Just had my smart meter installed today…Will I be alive in the morning…what’s that buzzing noise…why is my head swelling?
I’m sure you’ll survive, but as for your bank balance…
Did you ask for one EZ, or what you TOLD?
Your neighbours might be asking similar questions!
Why you would want the equivalent of a mobile phone mast stuck on the side of your house is puzzling.
Regardless, your bills will likely triple in the next few years imo
You beat me to it Realist, I was going to suggest a pair of trousers with deeper pockets.
Haha just as I suspected, up pop the usual prophets of doom and gloom. I posted that last night just before logging off and it had precisely the effect I thought it would. Let’s see how long it rumbles on for.
Nowt wrong with a bit of Doom and Gloom, it brightens up an otherwise staid existence, plus, if proved right, it can be very rewarding.
Have any members had one for a while?
If so, what’s the verdict?
I know of several people, both young and less young who have had these meters for several months and they’ve all said much the same thing. Firstly they now take more care when it comes to leaving lights on in empty rooms and also just how much juice these huge tv sets use. They get warm enough to heat peoples rooms so they get turned off now rather than being left on “For Company” Nobody yet has experienced increase in bills let alone any third arms growing.
OGF 
I don’t need one for ‘a verdict’ I live on a low income and am not in the habit of leaving appliances on when not needed using up expensive electricity. So how could a meter prompt me to use less and save me money?
I don’t have ‘estimated bills’ either, I read my meter myself on the last day of the month and generate an instant bill online so a meter is of no use to me in that respect.
Meg , I’m with you on this , having a smart meter wouldn’t make any difference to my energy consumption , I’d still live as I do . Saying that though , I don’t want one and won’t have one so I’m ignoring all letters from EE asking me to make an appointment .
EZ Rider, you simply can not be this dim and naive !
OF COURSE right now, at the time when they are just rolling the meters out, they are not increasing bills ! If they did no-one would accept a Smart Meter would they (Duh!) and the £million they are paying on those carefully constructed and insipid TV Ads would be wasted, you know, the ones showing a supermarket check-out till where they don’t scan the items just guess.
The cost of the in-home display units that come with a Smart Meter are estimated to cost £800m and that’s a cost that will be passed on to all customers along with the cost of the Smart Meters themselves which are estimated to put £200 on everyone’s energy bills
Understand (please) the reason for spending £billions on rolling out Smart Meters to all UK homes. It’s for one thing and one thing only
T I M E - - O F - - U S E - - B I L L I N G
Your energy company WILL stop charging you on a quarterly basis according to a meter reading you give them periodically (a system that has worked just fine for many years).
Instead your energy company will set a range of times throughout the day and there will be PEAK TIMES and NON-PEAK TIMES and probably others. Much like British Rail train ticketing.
Your Smart Meter will inform the energy company EXACTLY how you use your electricity, when you use it most, when you use it the least and so on. It will build an entire profile of your personal energy usage.
Can you guess which time period will attract the highest cost?
Yep, the time that THEY KNOW you use the energy the most.
That’s why your energy bills WILL rise dramatically and it’s why the similar rollout in the USA has seen so much resistance, fierce resistance from angry residents.
Then of course there are the high EMF radiation emission issues on top of all this, but since you don’t appear to be interested in that I will leave others to do their own research.
I have every confidence that if I refuse a Smart Meter (which anyone CAN do) my bills, though they will undoubtedly rise anyway, will nevertheless be significantly lower than those people who naively allowed a Smart Meter to constantly spy on their energy usage.
I’m with you. I go around the house turning off lights not in use.
This was most apparent when the Queen (the wife’s sister - another Hyacinth bucket) came to stay for a few days.
Every room she walked through I found she had left the lights on, and it wasn’t if she was going to go back in. I can only assume that her own house is routinely lit up like a Christmas tree.
All very well, I suppose, if you have money coming out of your ears.
JBR - lights are relatively tiny issues compared with the larger appliances. Your kettle, your TV, recording/playback boxes, computers/laptops, charging devices/cables, irons, showers, water heater/boiler etc etc.
The energy companies are going to charge more for your energy usage. They will do it gradually and in the end everyone will be worse off for having allowed Smart Meters into their homes.
They did the same with the old Dual Rate Tariffs for people on Economy 7 etc. They just gradually increased charges anyway until everyone was worse off.
These companies will also sell your energy usage profile data on to other companies. Yes you can opt out of that but No it’s not likely to make any difference imo, they will sell it anyway.
Yes, I am aware of that. I have always taught that you can collect appliances into three broad groups in order of energy usage: things that involve heating, things that include motors, and the rest.
