Electricity Smart Meter

[Kim]

That they've achieved 99.55% coverage of Scotland and Northern England isn't quantified as to whether its population or land mass however given that the BBC manage to have Radio Scotland available in 810 medium wage from almost everywhere using a single transmitter when there are many places of bugger all mobile signal and even places such as Strath Tummel where there is 4g but not 2g or 3g is quite impressive.

It appears that the LRR network uses 423MHz, so it should propagate a bit better than a cellular signal, but nowhere near as well as the medium wave broadcast band.

(It also sounds suboptimally close to the 433MHz ISM band, so I expect it gets obliterated by car keys and baby monitors and so on.)

[FifeingEejit]

Could be tagged onto the existing arquiva TV transmitters at that?

Sent from my IV2201 using Tapatalk

[Kim]

Could be tagged onto the existing arquiva TV transmitters at that?

Seems likely they'd use their existing infrastructure, yes.  And broadcast transmitters tend to be in long-established sites with good coverage, from the days before NIMBYs were concerned about the effects of 5G/smart meter mind control radiation.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Smart meter gave my house price covid! You'll read it in the Mail soon.

[De Sisti]

Off-topic slightly; I've initiated action to get a water meter. Might save a few £ each month?

[Pickled Onion]

Unless you keep koi carp or have a pristine lawn you like to keep in golf course condition throughout a drought, you almost certainly will. The flat-rate water charge has gradually increased since water meters were invented, on the (justifiable) grounds that half the people still on it didn't care how much they used wasted.

[felstedrider]

Just ordered a smart meter for Mum.   BG booking dates early Nov so they must be busy rolling these out.

[rogerzilla]

Unless you keep koi carp or have a pristine lawn you like to keep in golf course condition throughout a drought, you almost certainly will. The flat-rate water charge has gradually increased since water meters were invented, on the (justifiable) grounds that half the people still on it didn't care how much they used wasted.

Things must have changed.  I remember my bill doubling when I bought a house with a meter.

[JellyLegs]

Unless you keep koi carp or have a pristine lawn you like to keep in golf course condition throughout a drought, you almost certainly will. The flat-rate water charge has gradually increased since water meters were invented, on the (justifiable) grounds that half the people still on it didn't care how much they used wasted.

Things must have changed.  I remember my bill doubling when I bought a house with a meter.

I definitely save money on a water meter and I can see what I use, so encouraging me to use water sparingly.

One other thing that might be worth checking, certainly if you live out in the sticks and / or in a pre 1950’s house, is what happens to your rainwater. Water companies, or mine at least, assume it goes into part of their drainage system and there is an element of your bill that pays for this.  For a few years, I was paying them for rainwater discharge despite the fact that none of the rain that fell on my house and garden went any further than a soak away under the lawn.  It wasn’t a huge amount but the £20 (in 1997) was better off in my pocket than theirs.

[robgul]

Unless you keep koi carp or have a pristine lawn you like to keep in golf course condition throughout a drought, you almost certainly will. The flat-rate water charge has gradually increased since water meters were invented, on the (justifiable) grounds that half the people still on it didn't care how much they used wasted.

Things must have changed.  I remember my bill doubling when I bought a house with a meter.

Ditto - we moved from the house with a meter to one without and are now paying a lot less (same water company) - occupancy/life-style is pretty much unchanged.   Interestingly the houses either side have meters - the water co doesn't know where our incoming fee/street stopcock is so can't seem to be able to fit a meter  (I know where it is  )

[Beardy]

At some point our water company installed meters at every property, but as we’ve not signed up for one we’re still on a flat rate. At some point I might take some readings and do some sums, in the meantime while we have a third person living with us, I’ll stay on the flat rate thank you.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Thinking about this as a wider principle, no one, as far as I know, has flat rate electricity or gas bills. OTOH, telecoms cos seem keen to shove us all onto flat rate deals rather than PAYG, most streaming and TV is flat rate but there's still a lot of pay per view, and buses are increasingly flat rate rather than having any distance or time element but this is unheard of with trains and planes. And there is continual talk about replacing annual VED with road pricing. So moves towards metering in some areas and away from it in others.

[Kim]

If I owned a house, and was contemplating the benefits of a water meter, I'd probably install my own water meter under the sink to find out what's actually being used.  They're not particularly expensive, and you can get ones with dry contact outputs for automagic counting (and it wouldn't be hard to implement a useful "something's dribbling" alarm).

[Kim]

Thinking about this as a wider principle, no one, as far as I know, has flat rate electricity or gas bills.

Some tenants do.  Usually ones renting a room, rather than a whole house/flat.  It tends to come with moaning every time you use an appliance.


The ultimate cost of providing telecoms (voice or data) is determined by peak network capacity, so PAYG doesn't really make things easier for the provider to manage.  Flat rates at least make your revenue predictable and your billing simpler.

