Smart meter issues?

[Feek]

Is anyone in your house? Couldn't you have asked someone (your wife) to take manual readings? Surely that's the most important thing to have done to see if it was showing anything unusual.

Without readings, what evidence is there that it has anything to do with the meter?

 

[200sols]

People seem to think billing errors are exclusive to smart meters. I guess its an easy blame.

 

[john_smith]

For 15/16k units a month £600 sounds cheap.

 

[john_smith]

People seem to think billing errors are exclusive to smart meters. I guess its an easy blame.

yep, because smart meters. bill gates, 5g, covid, etc

 

[sgoaty]

For 15/16k units a month £600 sounds cheap.

Yes it does it was marked as 500+kWh and around £30 a day so can see there's clearly been an error somewhere.

 

[dlockers]

Wife own an Hitachi and a bit lonely ATM?

 

[sgoaty]

yep, because smart meters. bill gates, 5g, covid, etc

I'm not in the tinfoil hat brigade at all but there's a lot of reliance on this meter and it shows that if you're not on top of it you could be on the hook for thousands of pounds due to system errors.

 

[john_smith]

I think we (you) need to know if the meter is actually spinning round and counting up like the readings are suggesting. I'd be cheking it hourly and turning everything in the house off to see what happened on the meter.

You'd only need 1 day to show you meter doing up by 15 units against the reported (hopefully) incorrect numbers.

 

[Guest2]

Octopus energy keep harassing me about smart meter installation.

Smart meters do not work in apartment blocks due to close proximity with many other meters. This causes billing issues where customers are charged (as an example) 1 month worth of electricity in 1 week. There are a couple people where I live that are in dispute with Octoput and another different energy company.

Octopus have stated they do not fit conventional meters and only smart meters. I've told them to take it up with the building management company as I do not have access to the meters anyway.

They replied 'I am sorry about that - you can just submit manual reads then, however RTS will stop the heating and hot water in June, so you will need to get a smart meter eventually- this will just be a traditional mode meter if we cannot connect it.'

How will turning off radio signals stop heating and hot water in June exactly?

The whole smart meter thing seems to be a bit of a farce and/or scaremongering.

 

[aVdub]

Octopus energy keep harassing me about smart meter installation.

Smart meters do not work in apartment blocks due to close proximity with many other meters. This causes billing issues where customers are charged (as an example) 1 month worth of electricity in 1 week. There are a couple people where I live that are in dispute with Octoput and another different energy company.

Octopus have stated they do not fit conventional meters and only smart meters. I've told them to take it up with the building management company as I do not have access to the meters anyway.

They replied 'I am sorry about that - you can just submit manual reads then, however RTS will stop the heating and hot water in June, so you will need to get a smart meter eventually- this will just be a traditional mode meter if we cannot connect it.'

How will turning off radio signals stop heating and hot water in June exactly?

The whole smart meter thing seems to be a bit of a farce and/or scaremongering.

Probably future new taxes that'll be supplied to any government that loves the word tax with homeowners will be taxed according to their usage as not fitting their net zero agenda....

 

[dlockers]

Probably future new taxes that'll be supplied to any government that loves the word tax with homeowners will be taxed according to their usage as not fitting their net zero agenda....

that makes no sense. Tax is applied to energy bills with or without smart meters.

 

[Werewolf]

I'm with OVO energy and just had a notification they're changing my direct debit to £615 a month.
My electricity usually over the past few weeks has spiked to between 500-600kwh a day.

I have gas heating so it's not from radiators.

I'm not sure how this can be possible. As that's like using a tumble dryer for 160-200 hrs a day.

Anyone else had issues like this?
Just wondering if my smart meter has developed a fault or something it's a bit of a worry.

Did this ever get sorted?

It sounds like an extremley obvious fault, or that they've somehow linked your account to an industrial unit or something (not unheard of, if someone enters the wrong serial number or account number when setting something up or changing a meter).

 

[LuckyBenski]

Did this ever get sorted?

It sounds like an extremley obvious fault, or that they've somehow linked your account to an industrial unit or something (not unheard of, if someone enters the wrong serial number or account number when setting something up or changing a meter).

