Smart Meter = smart move?

[boxbrownie]

3 hours ago, cctransuk said:

 

I don't recall having to claim the WFP, but I qualified at least seven years ago.

 

CJI.

I am sure I should have claimed although only a couple of years ago, although I might be older than I thought and it might have been something else? 😁

[hayfield]

 

 

Ouch what a difference a day makes, yesterday we used 6.885 cubic meters of gas, this would have cost us under the old tariff £3.17,  sadly under the new tariff its £5.90

 

The only consolation is that we are entering the warmer months, so the short term affect will be limited.

 

I will certainly be looking at other methods of reducing our dependence on gas using both smart and old methods, I may well be using our open fire more when it gets cold, certainly I will look to see if there are further smart measures. Our smart thermostat supplier is suggesting turning the thermostat down by 1 degree, in our case it might be a good thing as we have it set on 21 degrees

[spikey]

40 minutes ago, hayfield said:

 ... we have it set on 21 degrees

 

Good grief!!!  I'm in my mid-seventies, I really feel the cold nowadays and in fact have a serious recurring chilblain problem in my fingers, yet my Lady Wife and I manage with ours set at 17.5°C.

[hayfield]

1 hour ago, spikey said:

 

Good grief!!!  I'm in my mid-seventies, I really feel the cold nowadays and in fact have a serious recurring chilblain problem in my fingers, yet my Lady Wife and I manage with ours set at 17.5°C.

 

As I have said before our thermostat is set quite high !!  our minimum temperature is set at 15 degrees, not much lower than your max !!

[spikey]

11 hours ago, hayfield said:

 

As I have said before our thermostat is set quite high !!  our minimum temperature is set at 15 degrees, not much lower than your max !!

 

Sorry, I don't understand.  Ours is set at 17.5°, therefore the recorded room temperature normally stays within the range 16.8° to 17.6°.  Do you set max and min separately?  

[Sir TophamHatt]

I feel the time is coming closer when I may get a Smart Meter.

I think the little gadget you get would be interesting from a stats point of view to see how much I'm using per day.

 

I think under the new prices, I'll be at about £1600 a year - maybe slightly less due to much less use in the summer.

[Sir TophamHatt]

On 31/03/2022 at 16:15, woodenhead said:

Pretty sure that come October I am going to be paying a lot more for my electricity that I could have been.

 

I was offered a fix at the new current price cap rate through to April 2023 - would have ridden through the next increase - but I don't have a Smart Meter, by the time I had re-read most of this thread and looked on the internet, the offer had been withdrawn.

 

So not having a Smart Meter is going to cost me hundreds of pounds extra.....

 

I need to rethink how I approach adoption of new technology.

My new e.On Next tariff requires me to have a smart meter.

They keep sending through reminders every so often saying I need to book in but so far, nothing has been forced.  But then again it's only just clicked over to the new tariff as I got them to delay switching me until the 1st of April.

[hayfield]

1 hour ago, Sir TophamHatt said:

I feel the time is coming closer when I may get a Smart Meter.

I think the little gadget you get would be interesting from a stats point of view to see how much I'm using per day.

 

I think under the new prices, I'll be at about £1600 a year - maybe slightly less due to much less use in the summer.

 

Whilst the only saving a smart meter will make is allowing you to cheaper tariffs requiring a smart meter, information is power. At the moment I am paying £107 a month and until the recent price rise I was keeping my average costs below last year, but this is mainly down to having solar panels, however as the cost of gas has gone up from 3.83p to 7.3395p per kwh my total bill will go up greatly, it was assumed I would be paying £602 pa under the new rates I assume it will be nearer to £1153pa unless that is gas prices reduce over the coming months

 

I guess I am lucky like quite a lot of folk, whilst on a fixed income it can be absorbed, though I may consider reducing my thermostat by 1 degree in the winter which will save me 6% according my supplier. The other main increase I am facing is the rates, but the additional support for those with smaller properties will more that cover the rise.

 

But as you say having the information as to your use may allow you to make changes to the way you use energy

[boxbrownie]

2 hours ago, spikey said:

 

Sorry, I don't understand.  Ours is set at 17.5°, therefore the recorded room temperature normally stays within the range 16.8° to 17.6°.  Do you set max and min separately?  

