Thank you for the clarification that it is a direct  acoustic measurement.   It is interesting and in some ways reassuring for you that many other people can hear the meter whining at least to some degree.  It is also a pretty poor feature on a product that cannot be turned off  that may well be installed in or beside a bedroom.

The fact that the sensitivity varies between subjects is not terribly surprising, especially if there is a spread of ages. Generally  folk lose the higher frequency response as they age, and those who have worked with noisy machines or been exposed to gunfire and so on are likely to become insensitive at a younger age. (and the stereotype of the deaf drummer in the band is loosely based on fact.).

Given what else you say I wonder if the effect is totally acoustic or a mix of acoustic and some EM effect. The problem there is that these things are almost always unrepeatable, which makes sensible testing from a sample of one very difficult.

Meanwhile does the superposition of low levels of white or pink (bass -heavy) noise over the trigger signals relieve your symptoms at all ? - I have a colleague at work who has reported that (from a pocket music layer )to be helpful though of course your case could be totally different.

Mike

I would be complaining if I didn't have tinnitus but could hear the acoustic noise the meter is making in any part of the house except for the under-stairs cupboard where it is housed. I don't like it even in there, it is irritating whenever I need to go into the cupboard for something else in there. The gas meter is not silent when gas is flowing, it makes a rather clunky churning noise, bit louder if anything than the electricity meter noise but not as irritating. I have to say I was rather disappointed with the smart gas meter; it was the same as the 20 year old meter taken out but with a digital display and communications module stuck on the front. I have no reason at the moment to believe that the gas meter has anything to do with my tinnitus. 

The two fitters who came to the house both said electricity meters all make a noise, but I know that's not the case with other brands of meter and why should any digital electricity meter make acoustic noise? (Maybe a small transformer hum, but the noise I've recorded and put in my opening noise? That surely shouldn't be acceptable.) My discussions with the energy company were abruptly shut down when I started querying the electronics inside the meter. I emailed the UK support email address for Kaifa on 14 March asking for help and so far that has been met with silence.

The engineer from the power distribution company could only measure an EM field strength of 0.5microT very close to the meter itself and less anywhere else in the house.

Noise and music do help distract from tinnitus, it's the opposite to earplugs and ear defenders which remove the noise and leave you listening with nothing but the tinnitus. My tinnitus is so high pitched and loud that it takes a lot of sound of different frequencies to smoother it and I fear doing that for long periods of time would lead to damaging my hearing. The best way to deal with tinnitus is to remove the source and that is proving so difficult. I almost feel it would be easier to sell the house and move to one with an analogue meter to be sure I won't be blighted again. Should it be me who leaves my house or the electricity meter?

Removing either the meter or myself from my house doesn't solve the problem of such meters being rolled out to millions of homes that can potentially cause such harm even if it is only to a small minority. I've found two cases of tinnitus afflicted people blaming meters installed for close neighbours. How hard would that be to solve if it is so bad dealing with my own meter? Surely the meters could and should be designed and constructed better. If the current meter and the prior Landis+Gyr meter meet all the necessary standards for the UK, then given my experience, those standards need revisiting.

Andrew

Not had that specific issue but I have experienced something similar. It could be resonance in the structure of the building. Are the meters attached directly to the house structure (via metal screws/bolts and washers) or are they mounted with rubber dampening washers? I suggest you ask the provider to reinstall them with adequate resonance dampening - a rubber backplate and rubber washers for the holding screws should do. It is important that the meter housing and attachment doesn't touch building structure directly without dampening. 

Not had that specific issue but I have experienced something similar. It could be resonance in the structure of the building. Are the meters attached directly to the house structure (via metal screws/bolts and washers) or are they mounted with rubber dampening washers? I suggest you ask the provider to reinstall them with adequate resonance dampening - a rubber backplate and rubber washers for the holding screws should do. It is important that the meter housing and attachment doesn't touch building structure directly without dampening. 

Thanks for your reply Peter.

The meter is attached to a wooden board which is mounted to the inside of the outer house wall by 4 large screws with some sort of non-metallic sleeving that results in a gap between the wall and the board of just under 2cm. I do therefore have a little bit of control on the mounting of the meter. As my luck would have it, one of the four screws is covered by the meter and I've just tried to turn the three other screws without success - they probably haven't moved since the house was built in 1957. I can tell you though that applying a bit of pressure carefully to the corners of the meter with my hands does quite significantly dampen down the audible noise it is making, so getting the meter mounted on a rubber backplate with rubber washers may certainly help cut down the nuisance noise.

Could adding such dampening to the meter reduce the tinnitus significantly? Can you share your experience of something similar? It may not be a meter, but the electronics inside the meter which are arousing suspicion are common to lots of other devices.

Andrew

Thanks for the description. So my working hypothesis is that there is material in the structure of your house which is resonating in sympathy with whatever frequencies are emitted by the meter(s). They might well be undertones of what the meter is putting out. The energy to drive the resonances will be coming not just from the meter but from other structural sources. As a general phenomenon it most certainly happens. I am sensitive to it, differently sensitive at different times. I first noticed it in Germany two decades ago and hadn't noticed it in other countries where I have lived (different building structures; different mounting habits; different frequencies; different me). It has been at times mildly annoying, but not to anywhere near the extent which you describe. 

