Your meter is 'out of date'

[Pebbles16]

So we've been jumped around with suppliers recently and now told our meter is out of date. It probably is as it's likely 25 years old. But is this just a tactic to get a smart meter put in which then ties me to the supplier?
Possibly paranoid

What actually breaks in an old meter? Surely most of the time they will just need a service? Life expectancy was 10 to 40 years so all these meters being replaced will have added a huge amount to expense and inconvenience.

We are busy ignoring letters on smart meters that come to my patents every 1-2 months.
They don't want one, don't want the hassle, won't change usage profile, and the house will be bulldozed in the next few years anyway.
If they gave an incentive, eg £200 up front that might change things, however!

I'm with Octopus, have had emails saying my meter is out of date for years.

Arranged to have smart meter fitted. The engineer looked at my ancient boiler and said when he fits the meter he has to turn the boiler off first and he couldn't guarantee the pilot light on mine would actually come back on so he told me to wait until I get a new boiler.

I can't afford a new boiler so am just ignoring the emails now.

I had this too. I had a couple of years being harassed to get one fitted. They were only being able to offer all day slots mon-fri, which I told them I couldn't do, and I also told them they wouldn't be able to fit one.
I finally gave in as I had a day at home sorting jobs, the guy turned up, left the front door open so my dog escaped, messed around for an hour, then suggested pulling down a stud wall to give him access to fit it. I asked who was going to rebuild the stud wall, and buy the paint etc to redecorate. He told me it was down to me. I politely refused and sent him on his way.

That’s more than my bill without a smart meter! My bill is not estimated either.

@BashfulClam Yes but then you just use a lot less electricity? Its unit rate that's the metric and how you compare. We have an EV and my husband runs powerful computer equipment so of course we will use more energy than someone who doesn't. That's like saying it's cheaper to buy 30p tins of beans as you only eat one tin a week but someone else eats five tins for 15p each. They just eat a lot more beans,

For example, assuming you're on a normal tariff, your unit rate is around 22p a unit. Use 100 units, that's £22. Use 200, that's £44 etc.

At 14p a unit, that 100 units only costs £14. 200 units cost £28 etc.

So with that bill I posted, it would have cost me £53 more than it did if I was on a standard tariff.

Unit cost is the only way to compare tariffs, not overall bill, because usage will vary massively. Someone in a big house with young kids, an electric vehicle, two people who work from home, etc is going to use far more units than someone who lives on their own in a one-bed flat and is out all day at work.

We work from home and have a three bedroom townhouse. My electricity is still
lower than that.

Well presumably you have to compare like with like, so it’s not just the drop in your tariff that needs to be factored in to the cost of an unnecessary replacement of a working meter. Off the top of my head, cost of component parts of new meter, design and manufacture, cost training and time for installation plus cost of getting to the household, cost of disposal on previous working meter, cost of lost work for householder, cost of admin surrounding job both for householder and electricity board, cost of making good and any subsequent adjustments. It seems unlikely the real cost isn’t at least a high three or low four figure number.

@BashfulClam But you pay more per unit and that's the only metric that matters 🤷‍♀️ We have an electric vehicle that uses around 200 units a month on its own. Your bill is lower because you use less, not because your tariff is cheaper.

We had this, they made four appointments to fit one and cancelled all of them - so we refused anymore and we've not heard from them since - so it obviously can't be that important 🤷‍♀️

If I used the exact same amount of energy as you, I would pay less than you do for it because I'm on a tariff that allows me to take advantage of cheaper unit rates.

Anyway this was all in response to the person who said there weren't cheaper smart meter tariffs. There are several and lots of people are on them. Agile, Tracker, and lots of EV tariffs from various suppliers. All of which have the ability to be well below standard tariff unit rates.

Personally I don't really care if people go on them or not as I want to keep my cheap energy and if everyone moves to one it'll probably become less competitive. But they exist for those interested in dynamic usage and saving fairly substantial amounts of money,

I'm another one being relentlessly harassed by EDF. They've stopped telling me having a smart meter is compulsory and have moved on to saying my electricity meter is out of date. It's certified for 25 years, so it actually isn't.

