Dead Gas Meter

QrizB

So when smart gas meters run out of battery they cut off the gas?

Based on reports on this forum - sometimes they do, most often they don't.

MWT

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81950420#Comment_81950420

The other check is to look at the gas meter and see if the display is working when you press a button…

… assuming it is a smart meter… was your faulty meter actually a smart meter?

SAC2334

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81950426#Comment_81950426

They are supposed to cut off the gas both when run out of credit and run out of battery but judging by the number of meters I found with a dead battery still using gas a lot of them don't .It's a popular fiddle on the old prepayment meters to get to the battery and remove it to force a shut down which still leaves the gas valve open

.Occupiers will mostly tell the supplier they are getting free gas but many don't and just use the excuse that it's nothing to do with them and leave it up to the supplier to check. The unregistered gas can go on for years with occupiers refusing access .

Deep in the Terms and Conditions of supply it states any faults in meters have to be reported .

Joes_Dad

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81950630#Comment_81950630

Yes it was a smart meter but didn’t think for a moment it would go faulty as it was working fine the night before and waking up to a freezing cold house in the middle of February sort of needs urgent attention.

Sounds like they are making a rod for their back if the battery only lasts so long and the logical thing would be for the meter to report it’s battery level when sending the readings so a timely replacement could be made. Maybe it does but falls on deaf ears who knows.

MWT

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81950888#Comment_81950888

This was more of a problem on the older SMETS1 gas meters, we don't seem to hear about it much these days.

Unfortunately it is not a field replaceable item so in theory at least the meters are scheduled for replacement before the battery reaches the end of its service life, but that isn't always predictable it seems.

TroubledTarts

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81950991#Comment_81950991

I guess no smets2 meters are 10 years old yet.

Are you aware if they have the same 10 year battery?

SAC2334

They use batteries with the longest life . Lithium Thyonyl Chloride .

SMETS 2 smart gas meters which are installed on their own without the pairing electric meter get through the battery in quick time when it's continuing to try and pair with the the none existant smart electric meter constantly .

My neighbours Daughter works for a company in South Wales who refurbish used gas meters smart and dumb and tells me they re getting lots of nearly new Smets 2 gas meters in all the time with flat batteries .

MWT

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81951093#Comment_81951093

The gas meter is going to be trying to connect to the HAN and hence the gas proxy in the comms hub, so presumably that is the issue rather than the electricity meter?

I imagine there are more situations where the gas meter is just too far away from the comms hub rather than being installed without the electricity meter?

SAC2334

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81951156#Comment_81951156

Meter fitters will install just the smart gas if they are having problems with the electric meter fitting .One out of two is better than none ..

My neighbours daughter is a manager with this meter refurb company so I LL take her word for it .I know how wasteful this industry is anyway. With a flat battery I don't think they even bother exchanging the battery and use it again,they just put a new meter in .

I can change these batteries in situ which I did a lot with the old George Wilson prepay meters but that's gone now .Just dump the whole meter and bung a new one in. We pay for this waste with higher standing charges or the smart meter roll out payments .The whole industry is really sloppy .Someone gets away with thieving energy for years and nothing is done about even if caught .Only British Gas has a Revenue Protection Unit the rest don't want to waste money catching thieves .

SAC2334

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81951156#Comment_81951156

Hubs are part of the upper electric smart meters nowadays on all smart meters .The Early SMETS 1 s had seperate hubs