And yes, I turn everything off that is not being used.
I agree with the rest of your post.
Yes Meg, I’m with you on this. I pay for my Gas and Electricity each quarter by card over the internet based on readings taken by me. I will not do ‘Direct Debit’ and I can’t be messing about every month paying energy bills among others, so when I signed up with British Gas I stipulated this and they agreed.
I suspect the little gadgets that tell you about your energy usage are the carrot to tempt you into accepting the smart meters. This interesting little gadget will be the life and soul of any party for a couple of months and then languish at the back of a cupboard somewhere when the owners get bored and go out and find a life…
The Gadgets tap into the signal that will be sent from your smart meter to the energy company, so everything you see, they will be able to see. As with any transmitted signal it can be hacked by someone who does not have your best interests at heart and you could find yourself paying for more than your energy.
So lets recap…You have a smartmeter installed and pay for your energy by ‘direct debit’ you no longer send in meter readings so the energy companies take from your account what they believe you have used [after long since abandoning your gadget] you have been successfully removed from the chain and everything will be done automatically…
…Yer right…
I agree with you on this Realist.
Some time ago I was listening to a consumer programme on the radio and an energy supplier was being interviewed.
He let it slip that once the meters were installed across the country they would be able to adjust the cost of the supply to a household at the flick of a switch to accommodate periods of heavy usage in order to encourage people to spread their usage over the day .
In other words the price of energy will rise at peak times . Of course it could be argued that the meters will allow a lower price to be charged at off peak times but I really can’t see them doing that.
The public will be manipulated into using power as and when the energy companies see fit.
I already pay an exorbitant price for power, I refuse to let the suppliers tell me when I can use it.
Unless I am penalised I will hold out to the last and refuse to have a meter installed.
It is going to cost 11 billion for these meters to be installed in every house and someone is going to be paying for it and we can guess who that will be.
We will be penalised Meg.
They will create a “special” tariff for those people still on old meters. It will be a high charge tariff which they will justify on the basis that they don’t know what energy you are using.
Remember the rather divisive TV Ad doing the rounds at the moment? They guy at the supermarket till not scanning the items and guessing the costs of the goods by feeling how much it all weighs?
That’s the stance the energy company will take. They will argue that if you don’t let them spy on your energy usage every minute of every day then they have no way to know what energy you are using at what time, so they will just charge you a top rate for all your energy.
In the short term that will sting, but in the longer term, once they have gradually increased the Peak Rate for the hapless Smart Meter owners, I think it will be different.
People might remember when Water Meters came in. Before this people paid basic bills for estimated water usage. For large families who all bathed and showered a lot this was a good set up as they used a ton of water but got the same charges as everyone else.
When Water Meters came in that all changed. Then those of us who use only a little water were initially better off. But over time, our bills have all crept back up haven’t they?!
As you correctly highlight, Smart Meters are 100% about allowing energy companies to reduce their costs and to make more money from the population. The crooked government will also make a mint off the situation in back-handers and unseen deals.
With Lithium Battery storage now really taking off, it may well be time to consider the cost of solar panels in combination with Lithium Battery storage to power one’s home.
Prior to this the “rent a roof” solar panel schemes were useless as companies like A Shade Greener etc were all getting the nice Feed-In-Tariffs at the time when the sun was out during the day and then when people came home from work of course the sun was on its way out.
Once you put large storage batteries into the equation then you’ll be storing all that solar energy by day and using it by night and thereby saving many £££s off your energy bills.
I previously wrote to 3-4 such solar panel “rent-a-roof” suppliers asking if they would install batteries as well as the panels and wouldn’t you know it . . . . none of them were interested !
People seem to forget, companies don’t allow margins to be compromised, someone’s going to pick up the Tab, I Email my reading one a month, why the heck would I want a Spy, in the downstairs cloakroom?
I am absolutely with you on this Susan and Meg.
I have been on the flippin’ phone for nearly half an hour this very morning arguing with British Gas about them incrreasing my direct debits when there was absolutely no need. Every single year they way over-estimate my future useage and it really annoys me. I have never owed them a penny, and am always well in credit so I’m blowed if they are taking even more.
Anyhow, during this conversation with them this morning I told the chap TWICE that I did not want a smart meter either.
So what happens next?
Ten minutes after I put the phone down, my mobile rang. It was a B.G call centre. The wretched woman said “Good afternoon . . . blah blah, then went on to say I understand you have agreed to us fitting a smart meter, and would like to book an appointment for us to come and do the work.” :twisted:
I soon put a flea in her ear and she said she was take my number off their call system. :twisted: