Smart water meters, the next big con?

Cobra

Cobra

In Memoriam. TPer Emeritus
Admin
Messages
115,214
Name
The real Chris
Edit My Images
No
The water meters are being read ( Anglia water)
It seems that they have also been fitting "Smart meters" to some in this area.

The bills are in, and people are reporting huge increases in their bills, as much as double or even treble
up to + £100/month increase!
Surely that has to be an error.


As for me, no smart meter here, and I'm £50 in credit.
Before when I was in credit, they offered a refund, or reduced bill, this time they never asked, they just reduced my monthly payments.
No big deal as that was what I would have opted for.

At £19 / month that takes it back to the pre- hot summer costs of a couple of summers ago, when it went up a fiver.
Which wasn't really a surprise, at the time, as I spent a lot topping up the pond and watering the garden.
 
I pay my water bill (also Anglian) every 6 months by DD. They replaced my meter with a smart one about a year or more ago, and the bills have stayed pretty much the same (circa £152 rising to £182 lately)
 
Last edited:
ive had a smart water meter for over 5 years now all my meters are smart :)
 
lindsay said:
They replaced my meter with a smart one about a year or more ago,
Click to expand...
TBH I never knew that was a thing, until people started complaining recently.
Mine was read by a guy ( I saw him do it) These smart meters do seem to be rather inconsistent and throw random errors.
 
Mr Bump said:
of course they do, your tin hat is in the post :)
Click to expand...
There is plenty of evidence of how dumb these things actually are.
There is non so blind as those that will not see.
 
Cobra said:
There is plenty of evidence of how dumb these things actually are.
There is non so blind as those that will not see.
Click to expand...

and so yet another anti technology thread/rant is born, you guys huh....
 
Mr Bump said:
and so yet another anti technology thread/rant is born, you guys huh....
Click to expand...
I'm far from anti technology, it's just that the technology being forced upon us just doesn't work for a large proportion of the population.

EV's
Smart Meters
Heat Pumps etc.

quite simply don't suite or work for everyone and tin foil hat or not I do question the ulterior motives behind some of this technology.
 
Last edited:
ecoleman said:
I do question the ulterior motives behind some of this technology.
Click to expand...
As long as people are happy for the powers that be to have control over their utilities, then I say, they are welcome to 1984.
 
I will pop back in 69 pages and read some more made up comedy
 
In theory smart meters make a lot of sense - continuous meter monitoring, no need for manual reading. The trouble is that they have been in many cases let down either by the tech used or the infrastructure that should surround it. In my case, the smart water meter is working fine. However my smart gas and electric ones are not, in the sense that the network they require isn't working. The In House monitor doesn't get anything from the main electric meter so probably the gas one isn't talking to it either, and EdF aren't getting readings from ir despite a guy coming round and spending time working on it.
There are also apocryphal anecdotes of people getting ridiculous bills - doubtless bugs in the data input after a meter switch or poor billing software - or readings that are crazy - probably a faulty component in the meter; in both cases the company involved is so technically illiterate that it blindly follows the data rather than allow a human, or maybe AI, to deduce a pattern of failure and intervene. Shades of Horizon here, perhaps?
 
Mr Bump said:
I will pop back in 69 pages and read some more made up comedy
Click to expand...
Just because some people don't walk blindly into something that the government tells them its for their own good,
doesn't make them a conspiracy theorist.
Nor does it make them a sheeple.

And there is a post directly below yours proving they ( smart meters) are not the be all and end all.
 
I have a few shelly energy monitors including one installed where the mains comes in so I can easily monitor my energy usage through Home Assistant. No need for a smart meter which can be controlled by a 3rd party.

As for meter readings. It takes me 30 seconds to read the meter and submit it on an app on the 1st of every month.
 
As far as the 'smart' water meter goes, it does not send live data.

The smart aspect is that the reading is taken by the "reader" van driving along the road. The onboard system sends out a signal to interrogate the meter.

No idea yet whether it will cost us more, less or the same costs as non,-metered???
 