Well...

I'm with OVO energy and just had a notification they're changing my direct debit to £615 a month.
My electricity usually over the past few weeks has spiked to between 500-600kwh a day.

So £615 a month would be 2460kWh a month at 25p/unit.

500-600kWh would be £125-150/day at same price.

So the maths don't add up. But more importantly: Even with an oversized 100A supply to the home, that would allow 23kW draw, meaning 23 x 24 = 552kWh per day. That's if you literally maxed out your supply 24/7!!

The only answer I can think of short of just "broken meter" or "broken database/computer system", would be if your account has been tied to an industrial unit as suggested. The numbers above are well beyond feasible in a normal home.

 

[Haze]

I miss the good old days when people had the brains to pick up a phone, instead of asking the internet

 

[sgoaty]

I miss the good old days when people had the brains to pick up a phone, instead of asking the internet

I did also contact OVO rather than expecting it to be sorted out here but none taken.

 

[Jim99]

Octopus energy keep harassing me about smart meter installation.

Smart meters do not work in apartment blocks due to close proximity with many other meters. This causes billing issues where customers are charged (as an example) 1 month worth of electricity in 1 week. There are a couple people where I live that are in dispute with Octoput and another different energy company.

Octopus have stated they do not fit conventional meters and only smart meters. I've told them to take it up with the building management company as I do not have access to the meters anyway.

They replied 'I am sorry about that - you can just submit manual reads then, however RTS will stop the heating and hot water in June, so you will need to get a smart meter eventually- this will just be a traditional mode meter if we cannot connect it.'

How will turning off radio signals stop heating and hot water in June exactly?

The whole smart meter thing seems to be a bit of a farce and/or scaremongering.

AFAIK traditional dual rate meters have relied on a radio signal to know when to swap to the other rate.

It's not going to "stop heating and hot water", but for people who rely on storage heaters and filling their hot water tank overnight on the cheap rate they'll need another solution or they'll have to pay a standard rate at all times and their costs will rise.

Octopus are right in that no-one fits conventional meters right now, but yeah if they don't work they more or less act like an old-style meter anyway and you can take manual readings.

 

[dlockers]

Octopus are right in that no-one fits conventional meters right now, but yeah if they don't work they more or less act like an old-style meter anyway and you can take manual readings.

They literally work exactly like an old meter if the smart doesn't work. You have reading one and reading two. The meters doesn't care about the rate as the billing is done centrally. The only "catch" is that you will be eco7 or standard.

 

[Jim99]

They literally work exactly like an old meter if the smart doesn't work. You have reading one and reading two. The meters doesn't care about the rate as the billing is done centrally. The only "catch" is that you will be eco7 or standard.

The reason I said "more or less" is that in theory they can suddenly become active - there hasn't (as far as I'm aware) been any clearcut guidance about what happens with a non-reporting smart meter in the future, and how much effort will be made to connect them up.

 

[Guest2]

AFAIK traditional dual rate meters have relied on a radio signal to know when to swap to the other rate.

It's not going to "stop heating and hot water", but for people who rely on storage heaters and filling their hot water tank overnight on the cheap rate they'll need another solution or they'll have to pay a standard rate at all times and their costs will rise.

Octopus are right in that no-one fits conventional meters right now, but yeah if they don't work they more or less act like an old-style meter anyway and you can take manual readings.

We live in an electric only apartment and do have a storage heater for hot water. From memory I set it to come on from 3am - 6am daily. This is enough for a 3-4 short showers a day, washing machine, dish washer and hot water. Or 1 bath and washing machine with some pots. Baths really hammer the hot water, but we hardly ever have them.

If its going to wipe out the night rate, this will indeed be very expensive. Our current rates are the following

Unit rates​

Electricity (day): 30.32p per kWh
Electricity (night): 14.00p per kWh

Standing charges​

Electricity: 71.60p per day

 

[Guest2]

They literally work exactly like an old meter if the smart doesn't work. You have reading one and reading two. The meters doesn't care about the rate as the billing is done centrally. The only "catch" is that you will be eco7 or standard.

So dual rate will still work?