The desynching Gas SMETS1 conundrum

ZilianStoleMyMoney

Hi there,

My mother and myself moved into a bottom flat property in Oct 2020, but for the last 2 years the gas SMETS1 (Smart meter) meter has been desynching from the electric so it was difficult to send or receive readings from etc. We are on PAYG.

Last year we had 3 failed MOP appointments to come upgrade them to SMETS2, 4th appointment would clash on a date my mother would come out of Hospital, and with her COPD (being on PSR) the cold would be bad for her.

Last month the gas supply went off, wasn't sure why, couldn't contact Utilita (our current supplier) at the time - which shouldn't have happened at that time of night as per PSR you can't turn off a supply to chronic ill customers. Eventually got a random text message that the supply would be able to turn on at 11pm manually via the gas meter which is literally at ground level outside.

Contacted Utilita about it, asked them to once again arrange an engineer as this was getting too much now, since last year seems Utilita has got offshore CSAs in an African nation somewhere - maybe Nigeria? And the first guy Darren was bad, wouldn't entertain a booking because he could see a connection to the gas meter, I told him the issue is ongoing for a long time and the meter will desynch eventually... nope.

Tried again some other day, nope, so decided to switch to Scottish Power - know a few peeps used to work for them and E-on. Utilita then object to the switch near the end saying the named person isn't the same as the person on their account (I am named on it). And then set up a complaint about it etc. 2nd switch was done and awaiting that to go through 22nd of this month.

Got email today saying switch cancelled cause they can't speak to the meter.. Spoke to a nice girl in Utilita after being hung up on by the last one, and she sat with me for 1hr trying to book an engineer - earliest was 26/1/26 and trying to figure out ways to use gas without it going off supply again because can't top up and it is difficult to actually manually do it at the meter - as said Gas meter is at literal ground level and around the boxes with the meter is a heightened grass area, so you need to be a contortionist to read the meter. And I have a bad back so can't do it.

So I have run out of options I can think off, on how to stop the gas going off supply any time soon, apparently can't have an emergency MOP out to replace or even move it under 1 meter so I can use it. If any GSEs or someone with a similar experience has any information or advice, I would welcome it.

Thanks sorry for the long story

ZilianStoleMyMoney

Additional : Finally got to speak to someone from Utilita's tech team - which was like drawing blood out of a stone to do so. They initially tried to push me on credit mode for the meters, wouldn't make a difference as the gas meter isn't communication so wouldn't have changed, also the fact the DSC would be more expensive - that was a no.

Labelled as emergency, got someone coming tomorrow to look at the meters and potentially changing them. Hopefully tomorrow the issue gets resolved.

cannugec5

I’m sorry, you have used so many abbreviations I don’t understand. 

Can you please explain PSR, MOP, DSC, GSE  etc. 
I’m sure most people will know what you mean, and if it were just one I’d have Googled, but this made your post  unintelligible to me. 

ETA
I was drawn to this post by the title using the term ‘desynching meter’ . I still don’t know what that means even after trying to Google it. 

Ildhund

PSR: Priority Services Register. 

It's not really a good idea for the energy supply to customers on the PSR to be managed by a prepayment meter. Prepayment meters are designed to stop the supply when the money runs out, although most suppliers have a 'friendly credit' system that prevents interruption to service during the night or at weekends. Being on the PSR doesn't mean that the customer won't be cut off, regardless of the medical situation.

I'm not sure what "... the DSC would be more expensive ..." means. The standing charge for both electricity and gas supplies is the same for prepayment customers as it is for those paying by Direct Debit.

QrizB

Ildhund said:

I'm not sure what "... the DSC would be more expensive ..." means. The standing charge for both electricity and gas supplies is the same for prepayment customers as it is for those paying by Direct Debit.

OP is with Utilita, so they might be on the tariff with zero SC. That's prepayment-only. (The SC is instead split across the first two units of the day, so if you're actually using the supply there's no saving.)

Utilita's prepayment tariff in my region:

Electricity
Standing Charge: None
First Rate: 47.970 p/kWh
Saver Rate: 25.660 p/kWh
Gas
Standing Charge: None
First Rate: 22.904 p/kWh
Saver Rate: 6.17 p/kWh

OP would probably save money overall by switching to a credit tariff from a different supplier.

Ildhund

QrizB said:
OP is with Utilita, so they might be on the tariff with zero SC. 

Sorry, I missed that. Visibility decreases as bedtime approaches ...

Still. I'd have thought that the risk of harm to a chronic invalid from a service interruption weighed more heavily than the perceived (but probably illusory) saving resulting from a no-standing-charge tariff.

ZilianStoleMyMoney

cannugec5 said:

I’m sorry, you have used so many abbreviations I don’t understand. 

Can you please explain PSR, MOP, DSC, GSE  etc. 
I’m sure most people will know what you mean, and if it were just one I’d have Googled, but this made your post  unintelligible to me. 

ETA
I was drawn to this post by the title using the term ‘desynching meter’ . I still don’t know what that means even after trying to Google it. 

Sorry about that...

PSR - Priority Services Register
MOP - Meter Operator
DSC - Daily Standard Charge
GSE - Gas Safe Engineer

Desynching meter, for me the gas meter keeps losing communication with the Electric smart meter meaning it won't receive or send data, so near impossible to top up except for manual voucher input. But it does make it difficult to have an accurate idea of what the balance is etc.

ZilianStoleMyMoney

Update : Looks like the Emergency visit isn't going ahead, why am I not surprised our MOP in this region is notorious for not informing people or just not showing up.