It is countered or stopped by dampening the connection between meter and house structure. As in your case it is mostly meter-to-box/board and then box/board to wall, so there are two connections one can choose to dampen. 

I suggest you remount the board with damping (not just backing on the board but also between board & mounting screws - rubber washers under the screw head, for example). I suggest further that you have the meter similarly dampingly mounted on the board. Whatever is resonating will thereby lose its input.

The workers might need some persuading - there is almost bound to be a "most people don't have this problem" response (which, reading between the lines, you seem to have encountered). To which the obvious answer is "I am not most people. I have medical reports on my tinnitus response to this phenomenon and the partial solution is to dampen the resonances."

I am no medic, and of course your tinnitus response is specific to you (trigger frequencies, etc), but I would think it highly likely that if the resonance is so dampened then your tinnitus response will be proportionately milder or, hopefully, absent. 

Thanks Peter. I'm struggling to get those old screws to turn and one of course is impeded by the meter itself. So as a temporary measure I have stuffed some thick material into the gap between the wall and the board. I accidentally found I could reduce the sound the meter is making by moving the output neutral and live cables upwards slightly, so I have put in something to wedge them up. I don't like putting pressure on any electrical cables but the thickness of these is quite substantial and the force is low. I reckon it is better than anything I could devise to put pressure on the corners of meter's plastic casing to replicate what I did with my hands. Little bit bizarre with the cables but the overall result is that the audible noise is now pretty minimal.

I now have to wait and see if there's any affect on my tinnitus. It would be amazing if it reduces for just something as simple as dampening how the meter is fitted. I won't be overly optimistic in thinking it will go altogether, I believe there are harmonics still around causing it. Acoustically, the sound analyser app on my phone shows a big improvement below 10kHz, but there is still some noise registering at 10kHz and in it's top range of 17kHz to 21kHz.

Unless I find something that really looks promising at reducing the tinnitus, I am pretty sure the energy company will not send their subcontractors back. It's a shame they not more interested in finding out what's happening here than they are. I'm hardly a great advert for smart meters at the moment and finding a solution for one of the most reported health complaints would be so beneficial on lots of counts. In the meantime, I'm having to consider further respite away from home as last night's sleep was abysmal once again. Strange head pains now as well as the tinnitus plaguing me, interesting talk with a GP coming up tomorrow. Let's see how tonight goes, I will need a couple of good sleeps at least to judge this as successful, but I'm very grateful for something that makes a difference. It's already proven I can quell that rotten audible noise, which has been an irritant to my tinnitus if nothing else whenever I've needed to go into the understairs cupboard.

I live in a different regulatory regime, and I guess it is histories like yours which make me grateful. An electrician is supplied with a calibrated meter if he/she asks the supplier. The meter is installed by the electrician, and registered with the supplier (to each meter there is an account with a named user). If there is a problem with the installation, I call my electrician and he fixes it. There is "what do you want to do *that* for?" and "if you really want that, I'll do it, but I don't see the point" and suchlike, but the bottom line is that, after minimal but pertinent discussion, if I want something, it gets done, and it gets done the way I want it. With an opinion, gratis. What he probably can't do is reinstall electromechanical meters, because the supplier isn't issuing them. But remounting a box the way I want it is no problem. 

One current issue is deciding whether I want to install Type B RCDs on all circuits. I have an older house with wooden floor constructions which host a certain number of critters who don't pay any rent and like to chew cables, mice and martens. I am somewhat concerned about arc faults sending me up in flames (I have been concerned professionally about this ever since TWA800 in 1996, when arc fault circuit breakers were novel and 20+ times the price if you could get them). It hasn't happened yet but the critters aren't going away. 

If I were to be as concerned about the hum in my place as I was two decades ago, I could have it fixed in a day. But I am not. In the last couple weeks, the population of my city has increased 1% with people who have been bombed out of their homes. That is likely to go up considerably. There were some 90 orphans on the way to us in buses .... that just disappeared from the face of the earth before they even got to Poland. We have a lot more to worry about than hums in buildings.

I do wish it was as simple as calling in an electrician to install a different meter, instead I'm at the mercy of the energy company who do not believe anything is wrong with their meter. The energy market at the moment is virtually broken here in the UK, to the extent switching companies is very difficult and expensive as companies do not want new customers. If they offer tariffs for new customers they are double or even triple the government capped variable rate. Then I have the problem of asking them to change the meter. I've already been refused on the grounds that it wasn't for the next company to resolve a problem with a meter installed by the previous company.

Tinnitus is not like building hum. If there's a link between the amount of audible noise the meter makes and the tinnitus then hopefully the changes I made today will make a difference. While I am certainly glad that the audible noise is now much reduced, I can't report any reduction in the tinnitus yet. Indeed I won't know for several days as it is taking longer and longer for my tinnitus to fade even when I leave my home for a several days as per last week. The tone I'm suffering remains loud and clear at around 14kHz, earplugs only make matters worse as they cut out all other sound leaving me to hear nothing but the tone. Tinnitus leads to insomnia, headaches and fatigue all of which I'm now suffering to a large extent, all of which lead on to other health issues. I'm worrying about the long term effects of all this too. While I'm much more fortunate than the people being bombed out of their homes and losing their lives in Ukraine, I feel as if I am losing my home and I just can't live with the tinnitus I am suffering here too much longer. No one should be made to feel ill from the installation of any electrical device in their home, particularly one that they cannot turn off and replace.