But many people don't regularly monitor their usage nor provide meter readings.
For suppliers, it is really useful to have the data constantly because they buy from the distributors at the relevant half-hourly rates; ditto for the distributors because they need to purchase from the generators the right amount of energy for each half hour at the forward spot rate for that half hour; and further, the supplier tariffs are derived from an estimated accual consumption in each half hour, but they would like it to be less estimated as they can then create better tariffs from both a profitability but also competitive perspective. So the business case is very clearly in favour of smart meters in the case of gas and electricity. For water, where there isn't competition, really, it is more about being able to identify sudden changes to consumption or inappropriate amounts of consumption, which can indicate a leak that needs attention. Of course, we all know how good they are about dealing with leaks, but that's another subject.
 
lindsay said:
But many people don't regularly monitor their usage nor provide meter readings.
For suppliers, it is really useful to have the data constantly because they buy from the distributors at the relevant half-hourly rates; ditto for the distributors because they need to purchase from the generators the right amount of energy for each half hour at the forward spot rate for that half hour; and further, the supplier tariffs are derived from an estimated accual consumption in each half hour, but they would like it to be less estimated as they can then create better tariffs from both a profitability but also competitive perspective. So the business case is very clearly in favour of smart meters in the case of gas and electricity. For water, where there isn't competition, really, it is more about being able to identify sudden changes to consumption or inappropriate amounts of consumption, which can indicate a leak that needs attention. Of course, we all know how good they are about dealing with leaks, but that's another subject.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure I buy into that.

If smart meters were really just to help suppliers reduce the cost of energy to make more profit to pass on the savings to their customers there would be no need for Ofgem (ie government) to have set targets for all suppliers for smart meter installation.

Smart meter transition and the Data Communications Company (DCC) - Supplier Smart Metering Installation Targets

Annual supplier installation targets for the roll out smart and advanced meters to their remaining non-smart customers.
www.ofgem.gov.uk www.ofgem.gov.uk
 
Last edited:
Cobra said:
And there is a post directly below yours proving they ( smart meters) are not the be all and end all.
Click to expand...
Too often, someone has "a clever idea" and it's others who discover that the word "clever" plumbs new depths of disaster.
I prefer not to be one of the "others". :tumbleweed:
 
Whatever reasons the govt may have had, what I've described is how the industry actually works and potentially benefits from them.
 
lindsay said:
Whatever reasons the govt may have had, what I've described is how the industry actually works and potentially benefits from them.
Click to expand...
Its the same, as, and I'm not sure if its still the case, but energy companies were being fined if they weren't reaching a set target for installed smart meters.
I was actually offered £100 paid into my account, if I had one fitted that month.
God knows what the fine was in that case.

It makes me wonder, if the same is being applied to water meters.
 
Box Brownie said:
As far as the 'smart' water meter goes, it does not send live data.

The smart aspect is that the reading is taken by the "reader" van driving along the road. The onboard system sends out a signal to interrogate the meter.

No idea yet whether it will cost us more, less or the same costs as non,-metered???
Click to expand...
They must come along my road quite often then as I can go online and see my consumption for each hour :)

I was offered a trial of 2 years, after that time I could choose to keep the meter or go back to a bill based on rateable value. The metered bill was cheaper for me.
 
Last edited:
Box Brownie said:
As far as the 'smart' water meter goes, it does not send live data.

The smart aspect is that the reading is taken by the "reader" van driving along the road. The onboard system sends out a signal to interrogate the meter.

No idea yet whether it will cost us more, less or the same costs as non,-metered???
Click to expand...
And the meter reads out a number which is transmitted to the interrogation unit, and bill = [this month reading - last month reading] = consumption
so how there can be any 'error' in the consumption number seems rather improbable, unless the meter calibration in counting units itself is wrong...it is not going to be wrong in the electronic transmission of the 'amount consumed'
 
Suvv said:
They must come along my road quite often then as I can go online and see my consumption for each hour :)

I was offered a trial of 2 years, after that time I could choose to keep the meter or go back to a bill based on rateable value. The metered bill was cheaper for me.
Click to expand...
The way they are doing it here, as we are apparently in a water stress area, is that meters are obligatory (the rollout though seems piecemeal, is to have a 2 year grace period. This means come what may in 2 years we will be on metered billing whether we want it or not.

In the meantime we can opt in to meter billing if we decide to.

Just waiting to check how much the meter billing costs compared to the fixed billing?
 
Suvv said:
I was offered a trial of 2 years, after that time I could choose to keep the meter or go back to a bill based on rateable value. The metered bill was cheaper for me.
Click to expand...
Same here, but its it was a normal meter.
The savings were dramatic.
It went from £50 / month, to the current £19 / month.
It dropped in increments, over a few years, and I even had a couple of rebates, as they guesstimated rather high, initially, when I signed up.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Nod
Much the same with us - bill was pretty much halved overnight.
I pay all the bills monthly, for what we've used.
 
We had a meter fitted last year, paid the annual amount in April when it was due and applied for a meter at the same time. They came out and fitted it within a month.
If we do not like the payments it tells us we need to make then we can go back to the system without a meter.

TBH I was sceptical about it but after a couple of month they sent me a cheque for £326 which was a refund as I had paid up front for the year.

In September my bill was £72, it is due again in April so we will see what that comes to.
 
FWIW
As I mentioned on another our water meter is internal to the house and we are taking monthly readings to see what our consumption is like based on (having looked it up) £1.20 per m2 of water.

So to be sure about what the billing will be comparatively we need the next bill to show a comparison.

PS AFAIK all of our neighbours have or will have in due course external meters fitted not always convenient for taking a reading what with condensation 'clouding' dials.
The reason ours is indoors is the the external tap is located very close to a deep BT chamber (approx 1 M deep) and as such the meter install team don't have enough trenching space and would put the BT utility at risk!
 
Martin Lewis says that water bills are calculated on the rateable value of the house, unless you have a meter. If you have fewer people in the house than bedrooms, it is advisable to have a meter. If you have more people than bedrooms, a meter would charge you more.

There were cockups on utility bills before smart meters. Sometimes they even made the news.

I think the biggest change with a smart meter is that (with electricity only?) they can switch off the supply remotely. Otherwise, it is just a meter...
 
Pound Coin said:
Martin Lewis says that water bills are calculated on the rateable value of the house, unless you have a meter. If you have fewer people in the house than bedrooms, it is advisable to have a meter. If you have more people than bedrooms, a meter would charge you more.

There were cockups on utility bills before smart meters. Sometimes they even made the news.

I think the biggest change with a smart meter is that (with electricity only?) they can switch off the supply remotely. Otherwise, it is just a meter...
Click to expand...
My bold. I can't see that being the case for us. Just the two of us. There's a pond that needs topping up, a large back garden with a veg patch and lots of patio plants, a front garden..a Karcher HP hose, a hosepipe in the garage for the front re car clean, a hosepipe in the back, using the washing machine, on average, three times a week showers. I think I've covered everything. Next door had a meter installed (water,I think..I'll check on that) and her monthly debit payment shot up so she had it uninstalled. She's on her own since her husband died back in June.
 
Various mentions above re: water meters and having them removed if costs higher than the unmetered billing.

IIRC the letter(s) that we received explained that we were obligated to have the meter as our area is within a designated "water stress" area. The only open 'option' was to delay the meter based billing up to two years from fitting. We can opt in to that billing at any time up to that two years deadline....... but if opted in cannot opt out.

The one thing is random is the piecemeal fitting of the meters. Instead of progressively working along the streets they do a few then a gap (which so far some are filled in) and then a few more.

There are a few houses around here that had meters already but AFAIK they were dumb ones and yet to be upgraded???
 
Well, it looks like I'm about to be conned in the next few week, and there is no way out :(

No, you cannot opt out of the collection of smart meter readings. We automatically collect hourly meter readings because we consider it to be in the public interest, and in the exercise of official authority vested in us, that our water supply is managed in the very best way possible for our future.


And I would dispute that
Because we’re the driest region in the UK,
 
Cobra said:
Well, it looks like I'm about to be conned in the next few week, and there is no way out :(

No, you cannot opt out of the collection of smart meter readings. We automatically collect hourly meter readings because we consider it to be in the public interest, and in the exercise of official authority vested in us, that our water supply is managed in the very best way possible for our future.


And I would dispute that
Because we’re the driest region in the UK,
Click to expand...
Interesting, as mentioned our water meter is not connected electronically to anything i.e. the WiFi and AFAIK it does not 'phone home' but it gets interrogated by the meter reading van driving along the road.

As for dry region, the reason we were obliged to agree to a water meter was it is a "water stress" area.
 
Box Brownie said:
Interesting, as mentioned our water meter is not connected electronically
Click to expand...
Mine isn't yet, and was up until a few days ago was read manually by a man, for the final time.
And there goes a lot of jobs as it spreads out across the the country. :(
 
"Water stress area" perhaps if they fixed all the leaks in their supply pipes the water stress would go away. Just a thought.
 
Mr Bump said:
maybe its the amount of wind......
Click to expand...
Well there are a few wind turbines dotted about, generating it.


Keep at it, you have been on a knife edge for awhile, and won't be missed.
 
Last edited:
Cobra said:
Well there are a few wind turbines dotted about, generating it.


Keep at it, you have been on a knife edge for awhile, and won't be missed.
Click to expand...
good come back
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top