Smart Meters - Now a shortage (of display units)

You didn't HAVE to deal with estimated bills. You just had to give them a reading once a month. That is all you had to do.


Now the rest of us have to pay for yours and all the other smart meters through higher bills.

And we have to pay for your submitted meter readings to be processed.

I doubt if that is any more cost than processing their automated readings from the smart meter.

Cost to whom?


My dad has to get a housing association employee to read his meter, which the housing association pays for, then he is given the information and I have to go online to enter the information onto the suppliers app on my phone which I use to manage his account for him as I have a power of attorney.


I have not got involved with my mother in laws accounts, which are still sent as quarterly bills to be paid over the counter at the post office which my wife takes her mother to do, so the meter reader had to come and read the meters until they were recently replaced with smart meters.


You are making an assumption that people with dumb meters have the ability to take readings and go online to manage their accounts, when actually in the real world people are having to be paid or donate their time to complete the process.


People who are digging their heels in and refusing to have smart meters are actually increasing costs for other consumers and in some cases are reliant on others being paid or assisting them on a voluntary basis.


Andy

Here in the real world I have received an email this morning reminding me that it is time to read my dads’ electric meter and submit the reading online using the app on my phone.


They are not going to get the meter reading for a couple of weeks, because the manager of the sheltered housing flats is on annual leave for two weeks and there is anyone onsite to cover her absence. Access to the meter room has been restricted since someone started going in there and turning off people’s electric supply to their flats, so now it’s locked with a key in a key safe outside of the door and the housing association isn’t going to send an electrician or another member of staff from a different site just to read a meter.


It would make life a lot easier for everyone if all thirty nine electric meters on that site were replaced with smart meters, but the meter rooms are not in the best locations for the communications to work between both the cell networks and the remote readers in the flats, plus some people are digging their heels in to avoid having the smart meters anyway.


Andy

So they wouldn't work then.There are lots of places where they don't work due to poor GSM coverage. But they are still being fitted as it is government policy. We have been consistently lied to about the so called benefits, the most draconian lie being that they are free when in fact we are all paying through increased bills.


Of course there are exceptions where people can't read the meter. In these cases it is up to the electricity company to do so as has traditionally been done.


Once we all have smart meters fluid pricing will come next when prices increase when everyone is cooking dinner. Do you want that? It is already happening in Australia.

Once we all have smart meters fluid pricing will come next when prices increase when everyone is cooking dinner. Do you want that?

Well if the alternative is all the lights going out, then yes.


  - Andy.

I attended a half day training session at the Worcester Rugby Club Sixways stadium organised and promoted by Worcestershire County Council which I think was part funded by the European Social Fund to train me to give advice on electricity tariffs and how to keep their bills in check.


The fluid pricing you refer to require a change in behaviour, you will still come home and cook your evening meal at the same time, but when you have loaded the dishwasher and washing machine you may well decide to delay the start of the washes until later in the evening to benefit from a cheaper tariff, for most people this will simply mean using the time delay settings built into modern washing machines and dishwashers. If you really must run the machines in the early evening during the peak demand period then you pay the higher rate.


It is your choice and your behaviour that dictates which rate you will pay for electricity for appliances such as washing machines and dishwashers.


Our rather ancient tumble dryer was scrapped a couple of years ago as we were not actually using it, we dry washing on a outdoor washing line, we have not paid a penny to dry washing for probably over five years, for a lot of people paying to dry washing is a lifestyle choice and if they want to continue doing so they will have to make a decision as to what time of day they are going to use their tumble dryer, it’s up to them to decide what they want and how much they are prepared to pay.


I threw some work clothes in the washing machine this morning and when I get home I will hang them on the outdoor washing line to dry, we could have a washer dryer and I could get home to find them washed and dried ready to run an iron over, but that’s not how we do it, we don’t pay to dry washing and don’t consume electricity doing so.


Andy