Smart meters, yes or no?.

big-all · 2 Apr 2018

the biggest problem with water and metering is savings by reducing your consumption is disproportionate
i dont use much water about 15 units a year at £2.12 per tonne so £32 but the standing charges are £95 so i pay £8.46 per tonne
where as someone on 150 units will only pay £2.75 per tonne

SirGalahad · 2 Apr 2018

big-all said:
the biggest problem with water and metering is savings by reducing your consumption is disproportionate
i dont use much water about 15 units a year at £2.12 per tonne so £32 but the standing charges are £95 so i pay £8.46 per tonne
where as someone on 150 units will only pay £2.75 per tonne

Has the standing charge risen faster than inflation? Is it the new landline charge lol

Wonder how much water is wasted due to poor and broken pipes.

big-all · 2 Apr 2018

something like 3% so yes well above inflation

empip · 2 Apr 2018

Two of us have been using 2.4 cubic metres of hard water per week, the metered cost is about 50% of what we were paying non metered, increasing year on year...

The concern I have re: smart meters, can I rely upon my supplier to get the figures right? How could I check without having a camera focussed on the meter 24/7 ? Blimey with time of use situation the opportunity for suppliers to fiddle is enormous, some of them seem have a job on handling simple meter readings never mind complex aggregations. But I guess at some stage us non SM users will be on such onerous tariffs we shall have to fall in line.
-0-

noseall · 2 Apr 2018

empip said:
But I guess at some stage us non SM users will be on such onerous tariffs we shall have to fall in line

Correct.
There will come a time when not having a smart meter will be financially untenable for the consumer.

nickso · 4 Apr 2018

The cost of the upkeep of a "smart" meter system will be high due to the constant breakdowns and communication issues.That might be outweighed by the job losses from the army of meter readers and call centre staff but I'm not convinced.

The biggest issues I have seen repairing heating is they are unreliable. If they don't work the call out times are poor for repair/replacement. Even though the meter is their property they often don't care and I've had two cases where they flat out refused to even come look at it and have potentially left an unsafe situation.

It would also have been nice from an engineering point of view if all the gas meter manufacturers had been forced to make the controls/interface identical...doing a gas rate on some of them needs the intellect of the late Steven Hawking. Even if it had been the worst interface at least doing the same 5 times a day I could curse it while actually getting somewhere.

I'll keep my normal meters as long as possible as I know it's all a big con aimed at making money from us and ultimately controlling our usage for profit.

Notch7 · 4 Apr 2018

nickso said:
The cost of the upkeep of a "smart" meter system will be high due to the constant breakdowns and communication issues.That might be outweighed by the job losses from the army of meter readers and call centre staff but I'm not convinced.

The biggest issues I have seen repairing heating is they are unreliable. If they don't work the call out times are poor for repair/replacement. Even though the meter is their property they often don't care and I've had two cases where they flat out refused to even come look at it and have potentially left an unsafe situation.

It would also have been nice from an engineering point of view if all the gas meter manufacturers had been forced to make the controls/interface identical...doing a gas rate on some of them needs the intellect of the late Steven Hawking. Even if it had been the worst interface at least doing the same 5 times a day I could curse it while actually getting somewhere.

I'll keep my normal meters as long as possible as I know it's all a big con aimed at making money from us and ultimately controlling our usage for profit.

Thanks for the feedback -interesting from somebody 'in the know'

Somebody else noted the interface frustration on gas rate.

Its a shame, as in principle, smart meters tick lots of boxes.

Keithmac · 8 Apr 2018

Should have been standardised from the start, same interface and communication protocols.

Given it a miss for now!.

Smart meters, yes or no?.

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