Smartly metering

[jayne lee wilson]

As of right now my electricity usage is £1.11 and gas is £1.00 and by the end of the day my total should read at or around £3.00. Experience tells me this is right for a winter's day. Usage goes up dramatically when I use the washing machine and tumble dryer. The smart meter has taught me to use these as sparingly as I can get away with.

You really, really, don't want to know my current figures.....
Price one pays for er, "spacious accommodation", wreck'd and wilded gardens, flooded conservatories, Hedgepigs still at the backdoor for catfood (stray cats looking on warily)....Squirrels, Pheasants, Jackdaws etc....

I fixed for 3 years with ScottishPower (out of pure despair really ) before the Gas Crisis broke or the Smart Meter came....... saved me a small fortune though I couldn't have known it then... (but I had to pay a substantial sub for the previous Winter before the switch...)...

It seems we're all forced to improvise our challenging UK-way through all of this.........still waiting here for a ("quite important") scheduled Phone-Consult from the local hospital due at.....1510.....

Par for the Course, or....Par for the Curse...

[oddoneout]

Prompted by this discussion I did something I'd been meaning to do for sometime and put a proper thermometer in the room to see if it reads the same as the boiler controller one. The boiler has just fired up and the thermometer reads 17.5, not 15 which the controller is set at.

[antongould]

How very, very exciting a lovely civilised discussionx on the evolving world of energy supply.

I have had smart meters for about two years now and during that time I have had to get a new display unit and they have only sent readings to EDF for about half the time …. currently they are sending. I find the displays useful/helpful and in a properly run industry they would be amazingly useful to suppliers.

I go walking with three other old fs of a similar vintage - we all have smart meters and 2 of us check our displays the others have never even connected them … !!!

On the subject of monthly payments - from a purely financial point of view, for people who can afford it, paying each bill as it arrives is best BUT sadly a lot of people are not in that fortunate position and monthly payments is what they want.

[Serial_Apologist]

Prompted by this discussion I did something I'd been meaning to do for sometime and put a proper thermometer in the room to see if it reads the same as the boiler controller one. The boiler has just fired up and the thermometer reads 17.5, not 15 which the controller is set at.

Interesting, that. When I first moved into this flat, my thermostat was near the front door, and connected to the boiler enclosure, some 3 metres along the corridor. When the "new and more efficient"* boiler was installed 12 years ago, a new thermostat was fitted, attached to the outside of the cupboard. The sides of the boiler cupboard are always warm, affecting the thermostat so that the heater under-estimates the general air temperature of the flat. I wish I'd thought to comment when the new installation took place!

*Another story, another time...

[french frank]

When I first moved into this flat, my thermostat was near the front door, and connected to the boiler enclosure, some 3 metres along the corridor. When the "new and more efficient"* boiler was installed 12 years ago, a new thermostat was fitted, attached to the outside of the cupboard. The sides of the boiler cupboard are always warm, affecting the thermostat so that the heater under-estimates the general air temperature of the flat. I wish I'd thought to comment when the new installation took place!

*Another story, another time...

I seem to remember being told that the programmer and thermostat radiator needed to be in the hall almost next to the front door, because they tended to be the coldest places in the house?

[Serial_Apologist]

How very, very exciting a lovely civilised discussionx on the evolving world of energy supply.

I have had smart meters for about two years now and during that time I have had to get a new display unit and they have only sent readings to EDF for about half the time …. currently they are sending. I find the displays useful/helpful and in a properly run industry they would be amazingly useful to suppliers.

I go walking with three other old fs of a similar vintage - we all have smart meters and 2 of us check our displays the others have never even connected them … !!!

On the subject of monthly payments - from a purely financial point of view, for people who can afford it, paying each bill as it arrives is best BUT sadly a lot of people are not in that fortunate position and monthly payments is what they want.

I decided to go on an integrated single tariff with EDF for gas and electricity a year ago, having rightly been advised this was cheaper than separate bills. So, why do EDF bother asking us to relay them our meter readings, if they're not going to change the charge? On registering my readings online, I immediately received an email questioning the data I had given, saying this looked inconsistent with what I would have been expected to use, and asking if I would like to take another look? As it happened I chose to use much less gas during the summer, and rely on my immersion heater. Aren't we being encouraged to use less energy - or shouldn't we? Anyway I just re-confirmed my readings, and the new demand duly arrived, re-confirming the existing rates. No hike in charges - you can have no idea how happy that made me!

[Serial_Apologist]

I seem to remember being told that the programmer and thermostat radiator needed to be in the hall almost next to the front door, because they tended to be the coldest places in the house?

Exactly!

[oddoneout]

I seem to remember being told that the programmer and thermostat radiator needed to be in the hall almost next to the front door, because they tended to be the coldest places in the house?

