Smart Meters

LindaJ it won't change anything apart from the hundreds who read meters being without a job.

A smart meter allows you to see how much power you are using at any point day or night so that you can rush round to switch something off. We had one a year ago, it was fun the first week since then it's been ignored.

The latest meters have a SIM card so that the supply company can read it remotely, the problem is that if you change company the SIM has also got to be changed, that seems to be a challenge to our supplier.

We had a smart meter for six months. Then we changed supplier and it ceased to work.

It made absolutely no difference to our energy use. All it did was tell us what we already knew, that we are, as we have always been, efficient and economical users of energy. I do not think we once turned anything off as a result of a reading on the smart meter.

We're on our second smart meter as we changed fuel provider. Our display is turned off and shoved in a cupboard so the smart meter is left to it's own devices to report our usage. I hope it never goes wrong because we don't have the faintest idea how to read it manually any more. It hasn't changed our energy use either.

I agree, it was a novelty the first fortnight but now it just does its job. I have not changed my ways because I thought that I was reasonably efficient when using gas and electricity.

I had to remind my company that I no longer have to read the meters- I cannot anyway because I am partially sighted which was one reason why I wanted one fitted.

I had a smart meter fitted at the beginning of last summer. The monitor kept giving totally unrealistic readings for gas.

I only use gas for central heating and hot water. As it was summer the heating wasn't on but the monitor was showing that I'd used about £3 worth of gas just for a shower.

I rang up about it 3 times. The first time she fobbed me off talking about time delays and the distance from the monitor to the meter. The second time he said to switch it off for twenty-four hours and if it didn't work to ring again in a week and they would replace it. The third time he said they don't replace them and there were faults in the software which they were working on.

I gave up after that and the monitor is sitting at the back of a cupboard.

I have resisted and will continue to do so despite umpteen phone calls and a mountain of guff through the post. Apparently they are in my area again next week and I am strongly advised to book an appointment to have one fitted.
No thank you

I am pleased we have a smart meter. It does make me aware how much we spend on elect/ gas each day and I am more likely to lower or switch off the heating.

We have had one for years and what it has done is make us aware of how much electricity we waste. DH is always going upstairs and leaving the TV and lights on. We have manged to reduce our bills.

No way, not going to happen in this house. We get weekly calls and letters and it just makes me more determined not to give in to them.
I would never turn down or switch off the heating, false economy and downright dangerous for some older or sick people.
When the meter reader came we mentioned it to him and he agreed that he would be out of work if everbody did as they asked.

I can see no harm in having a smart meter. Just don't believe all the hype about savings. If you manage energy well, it will not save you a penny, if you are a bit slap happy about it, once the novelty wears off of rushing round turning lights off, you will just slip back into your slap happy ways.

Only this morning I had an email telling me that they are phasing out our current meter and they will be fitting meters in our area next month. (Not here they won’t.)

I agree with MOnica they do no harm but for those of us who are thrifty they make no difference.

On a sort of related topic I recently heard on the radio that we should Repair, Reuse, Recycle. Why did people need to be told that? Is it that people no longer know how to repair things? I am just making cushion covers from lovely curtains we no longer need and we give things to charity shops and to others via Freegle. Do people just throw things away? Is that why millenials keep complaining? Maybe I'm simply having a grumpy day!

What about new digital water meter that can be read by an engineer either passing by in their car or from their HQ, rather than the older type of digital meter where they scan it from the plastic doohickey on the outside wall of the house? We keep getting pestered to have this new type of water meter but have resisted so far.

I certainly will not be getting one. I think the latest figures show that they "might" save you £11 a year !

The whole scheme was badly thought out and has probably cost millions which could be better spent. The vast majority of people are well aware of what appliances use most power and are already doing everything possible to cut down their usage.

Nonnie there was a news item yesterday or today about how many container loads of clothes go into land fill every day. I think it was about 7.
13 billion items of clothing every year.

Many, many people do not recycle anything, further than a few things in the house recycling bin. Visit any tip and you will see people dumping lots of perfectly good items; toys, bikes, furniture and lots of other things.

I had smart meters a few years ago with EON and quite correctly I was never asked to read my meter again BUT I then got estimated bills that were very inaccurate! I never managed to get to the bottom of that with EON when I changed companies and the smart meters no longer worked. In fact, my gas meter had to be replaced as it the display went blank and my electric meter now schools rapidly through different displays so I have to stand there for ages getting a couple go digits at a time!

I am now refusing to have them fitted again.

I notice that some companies have introduced low tariffs on condition that you have a smart meter fitted, Martin Lewis is not impressed with these tactics.

Scrolls not schools!

Why are so many of us, so opposed to using new technology to read meters? In the six months I had a working smart meter, I received bills that were accurate, didn't have to be in for meter readers or submit my own readings.

Gas and electricity meters have always been replaced and upgraded. Does anyone still have meter dating back to 1900?

I think the problem is the way the energy companies and the government went about 'selling' smart meters. If they had just shut up and installed them on a rolling replacement basis, no one would have been bothered, but because they over sold them as an all singing dancing answer to energy control etc, that nobody was that bothered about and when the meters clearly did not deliver everything that was promised, a reaction set in. Not to mention that they only worked if you stayed with the same supplier and, as Teacheranne says, are complicated to read.

The whole campaign has been a classic example of bad planning, and overselling.

MOnica what a terrible waste. Charity shops take clothes, whatever their condition as they get paid for the rags they can't sell. If we don't want something we can at least give it to someone else who will benefit.

MOnica You have summed up my reason for resisting. Even though I wasn't aware of my feelings.

Monica, I am most definitely not opposed to any new technology that will make my life easier and/or save me money.
However, I have refused to have a smart meter installed - the main reason is that the current ones being put in only work with the company that installs them, and we are encouraged to move around our energy suppliers. Perhaps when the new SMETS2 version comes in, I will have it installed.
I am on a very limited income, and living by myself I am frugal in my use of both gas and leccie. No machine would be enable me to be more careful. I send in my readings via the computer three or four times a year.
So, I keep on refusing to have one of these installed at present, just wonder how much this campaign has cost.
Could have probably reduced our energy bills by a suffieient percentage without it.

Without a smart meter, we saved more than 15% off our elec and 25% off gas bills. Smart meters will NOT save us any more. We had a local community energy metering project. More experienced helped novices. We read our meters weekly (we still do) and Local Council, Camden, lent us all meters which wrap around incoming elec , and send to display. Also a meter that measures how much say a frig uses and costs per week. (frig , while only 70 watts uses most because it is on 24/7, but a kettle at 2500 watts uses little because it is on only minutes a day).

I am waiting until the new generation of meters come:- "SMETS2" type, because they will work when you change supplier. "SMETS1" meters do not work if you change supplier, but they are still installing them.

The government are charging everybody about £1,000, added to elec bill to pay for smart meters, whether you use them or not.

It seems on the one hand we are encouraged to switch providers to keep them on their toes; and on the other, SMART meters which are being heavily promoted, aren't transferrable.

They (HMG vs fuel providers) can't have it both ways, surely.