Just had a smart meter fitted and my gas bill on the display is

[Slick]

The media this morning are reporting that 12% (4.3/35) of meters are 'faulty', but with little detail on what constitutes a fault, so I've just sent Ofgem an FOI request:

View attachment 725554

It's the non-evident inaccuracy that interests me in particular.

What constitutes a fault is an estimated bill despite having a smart meter.

Mine has never worked.

 

[annedonnelly]

What constitutes a fault is an estimated bill despite having a smart meter.

Mine has never worked.

I don't have estimated bills. I have "customer reading" bills because the smart meter doesn't work and I do their job for them every month. I'd hate to think that my meter is classed as working in this situation.

 

[Slick]

I don't have estimated bills. I have "customer reading" bills because the smart meter doesn't work and I do their job for them every month. I'd hate to think that my meter is classed as working in this situation.

I think the current advice for the both of us is, contact your provider.

 

[annedonnelly]

I think the current advice for the both of us is, contact your provider.

I raised it via their website months ago.
I really don't care that much. I know the readings are correct because I do them myself. If the smart meter was sending them I'd need to double check them anyway.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

I don't have estimated bills. I have "customer reading" bills because the smart meter doesn't work and I do their job for them every month. I'd hate to think that my meter is classed as working in this situation.

I would agree that that is "not working"
the problem is that the "faulty" category is too broad and allows people to hide problems in the morass
and other people to lump people like you in with people who are being charged huge amounts due to worse fault - such as estimated bills hundreds of times higher than necessary.

What it needs is a "faulty category"
and a "customer doing own reading manually" category (which - might I suggest - should incur a discount???)
and a "meter sending wrong data" category

etc - then we can see how much of a problem there really is and focus on people with dire problems.

 

[presta]

I raised it via their website months ago.
I really don't care that much. I know the readings are correct because I do them myself. If the smart meter was sending them I'd need to double check them anyway.

What concerns me is a meter that appears to be working correctly but is inaccurate, and the potential for getting into another kafkaesque saga where I'm being threatened with court action for not paying what I don't owe. Other than that, I'd quite like a meter that gives me access to comprehensive data on a spreadsheet.

 

[Baldy]

How do you get a spreadsheet? Mine has the little display monitor which is totally incomprehensible. Non of the figures in gives relate to reality of electricity used. It's even worse for gas it doesn't even give me numbers, it's blank. Fortunately my bills are based on the reading I send them, not on the smart meter. Which begs the question why did I bother changing the meter in the first place?

 

[presta]

How do you get a spreadsheet?

I'm told that you register an account here, but as I don't have a smart meter I can't vouch that it works.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

What concerns me is a meter that appears to be working correctly but is inaccurate, and the potential for getting into another kafkaesque saga where I'm being threatened with court action for not paying what I don't owe. Other than that, I'd quite like a meter that gives me access to comprehensive data on a spreadsheet.

It's not perfect but there are several apps that you can get that grab the data from the central databse and can show you the analysis in far more detail than the in house display thingy
I use Hugo - I have also tried Loop and I think USwitch have one as well

other are available - just depends on what you want

I agree that being able to access the raw data would be interesting but I have not yet found a way to do it

 

[BoldonLad]

I'm told that you register an account here, but as I don't have a smart meter I can't vouch that it works.

View attachment 725663

We are with British Gas, and, have a Smart-meter. It appears to work ok in that, I get bills with actual readings, the reading coincide with my manual readings near enough, and, my bills are reasonable. However, their website used to allow meter readings to be downloaded as CSV file, which could be imported into a spreadsheet. Recent "enhancements" to their website appear to have removed this facility. Progress and Technology are wonderful

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

We are with British Gas, and, have a Smart-meter. It appears to work ok in that, I get bills with actual readings, the reading coincide with my manual readings near enough, and, my bills are reasonable. However, their website used to allow meter readings to be downloaded as CSV file, which could be imported into a spreadsheet. Recent "enhancements" to their website appear to have removed this facility. Progress and Technology are wonderful

It is the "New Improved" version - much better

of course words like "improved" and "better" sound great but are meanigless unless you know the criteria they are using

e.g. New improved version of a tin of soup sounds like it is nicer - but it might just use cheaper ingredients and hence make more profit!

 

[presta]

It's not perfect but there are several apps that you can get that grab the data from the central databse and can show you the analysis in far more detail than the in house display thingy
I use Hugo - I have also tried Loop and I think USwitch have one as well

other are available - just depends on what you want

I agree that being able to access the raw data would be interesting but I have not yet found a way to do it

Unless it's available to download as a csv or xlsx it's too much hassle typing all the data into a spreadsheet though. Hugo/Loop/Uswitch all appear to be for Smartphones not Windows?

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

Ok Hugo etc are smartphone based


However, I just had a thought and check my EDF account

It has an Energy hub section and using it I can download the energy reading for every day into a csv - and hence into a spreadsheet

Clearly other suppliers may vary

 

[presta]

When the heating engineer came around my flat he did not like the look of my gas fire, so he cut off my gas supply.

I once came home from work to find that the British Gas service man had condemned my water heater as unsafe, and illegal to use on the grounds that it was installed with less than the regulation spacing between the flue and the boiler flue below it. When I pointed out that it was British Gas that installed it, that the boiler was in place at the time they did so, and that they'd never said anything at any of the previous service calls, they decided it wasn't unsafe after all.

Let them into your home to fix/replace your faulty gas fire BEFORE the CO fumes from it render you unconscious and almost kill you!!

I once asked a service man to check for a CO2 leak because there were sooty marks on the wall around the boiler flue:

"What do you want that for?"
"I wouldn't worry about it, it's probably ok"
"...well I haven't got anything to measure it with anyway"

 

[presta]

The media this morning are reporting that 12% (4.3/35) of meters are 'faulty', but with little detail on what constitutes a fault, so I've just sent Ofgem an FOI request:

View attachment 725554

It's the non-evident inaccuracy that interests me in particular.

Ofgem haven't replied yet, but Octopus have:

Perhaps they should call themselves Parrot Energy.