But there never seemed to be the caveat that in such a situation the temperature shouldn't (because it didn't need to be) be set at 25 or whatever temp the household wanted the living room at?
I don't have a hall, just a lobby big enough to open the front door, with the stairs and a door to the living room; it isn't the coldest place in the house and would be even less so if I replaced the modern but poor quality uPVC door the previous owners installed. The coldest room in my house is the toilet, so that's where the thermostat goes.

[Dave2002]

EON keep on pestering me to a) pay by direct debit and b) change to a two year fixed price tariff but no thanks to either of them. It's all for their benefit and not mine!

Not sure about EON - but changing to a fixed tariff if you get the timing right can save you money. We don't do insider dealing (honest, guv) but we had a hunch that prices with our provider (Octopus) were going to go up, so we cancelled our fixed price contract - and took out a new fixed price one - same company. Very shortly afterward the prices went up very significantly - so consumers can win with fixed price tariffs. Of course some "very good" deals with energy companies have resulted in some companies going out of business, so presumably have not turned out well.

[Serial_Apologist]

But there never seemed to be the caveat that in such a situation the temperature shouldn't (because it didn't need to be) be set at 25 or whatever temp the household wanted the living room at?
I don't have a hall, just a lobby big enough to open the front door, with the stairs and a door to the living room; it isn't the coldest place in the house and would be even less so if I replaced the modern but poor quality uPVC door the previous owners installed. The coldest room in my house is the toilet, so that's where the thermostat goes.

I take it there is a radiator in that toilet??

[Dave2002]

Something to look forward to when mass smart meter installation makes managing the National Grid so much easier...

Currently I don't think many "smart" meters are actually really clever - so that they can control the electricity supply into a residence. That may be a long term intention, but most meters aren't that good yet. Also if there is a local micro generator many meters don't seem to work particularly well - and may show high use, when in fact there is significant local generation.

This is a source of concern, though companies do claim that the main meters are measuring the correct consumption - and providing due credit for any locally generated power fed back to the grid. It's difficult to prove though, as most meters don't include export metering - which is often done by measuring generated electricity, and then applying an averaging process in order to estimate charges and refund/offsets.

[oddoneout]

I take it there is a radiator in that toilet??

Yes! Or rather in the room. It's the one that doesn't have a rad valve, as is required to supposedly prevent the boiler having a meltdown if all the others are shut down - which of course they often are as the boiler controls take no notice of them...
I think I've mentioned before that I don't know why that room is so cold - it must have been even worse when the house was first built in the thirties and it was almost an outside lavvy tacked on the end of the scullery/kitchen, whereas now it is enclosed by an extension with only one small outside wall.

[oddoneout]

Currently I don't think many "smart" meters are actually really clever - so that they can control the electricity supply into a residence. That may be a long term intention, but most meters aren't that good yet. Also if there is a local micro generator many meters don't seem to work particularly well - and may show high use, when in fact there is significant local generation.

This is a source of concern, though companies do claim that the main meters are measuring the correct consumption - and providing due credit for any locally generated power fed back to the grid. It's difficult to prove though, as most meters don't include export metering - which is often done by measuring generated electricity, and then applying an averaging process in order to estimate charges and refund/offsets.

I don't have the letter to hand but the last of the half dozen or so benefits it claimed for smart meters was something along the lines of better management of national power supply. On the face of it reasonable and sensible, but unfortunately it doesn't survive my cynicism filter, not least because the more someone says oh of course the power would never be switched off, smart meters wouldn't be used for that etc etc the less I believe it.

[Andrew Slater]

Me too. So far today electricity has cost 92p (all renewables) and gas £2.63. My neighbour also couldn't get her gas meter replaced for something to do with the pipes. No more submitting meter readings either.

I would advise you to think long and hard before going all-electric: electricity is about five times the price per kWh of gas. Your total so far today is £3.55, but if you had gone all-electric that total would be over £14

(At best, assuming your boiler to be 80% efficient this could reduce to over £11,)

[oddoneout]

I would advise you to think long and hard before going all-electric: electricity is about five times the price per kWh of gas. Your total so far today is £3.55, but if you had gone all-electric that total would be over £14

But doesn't that assume the price differential will remain as it currently is? What's to say the price of gas won't rise either directly by political manipulation, or more unpredictably by market forces and reduce the gap. My gas CH is very much a blunt weapon in terms of decent control, even though it has the usual standard programmer/controller, plus TVRs so I don't think it is as economical compared to electric as might be assumed, and not as economical as I think it should be. My previous house was all electric - storage radiators - and poorly insulated (Barretts 1980s period) but the bills were not nearly as high as I had first thought/assumed they would be. If there had been modern electric heaters - programmable/thermostat controlled - such as my daughter had in her modernised flat and I had completely redone the wall insulation I wonder how the running costs would have stacked up against gas even then, although the E7 tariff might have had to change.
Which reminds me the person who now lives there had a smart meter fitted and found herself without heating as the installer hadn't taken into account the E7 tariff timer arrangement so the heaters didn't power up overnight. Don't know what the outcome was.