We have a four bed detached house with NO smart meter we have 3 of us living here all the time. We cook a lot, have lights on until midnightish, wash a load most days, have a dishwasher, several TVs going, sometimes use a tumble drier, have a computer running all the time etc etc. our electric bill is £67 a month approx.
We let out (for holidays) a little house WITH a smart meter and that costs £20 MORE a month. No dishwasher, no tumble dryer, people hardly use the cooker, hardly use the washing machine and it is not always occupied. Work that out!!
On another note, received my updated bill from energy supplier, and after being in the ‘green’ for many years, I am £350 in debt. Increased DD from around £80 to £200. It may balance itself out during the summer months - maybe.
Glad to hear you’ve made up your mind - you have had a lot of varied responses to your original question.
Do let us know how it goes in the months following the installation of your Smart Meter - I’ll be interested to hear how you get on.
What is the consumption in kilowatt hours at each place and what is the charge per Kwh at each place? All that information should be on the bills. Only then can you “work that out”.
Certainly if it was me I would want to know why there was such an apparent discrepancy.
The bills will have information like this somewhere:
Just done my daily spreadsheet update, nine days into this month and used £93.34 of energy, divided by 9 days = £10.37 per day X 31 days in December = £321.47 upcoming usage this month. Try working that out with KWH’s and units.
All fitted! Engineer took about 45 minutes for ‘hello’ to ‘goodbye’.
Have the SMART home display that is still waiting to be uploaded with account details. Apparently it takes up to 14 days.
However, their communication after the installation states:
‘…it can take up to 7 weeks to create your first bill after your meter exchange (but is usually much quicker). If you haven’t had a bill by 4th February 2023 contact us…’
So far, counting the days until the display works and we get our first bill!
We’ve got the French EDF equivalent of a smart meter. I was not convinced it would make significant difference as we already took advantage of the cheaper overnight rate (hot water tank, dishwasher, washing machine all set for after 11pm use). And I already know the costly daytime use - oven, grill, electric heaters upstairs, hoover, etc. So with or without the smart meter these are kept to essential use. (Essentially I’ve pretty much given up ironing. Phew.)
Then EDF let us join a “red day” scheme by which they allocate up to 22 red days over winter. During the day electricity is three times (yes x3) more expensive on red days. But in exchange they give us a significant discount on other days, up to 30% less on some, and about 15% lower on all overnight use. The red days are the cold days when EDF see a risk of the national grid having too great a demand the possibility of brown outs. So by having a number of households greatly encouraged to stop all electricity use (who is going to pay x3) they reduce the overall demand. In return I reckon my bills will come down by 10-15% this year.
This scheme is only possible with the smart meter. I’m now a fan.
We were at a relatives last week who was talked into getting a Smart meter but now regrets it. While we were there it kept flashing up that it might need moving to another area. he says it does that all the time and then you move it and it’s OK for a while then you get the message again. he says it’s more trouble than it’s worth.
I ain’t got no apps, they are data swallowers, just my old mate in the downstairs loo, providing daily data for the spreadsheet. Here is yesterdays data about to be inputted
Morning all,
I only look at the smart meter now when I have the constitution to take on the high cost per week we as a family, we seem to clock up! We have a new dryer which is more efficient, with a lot less time to dry the clothes. However, it still ‘eats up’ a lot of the electricity. Will probably go the way of our neighbours and hang the clothes out whenever the weather seems warm enough.
It does but that is inconsequential in this context, what matters is one day is comparable with the next cost wise, with roughly the same energy consumption, we don’t want any stealth increases do we.
