Should i get a smart meter?

[felinelucky]

My power provider is keen to install a smart meter and I'm not sure of the pros and cons. One rather superficial concern is how much space it's going to take up. I have an ancient meter built into a box and am assuming they wouldn't take that out when they put in the new meter?

They take out the old meter and replace it with a smart meter which is abut the same size.
I like my smart meter as I get accurate bills.

Ah, excellent. Thank you!

We got a smart meter last week. We also had an ancient meter in a cupboard and it was absolutely fine, the new meter is about the same size.

We really like it so far, can track the usage and see where we can make changes. Electric showers are far more expensive than I realised!

Thanks for posting this. I'm thinking about getting my parents one.

We've had ours for years. In times when money was really tight, I really liked being able to control how much I was using - I could actually tell when lights had been left on!

Now, money not so tight, but I do keep a check on it.

You’ll only have one meter so the old one will be removed. Smart meters tend to be small and it will go in the same space. Given your meter is so old, it’s likely to be past its use by date so might be over/under charging you.

My power provider is keen to install a smart meter and I'm not sure of the pros and cons.

I bet they are! It’s because they want to save you loads of money and help the planet too. You should definitely get one asap.

We got an EDF one about two years ago. We wanted it to measure our gas, that side never worked, was a known problem when it was installed that it needs to talk to the electricity meter which is connected to the internet but it doesn’t. EDF say it’s a known fault which they are dealing with. (I wouldn’t have bothered if I’d known this)

we take a meter reading every month without fail of the gas and upload it for accurate bills, the electricity reading works fine.

it was interesting at the beginning working out what uses lots of electricity but at the end of the day we need things on, weren’t wasting electricity anyway, I rarely look at it now.

I keep getting nagged to have one installed but haven’t yet. I’m on a pay as you go key meter. I like that I can control when my price goes up. For example, the prices will go up October and if I top up end of September I have breathing room before topping up and the rate changing rather than them controlling it directly. It helps with budgeting.
I don’t really want to know how much my kettle costs to boil. I find that level of info stressful. I’d rather just top up when I see it needs it. I don’t waste electric as I am on a tight budget anyway.

I just read my meter at the end of every month and submit the reading.