Grinch Corner

I've also been thru the "Smart Meter" thing over the last couple of years- several phone calls along the lines of "your old meter is out of date and may be sending incorrect readings". There was a silence when I said that an incorrect reading could work both ways !!!
Much like @Goldenlily26 I said that I knew what my average daily usage was and so my meter was reading correctly at the moment. I did ask whether they had any evidence to prove otherwise - another silence and then a repeat Blah blah.
Until I learn otherwise, it would seem to me that suppliers are increasing the pressure simply to give them more control over their customers. Beginning to resemble bullying tactics.

 

Apparently, electricity & gas suppliers have been given targets by the government for the number of smart meters installed per year, and they haven't been able to meet the targets. Hence the pressurised approach.

Our Scottish holiday cottage is in a mobile phone black spot, with no signal unless you go beyond the end of the garden. In addition, the rent we charge includes electricity, so installing a smart meter, if it worked (which it won't, all the neighbours tell me) would have no effect on the amount of electricity used by our visitors. The supplier (Ovo) sent me an email telling me that I'd agreed a time and date for installing my wonderful new smart meter, and that I needed to be there when they did it. I sent them an email telling them that I hadn't agreed anything, and that I wouldn't be there, since I lived in Ireland. It all went quiet... though I suspect I haven't heard the last of it...

 

I agree, its government meddling regarding smart meters, just like EVs, the push to control your every move and know exactly what you are using and turning on, so that they have remote control and can turn you off or charge you more at a whim.

They are telling me my meter needs changing as they are turning off the radio signal that controls it, it isn't controlled by a radio signal and as far as I know never has been.

 

What's 'dumb mode' ?

I changed to smart meters because the electricity one was near the ceiling and I had to go up a ladder to see it - a difficult thing for me to do.
The gas meter was at floor level inside an awkward cupboard and I had to lie on my stomach to see it, and use a torch - impossible to get into that position and even more impossible to get up afterwards.
So the meters send readings themselves now and that's better for me.

 

I haven't heard of "dumb mode" either @Michael Hewett . We don't have mainline gas here but we do have a Water Meter which is positioned pretty much like your gas meter - at the back of the cupboard under the sink. Need a fair bit of acrobatics and a good torch to read it.
If Smart Meters suit your circumstances then that's fine - it's the often unproven reasons that the suppliers use to persuade others that there is no other option which is worrying.

 

Dumb mode is not smart I assume, so the techy bit that sends your readings off, and all the connection and control they have is turned off.

Just a new meter but functioning in the same way as your old one.

Or maybe it just means that worrying gadget that they give you, so you are forced to watch the pennies totting up, is thrown in the bin.

 

If you can read your meter and send off readings once a month, that's just as simple. If you can't access your meter easily to do that then maybe you don't have any option but to have a Smart Meter installed.
"Dumb mode" is not smart ?? Yet to have my supplier offering me a dumb meter instead

 

They used to send a bloke round about once a year to read mine, to check I wasn't reading it wrong, must be years since they have bothered now.

I think we have wandered off topic slightly.

 

That is precisely why I had the smart meters installed.

What control do they have ? I don't understand how a having a smart meter can give someone control over you. Very few if anyone has ever been able to control me.

 

I have Grinched out on a quite nauseating (to me) afternoon; the village pensioners' Christmas 'party'.
Ham sandwiches on white bread, a side of plain crisps, a mince pie, served by the more spritely pensioners, then the school children sing carols, accompanied by the silver band. Then there's the 'raffle' (a prize for everyone, if you want lavender eau de cologne).
I went once; it was excruciating.
I found I didn't actually know many people in the village.

 

Interesting to me that there has only been all this concern about old meters not being accurate since the push to install smart meters. Somebody said a meter should last 10 to 20 years. I've been in this house 36 years and nobody ever suggested my meter needed to be changed. Nor did they suggest they should check its accuracy.

 

Sounds excruciating @Penny_Forthem, my idea of hell.

 

Probably not enough people have them yet for them to be used to their full potential.

Pricing changing depending on what time of day you use your energy will be one, at the moment they are fiddling around offering you a cash discount if you sit in the dark for a couple of hours but I'm sure it will develop.

 

I understand if you have a smart meter your energy company can switch you over to prepayment without notice. Also, once enough people have smart meters, energy companies will be able to change how much they charge on a half hourly basis, forcing you to pay more for peak use. That is “control” in anyone’s book.

Dumb mode means the smart meter cannot communicate with your supplier. You would send in readings as normal. Energy companies could potentially dissuade customers from doing this by charging a higher tariff.

I wish my water meter was under the kitchen sink. It is out in the road, buried about a metre deep under a weighty manhole cover, so I have no hope of reading it myself and the water company only bothers about every two yrs and estimates bills in between. Mind, as they over-estimate, my most recent bill which used an actual reading was only a few quid!

 

Possibly still off topic?