 3 months to fix it - it was losing 99 litres a day.    When the workmen came to do it it turns out they had done over half my street in the last 18 months.  The fittings to the meter were cheap and failed after about 20 years.

bluesriff7

its not a septic tank, the tank is buried in the ground and air is blown into the waste by electric motor,
I will get some more info from thames water about the meter.
thanks for replying 

QrizB

bluesriff7 said:

its not a septic tank, the tank is buried in the ground and air is blown into the waste by electric motor,

A packaged treatment plant, then? My parents have got one of those!