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Smart Meters


Mouldy

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Its not often that I feel the need to post anything not Broads related on here, but this has made my blood boil.  We, like many others now, check the comparison websites to see what deals are on offer to lower our fuel prices, so last year signed up with a company who required us to have smart meters installed.  The electricity meter was changed back in January and the gas should have been done at the same time, however as we have a semi-submerged meter box, he didn't have a suitable one on the van and a second appointment would be required.  

I waited and waited and waited for a phone call or email to advise the appointment date and time and eventually, about four months ago, thought I'd better call to find out when the elusive appointment would be.  I managed to speak to someone and ask, who told me that he would forward the request and I should hear within ten days.

As you might imagine, ten days elapsed, followed by another ten weeks or so, when I thought another call might be necessary as a sort of reminder.  This time, a response - within a couple of weeks, I received an email with the date and time for the gas meter to be fitted and so it duly was, yesterday.

When the engineer finished, I asked what would happen if I wanted to change suppliers in the future and to my amazement, I was told that the meters are not generic and I would probably need new ones!!  He explained that some are used by  more than one supplier, but until the 'new generation' meters are issued, they are not all compatible.

Slightly aghast, I called one of the comparison websites and some to an advisor, who told me the same, but she did add that as this was a Government funded scheme, there would be no cost to me should a switch require the fitting of new meters.  Phew - what a relief.  Government funded?  Who provides the Government with the funds to waste on schemes like this?

The next call was to my current dual fuel supplier and their best deal can be bettered by about 20% by another supplier.  Looks as if I might be getting another set of meters then, as one of the criteria is that we must have smart meters fitted.

This appears to be another of the Governments half-cocked, ill-conceived ideas all based upon the need for us to jump on the environmental band-wagon.  Much the same as the demonisation of diesel cars, it appears that this idea to have us all equipped with smart meters by 2020, has been rushed through with no forethought or planning.  Surely, a pre-requisite of the scheme would be to have meters that are compatible with all suppliers.  I wonder what the cost of the two possibly wasted visits by an engineer to install our meters that could already be obsolete was and how many times this has been replicated all over the country.  With an economy screwed to the floor, local services cut to the bone and our roads, which let's face it are a vital part of the country's infrastructure, crumbling through lack of maintenance, what a cock-up?

I'm off for a couple of tablets to ease my blood pressure.

 

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You can refuse the new meters it's another gov co-up the eu said that IDEALLY all meters should be changed for new smart type other governments choose to have one type only our idiots left it up to each supplier, result many incompatible meters result new supplier new meter/different meter and if you change supplier you go on the higher rate until  the meter is changed a sneaky way of dissuading you to change supplier. The suppliers are forcing people to change to smart meters to stop them being charged by govt penalties. Perhaps Brexit will enable use to not have to comply with EU ruling on this!!!  John

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smart meters enable you to save money - only if you dont already have an idea of what energy you are using through what devices, I fitted an owl smart monitor system, this tells me how much energy I am using (on my electric), my house currently runs at just over 1kW (400W of this are computers I use as servers) then there are fridges and freezers.

do I know what is using my energy - in short yes i do. 

would a smart meter reduce my consumption - quite frankly no.

a smart meter can bill you on a half hourly tariff, this is cheaper and might save you money if your usage was out of the peak hours, but the cost of your energy varies by the demand on the system at that time, so predicting the charge gets complex.

I still pay my electricity through a standing order, at a rate just short of what I use. then every quarter when I get the bill I make up the shortfall. This way I dont get charged over the odds by direct debit, which they will happily raise your payment if you are using more than the direct debit payment, and then neglect to reduce it when you use less. in fact I had one occasion where they raised my direct debit by £100 a month because I had owed them £5 at the end of the quarter, and it was only when i phoned in and queried (on an internal phone call I may add) that they relented and reduced this, as I had originaly set the payment to be slightly high in the summer and slightly low in winter to even out the payments, this amount I was owing was at the end of spring and would have levelled out on the next payment.

As I have worked for one of the big electricity companies I know all the tricks they use, and your overpayments may only be small amounts for you, but the interest that the electricity industry is making on your money when considering the millions of customers they have , makes them big bucks, all the while of course it is not paying any interest to you.

 

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Our electricity meter failed a while back and was replaced with a 'smart meter' but it was installed in the non smart mode. This is possible with all of them apparently. I have to read it nonthly and submit a reading on line.  

I suppose that ticks another box somewhere in the bowels of Government.

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10 minutes ago, psychicsurveyor said:

It makes me laugh when I see the adverts saying a smart meter can save you money,  NO,  turning things off saves you money,  the meter only shows how much.

 

However, the feeble minded fall for it. 

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Apologies all, I've just re-read my post on a tablet and what I typed using Comic Sans font on the PC has reverted to some difficult to read script on the tablet. 

Note to self: I must remember to use the default font when contributing further to the Forum.