Why is it never the gas meter they pester us about? Do they not expire?

How does its benefit?

Well because we have a smart meter we can get an electric car tariff. so our daily rate is a couple of pence higher than a standard tariff at 22p but our electric between midnight and 5 am is 7p. Similar to the old economy 7 but far less punitive on the day rate.

We also get half price electricity all day Sunday at 11p

This is fixed for 2 years so I don't really care what happens to the cap - I'll worry about it in 18 months time.

I'm a geek and I worked out how much it saves us since the tumble drier, washing machine and dishwasher only get used overnight.

Our annual combined bill is close to £3200 for just normal household usage. We always tumble dry, have a hot tub on permanently and I never turn anything off / work from home. If we didn't have the electric car tariff it would be £4100 so it saves us close to £900 per year.

The car then costs about an extra £600 per year I think but I'm still projecting from early usage. Again we don't worry about using it and often go for a drive just for the sake of going for a drive. Live in the highlands so always have a drive to do anything. Without the tariff and being able to charge midnight to 5am then this would be about an extra £1800.

So with a saving of about £2700 per year, please tell me how a smart meter does not save me money.

Because the UK is run by arseholes, the first generation of "smart" meters can't communicate with anything now - or when you changed suppliers. They are to all intents and purposes obsolete as they have to be read manually.

In theory the new crop are interoperable.

I could anti-summarize the above into a 5 page leaflet with colours, arrows and big fonts. But instead, here's wiki "SMETS" is your keyword.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_meter#Criticism_of_smart_meter_roll-out_in_the_UK

Interesting to see the industry shills on the thread lying their tits off about smart meters.

'I got paid money for having a smart meter!'

'I saved £800 a year for using my washing machine at a different time of day!'

What they're talking about is what us old fuddy duddy tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists call SURGE PRICING.

Been talking about it as a possibility for years and called guess what? Yes - a conspiracy theorist!

Everyone up in arms about Ticketmaster's dynamic pricing model but not a peep about smart meter.

They think you're stupid (and frankly, you probably are if you believe that nonsense).

If you have an Economy 7 electricity meter that relies on a radio signal to switch from normal to low rate it will become obsolete when the radio signal stops being broadcast. Apparently, that was supposed to happen earlier this year.

We still haven’t had our meter changed.

Interesting to see the industry shills on the thread lying their tits off about smart meters.

Whenever I was told how smart meters could "save energy", I always asked them to fit a water one first to save water. The script doesn't have a response for that.

There is a lot to said about smart meters. Much as there is prosecco and chocolate. However in all cases, how much money they can save isn't part of it.

What is part of it is whole grid metering, surge pricing, and demand side enforcement.

I don't have a problem with surge or demand pricing. If you're savvy you can normally make it work for you - especially with modern technology.

My electricity meter was updated several years ago from dials to digital as they were phasing out dials. Still got one on gas meter though.

We can't get one because our kitchen is out of WiFi signal.

Well you're in the very small minority. As evidenced by the uproar about Ticketmaster.

The narrative being pushed is that it's cheaper/saves you money. The reality is that it's more expensive/costs you more money.

Where will it be in 10 years time? Poor people up in the middle of the night to use electricity because they can't afford to use it during the day?

your meter is part of the infrastructure network and supplied by your regional infrastructure folk. The supplier of your energy only uses that infrastructure to deliver the power to you - they don't own or have responsibility for your meter or pipework etc. Smart Meters just have an extra bit of tech that communicate with your supplier basically how much you are using and meter readings. They display info for you and your use which includes things like the cost so you can keep a handle on what your bills might be.

Scottish power have messaged me lots of times telling me my meter/s are old and need updating and can I make an appointment for a replacement. As far as I’m concerned they are charging me monthly so it’s def working. No need to change .

So basically this surge pricing sounds typical Being Poor Costs More?

People living in flats especially the cheaper ones that tend to be more on top of each other or in badly done house conversions with no noises separation.

How do they use washing machines at night? The neighbours would, justifiably to be honest, complain about the noise.