Smart Meters

It's also simple to work out usage and cost, I quite enjoy doing it!

Why do people want to know day by day what energy they use? Does it really stop people (households) from turning heating off, or electrical appliances?
I thought the whole point of quartly bills, was to iron out the huge discrepancies between summer and winter, helping low wage earners to budget.
I for one will resist to the end, the fitting of smart meters... who knows what the gov. will do when faced with a crisis of energy, restrict your supply? They will do if they can, saying emergency measures!

1st and 2nd Generation Smart Meters do NOT reset themselves after a POWER Interruption. One has to manually reset the meter by pressing a button.
Imagine you are away on holiday or at work and a Power Interruption occurs, what are the consequences? Until you return to manually reset the meter you lose your heating and fridge/freezer power plus any other electrical facilities.
In my view this simple shortcoming precludes having any Smart Meter
installed until this problem is rectified.

einsteinagogo wrote: »

[rant on]

I've just received a letter from E.ON, advising me my current meter is at the end of it's life and not safe!!!! (How the elderly would feel about receiving this letter would probably panic!)

and contact them for a new meter, the letter does not state it will be replaced with a Smart Meter or what version! it will take 30 minutes to replace....

Umm, how they know this is incorrect!

My annoyance, is that there is no means to have this installed at the weekend, e.g. I have to take a day off work, and lose a days holiday!

Does it benefit me - NO, like other's in the thread - I understand how to read a meter, and what the numbers mean, and I currently provide E.ON with meter reads every month, I was hopeful that having a smart meter would mean my bill would be accurate to the READING taken, this is not true, as they will still on BILL a Quarter...

AND, after having contacted E.ON in June 2017, and asked for a Smart Meter, two engineers visited the property, I was expecting a 30 minute install time as per advertised letter, and the Engineers, went off spoke to their boss, and told me because of my Economy 7, and space in the current box, it was likely it would take the entire afternoon (4hrs), I would be off supply, so as I run my business from the property, couldn't be off electric for that long....

BUT Engineers then check signal with their magic box, and told me, it was at or under 30% and it may not work, and if they installed it, they may have to come back and uninstall it!

because it would not send reads....

[/rant off]

Anyway E.ON you've now convinced me to say **** ***, as I'm now starting to look at switching again, contract is up in June away...

maybe this is why they want to trap me....

any E.ON **** ***!

Hello einsteinagogo and I'm sorry our technicians weren't able to complete a smart meter installation for you.

The letter you received sounds like the one we send to customers when their meters are nearing the end of their guaranteed shelf life. Electricity meters are designed to last between 10 and 30 years and gas meters between 5 and 15 years. When meters reach the end of their lifespan we’ll be in touch to ask to exchange them. This is called a meter re-certification for electricity and a policy exchange for gas.

It's not possible to give an exact time frame for carrying out this work as circumstances can differ widely between individual properties. On average, for classic/traditional meters, it takes around 30 minutes per meter to do the exchange. It's different for smart meters.

Customers due a re-certification/policy exchange will be offered smart meters provided the property can accept them. It depends on things like the actual area, type of property, the strength of the mobile phone signal and the current metering set up. There are also certain local difficulties that don't become clear until a technician visits a property. Again, the circumstances at individual properties vary but, on average, it usually takes about an hour per meter to install smart meters. Each fuel will need to be turned off for about 30 minutes.

We do have certain availability to visit on Saturdays and to offer set time slots during the week. This availability, though, depends on the area of the country, the local Meter Operator and the nature of the work involved. Sounds like these appointments weren't available to you.

From what you say, I suspect the circumstances at the property are such as to make it unlikely we'll be able to fit smart meters at the present time.

Depending on what stopped us from completing this particular installation, you might be eligible for a payment under our Guaranteed Standards of Service. These apply where it's our fault a meter appointment fails. If it is, we'll pay £30 within 10 working days regardless of whether or not you complain. If we don't do this within the 10 working days, we'll make the original payment plus an additional payment of £30 because it's late. There's more information about this on our website under Guaranteed Standards of Service. I'm not saying this applies here einsteinagogo as I don't know the full details of what happened but it's worth asking the question.

Sorry again we weren't able to complete the installation and hope I haven't rambled on too much.

Malc