How invasive is the work involved in swapping to smart meters?

[AintNobodyHereButUsChickens]

I got an email from Octopus saying our gas meter is old and needs replacing so they'll come and do both gas and electricity meters. However, our electricity meter is behind/in a kitchen cupboard, we had to modify the back of the cupboard so the meter can be seen. The space is VERY tight and our cupboard was expensive, so obviously I don't want them cutting or damaging it 😬

Will they make a mess or have to modify the cupboard even more? How big are the smart meters?

My supplier is constantly telling me I need to change to smart meters but until it's impossible to get a supply I'm not interested. Smart meters can cause their users to become anxious about the amount of energy they use. They give suppliers an awful lot of information about you by monitoring your consumption.

None you just plug it in. Mine is sitting behind the sofa out of the way.

@Shehasadiamondinthesky

None you just plug it in. Mine is sitting behind the sofa out of the way.

They have to change the actual meter though, right?

If there is not enough space in the cabinet they will not install. They don't make holes in cabinets or even move things - that's beyond their liability.

If you book them to come and do it they will tell you whether or not there's enough space. If there is, they'll do it. Your supply will be turned off for a few hours.

Beware of aging gas boilers - ours didn't want to turn on again. That was a scary afternoon. Thankfully we got our usual gas person out and she got it working again.

I never plug the display in. The electric one does send a daily reading. The gas has never worked. I still have to do that one manually.

Our electricity use has doubled since it was installed compared to the year before but hard to know if it's a fault with the meter or WFH

Scottish power blew up our boiler doing this, if they hadn't it would've been an hour or two in our house (both meters). Instead it was days without heating or hot water with a baby in mid winter while they denied all responsibility even when their associated maintenance arm came out and reported it had been caused by the engineer not shutting down the gas boiler before removing the gas meter which was also dangerous! Eventually legal and general maintenance replaced it (we're not with them DH is just a bit prolific on Twitter) and we will never use Scottish power again.

@Wotsitsits

If there is not enough space in the cabinet they will not install. They don't make holes in cabinets or even move things - that's beyond their liability.

If you book them to come and do it they will tell you whether or not there's enough space. If there is, they'll do it. Your supply will be turned off for a few hours.

Beware of aging gas boilers - ours didn't want to turn on again. That was a scary afternoon. Thankfully we got our usual gas person out and she got it working again.

I never plug the display in. The electric one does send a daily reading. The gas has never worked. I still have to do that one manually.

Our electricity use has doubled since it was installed compared to the year before but hard to know if it's a fault with the meter or WFH

Our boiler was brand new in 2016, it should hopefully be okay!

Bulb came to do the smart meter then said as our meter is in a cabinet they can't do it
So as pp have said, they will tell you if they can't!
What I don't appreciate is the 100s of emails/texts asking me to book in a smart meter install when they already said they can't do it!

Funnily enough our power tripped the day after we had one installed, then the next day which blew the boiler! Our actual smart meter display thing has never worked (EON) despite numerous web chats. Complete waste of time.

My meter is outside so I didn't even notice.

There was something on watchdog saying they cause fires?