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It would have been much better if they had just supplied everyone with an electricity monitor (OWL, is one, as Grendel has). There's not much the energy-conscious can do to reduce their usage, I know I can't. So a smart meter won't help me. What it will do, is allow for "period" pricing, i.e. at times of high usage the rate per kW will go up, and vice versa. Good for us retired old farts, but not so good for the working population, who will find their rates from say 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. will go sky high. Make no mistake, the benefits are not for the consumer in this mess, it's for the companies. 

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I've so far refused to have a smart meter because of  this coclup in being unable to use the same meter across several suppliers.

A year or so ago they sent a letter to us saying a man would come round to check for the installation of a water meter but would would not be required to use it, a few days before the date they cancelled... we've never heard a thing since...

 

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Ah we had smart water meters installed - they did it for every property - no opt in or out, as they fitted them outside the property boundary in the footpath. as a 4 bed house with just 2 occupants we are probably saving money, though they use the water intake to calculate the waste - and we have 2 companies, one for water one for sewage, but they have got together to sort out the metering and charging.

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3 hours ago, grendel said:

my house currently runs at just over 1kW (400W of this are computers I use as servers) then there are fridges and freezers.

Pete if you're using 400W on servers, then you'd definitely benefit from a NAS appliance.

People often look at the relatively high initial cost of the hardware as a reason to not get one, but with that usage you'd be ahead within a year vs running old PC's.

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we have a computer recycling company close to where I live, and they have these things all the time, I just got an old workstation because I know how to set one of those up, actually the computers on 24/7 are 2 laptops, plus 3 desktops, 2 of those are workstations, and one normal format machine, I could get rid of the normal machine as it is only a print server for an old b&W laserjet (wont run on win7) but it has the cutest 12" touchscreen ever on a pedestal stand with built in keyboard (it used to function as the scanner interface for a xerox copier) and if I ever got rid of it I doubt i would find the software to run the touchscreen (though it might work in native linux?) the NAS would have to cope with at least 10 hard drives, some sata some ide, and various sizes.

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5 hours ago, grendel said:

Ah we had smart water meters installed - they did it for every property - no opt in or out, as they fitted them outside the property boundary in the footpath. as a 4 bed house with just 2 occupants we are probably saving money, though they use the water intake to calculate the waste - and we have 2 companies, one for water one for sewage, but they have got together to sort out the metering and charging.

We all had water meters fitted by Thames water but they are not compulsory for another six months, I get six monthly comparison bills that keep telling me I will pay considerably more on meter than I am paying now why? we don't use excessive amounts of water.

Regarding smart meters I was advised by an employee of one of the manufacturers not to have one because of various issues, I have declined all the requests to have one fitted and don`t feel deprived or that I am missing out, I am getting fed up with keep being told how to live my life however and what is or isn`t good for me.

Fred

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Our electricity supplier pays 3% interest on credit balances, I'm half way through a two year fixed rate deal which is competitive. 3% of very little is still very little but it's more than the money would have earned in the account the DD is paid from.

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16 hours ago, grendel said:

Synology do have cheaper models! They start at about £150 brand new IIRC.

 

All config is done through your browser and is way less painful than managing old kit.

 

https://www.synology.com/en-uk/products/DS218j

 

Under the hood they run Linux but you never see that unless you want to. The architecture is either ARM or x86 depending on the model.

 

One of the consumer models and a BIG pair of drives to run in RAID1 for redundancy will probably cost you £350-400. Less than a year's electric bill on the current setup and power consumption is from 20W depending on the model.

 

And you can set it to sync everything with Google Drive, Dropbox, S3, Glacier etc overnight.

 

Sent from the Norfolk Broads Network mobile app

 

 

 

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I switched to "So Energy" in the "Big London Switch" and they refuse to fit smart meters until the mess the government made is sorted out. My previous suppliers tried to bully me into having a smart meter fitted by only letting me renew my contract at the same rate if I had a smart meter fitted.

Personally I do not want one as I am quite capable of monitoring my own usage, turning off lights when not needed, not watching rubbish on the television and turning it off when rubbish is on. If I go out I turn everything off. Radiators in unused rooms are turned off. My energy bills are around £30 per month for both gas and electric together. The house is fitted with modern double glazing with K Glass and the walls are insulated and I have about 18ins of insulation in the loft. That! is the way to save money, not a smart meter.

Also my meters are easy to get at and I always dutifully sent my supply companies a monthly reading.

There is a very dark place the government can shove their meters.  :default_icon_eek:

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after I had the wall cavities insulated, in the winter we have one radiator on in the downstairs toilet, its about 18" wide and we set it on 2, other than this there is a heated towel rail in the bathroom, this is all the heating we have needed, during this summer the heat finally made it into the house and got the inside temperature up to 30 degrees at one point, indoors we are still having 26 degrees as it slowly cools down again. I only have about 3" insulation in the loft, but that is stuffed to the gills with boxes and junk, forming additional insulation.

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