[Tod28]

Down here (South West Water) metered rate is about 50% that of unmetered unless one is either extravagant with the wet stuff or the house still appears to only have an outside tap on SWW's "records". If they can't physically fit a meter when requested [recent experience of a house supplied via next door's main coming up through a concrete floor and behind a fitted kitchen) the inspector completes a chit which reduces the unmetered charge by 50%. Even with the tea towel folding chancellor's £50 annual rebate, the unmetered rate for 2 in our 2 bed band B property is north of £800 pa. Metered we pay £350-400 pa and we do wash!

[fd3]

I consider a meter for water rates from time to time, the I consider that we are a family of five and come to my senses.

[rogerzilla]

Being cynical, they ramp up the metered costs to (a) cover the considerable cost of reading them and (b) to ensure their revenue isn't impacted by reduced usage.

[wajcgac]

Anglia water have recently notified me that they will be fitting a Smart Water Meter to my property, we've always had a metered supply from when the house was built in the early 90s.

In the FAQs in response to the question of whether you can choose not to have the Smart Meter fitted.

No. We have a legal obligation to manage and protect the water supply in our region. We’re upgrading meters to smart meters to help support our public interest obligations set out by our regulator which include finding leaks and helping our customers save water.

I'm curious to know why you can opt out of having a smart Electric/Gas meter fitted but not a Smart Water meter?

[Kim]

Because the water meter can't cut your supply off, maybe?

Being able to opt out of smart meters was always daft.

[Beardy]

Anglia water have recently notified me that they will be fitting a Smart Water Meter to my property, we've always had a metered supply from when the house was built in the early 90s.

In the FAQs in response to the question of whether you can choose not to have the Smart Meter fitted.

No. We have a legal obligation to manage and protect the water supply in our region. We’re upgrading meters to smart meters to help support our public interest obligations set out by our regulator which include finding leaks and helping our customers save water.

I'm curious to know why you can opt out of having a smart Electric/Gas meter fitted but not a Smart Water meter?

Because the gas and electric companies are not charged with protecting the supply?

[Pickled Onion]

Unless you keep koi carp or have a pristine lawn you like to keep in golf course condition throughout a drought, you almost certainly will. The flat-rate water charge has gradually increased since water meters were invented, on the (justifiable) grounds that half the people still on it didn't care how much they used wasted.

Things must have changed.  I remember my bill doubling when I bought a house with a meter.

I think they must have done. My water + sewerage is around £300 a year (average 2.5 people, house with 3 bathrooms and courtyard garden that needs watering daily in the summer). The flat rate is close to £600 plus 30p per £ of RV.

[felstedrider]

Anglia water have recently notified me that they will be fitting a Smart Water Meter to my property, we've always had a metered supply from when the house was built in the early 90s.

In the FAQs in response to the question of whether you can choose not to have the Smart Meter fitted.

No. We have a legal obligation to manage and protect the water supply in our region. We’re upgrading meters to smart meters to help support our public interest obligations set out by our regulator which include finding leaks and helping our customers save water.

I'm curious to know why you can opt out of having a smart Electric/Gas meter fitted but not a Smart Water meter?

Because the gas and electric companies are not charged with protecting the supply?

It is very, very difficult to disconnect a domestic consumer.   Energy is deemed a necessity by the regulator.

[rafletcher]

We currently can’t have a water meter fitted as we’re on a common supply to a terrace, apparently. I guess this is because at present all meters are at the stop cock in the street. Why that is, I’ve no idea, I had a colleague some 30 years ago (he lived near Shipston on Stour) who had a data logger fitted to his supply inside his house, and he periodically got a replacement “memory” and sent the other back. We could (now, since we had a new supply pipe fitted, though still on the common main) have a meter fitted on our incomer. Perhaps with the advent of smart water meters that’ll start to happen.

We’ve also had a message that SO energy will be in touch about smart meters for gas and electricity. I shall decline, again.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Thinking about this as a wider principle, no one, as far as I know, has flat rate electricity or gas bills.

Some tenants do.  Usually ones renting a room, rather than a whole house/flat.  It tends to come with moaning every time you use an appliance.

GPWM but the landlord is still presented with a bill based on consumption. It's just too difficult to then break it down by tenant.

The ultimate cost of providing telecoms (voice or data) is determined by peak network capacity, so PAYG doesn't really make things easier for the provider to manage.  Flat rates at least make your revenue predictable and your billing simpler.

So the cost to the service provider is the same whether you make a call every hour or once a year, it's only when everyone calls at once that it's a problem? Didn't realise this but it does explain why we used to have peak and off-peak calls.

[Kim]

The ultimate cost of providing telecoms (voice or data) is determined by peak network capacity, so PAYG doesn't really make things easier for the provider to manage.  Flat rates at least make your revenue predictable and your billing simpler.

So the cost to the service provider is the same whether you make a call every hour or once a year, it's only when everyone calls at once that it's a problem? Didn't realise this but it does explain why we used to have peak and off-peak calls.

Also explains long-distance rates (trunk lines are expensive).  And why cheap ISP's networks become congested at peak times (oversubscribe your transit, and hope the users put up with it or aren't tech-savvy enough to realise you're the problem).