Is that the temperature in your sitting/lounge room, have you a thermometer in the room?  I am assuming your thermostat is in the almost ubiquitous position of hallway?

[Metr0Land]

1 hour ago, Sir TophamHatt said:

I feel the time is coming closer when I may get a Smart Meter.

I think the little gadget you get would be interesting from a stats point of view to see how much I'm using per day.

 

I think under the new prices, I'll be at about £1600 a year - maybe slightly less due to much less use in the summer.

 

There's a variety of monitors you can buy without changing supplier or meter eg:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/electricity-usage-monitor/s?k=electricity+usage+monitor

[hayfield]

2 hours ago, spikey said:

 

Sorry, I don't understand.  Ours is set at 17.5°, therefore the recorded room temperature normally stays within the range 16.8° to 17.6°.  Do you set max and min separately?  

 

 

My bad explanation, between 7:30 am and 5:pm pm the thermostat is set at 20 degrees, between 5:30pm and 10,30 pm its set at 21 degrees. Overnight it is set at 15 degrees

 

We use a Tado smart thermostat, which has a a very wide range of settings, but more importantly when we both are out it turns its self to the night time setting of 15 degrees. It also has other energy saving features. It does work very well and can be altered remotely if required

 

The thing is we leave the heating on all day, I have been told that certainly for those at home its a cheaper way of running the system 

[hayfield]

7 minutes ago, Metr0Land said:

 

There's a variety of monitors you can buy without changing supplier or meter eg:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/electricity-usage-monitor/s?k=electricity+usage+monitor

 

But do you get the lower rates that require smart meters  ?

[boxbrownie]

46 minutes ago, hayfield said:

 

But do you get the lower rates that require smart meters  ?

What do you think? 🤔

[spikey]

@hayfield and @boxbrownie our stat is in the hallway, which opens into the kitchen which is where we tend to spend much of the morning and afternoon. Unless something unusual is happening, the accurately-measured temperature in the kitchen is normally within 0.5°C of the temperature shown (as opposed to set) on the stat.

 

Our heating comes on at 0600 when I leap joyfully from my bed, and it goes off at 1500.  In the evening we move into the living room, which is heated by a small multifuel stove.  There is no heating overnight.

 

We live in a very basic and cheaply-built Victorian semi with stone walls and no effective damp course.

[Reorte]

I turn the heating on when I get cold and off when I get warm, other than the timer coming on for a short while in the morning. This is an old (some time in the 19th century)  house.  Does the job of keeping me warm enough, combined with the stove if I'm going to be in the living room for most of the evening. I'm not in during the day though, which helps. Rather annoyed when I replaced the boiler a few years ago that it didn't even come with a thermostat though, I'd assumed any boiler would these days.

Edited April 4, 2022 by Reorte

[Metr0Land]

2 hours ago, hayfield said:

 

But do you get the lower rates that require smart meters  ?

 

Sir TophamHat was asking about devices not tariffs

[hayfield]

14 minutes ago, Reorte said:

 Rather annoyed when I replaced the boiler a few years ago that it didn't even come with a thermostat though, I'd assumed any boiler would these days.

 

I would have thought the installer would have fitted one, otherwise how do you control the boiler ?  It both turns the boiler off when the temperature reaches your pre-set level, turns itself off when not needed, also should have in built frost protection 

[hayfield]

3 hours ago, Sir TophamHatt said:

My new e.On Next tariff requires me to have a smart meter.

They keep sending through reminders every so often saying I need to book in but so far, nothing has been forced.  But then again it's only just clicked over to the new tariff as I got them to delay switching me until the 1st of April.

 

3 minutes ago, Metr0Land said:

 

Sir TophamHat was asking about devices not tariffs

 

 

The OP clearly stated his next tariff requiring one

[Reorte]

8 minutes ago, hayfield said:

 

I would have thought the installer would have fitted one, otherwise how do you control the boiler ?  It both turns the boiler off when the temperature reaches your pre-set level, turns itself off when not needed, also should have in built frost protection 

Well it doesn't. It's on or off. No preset levels, just runs when it's turned on (either set to completely on, or via the - rather to my surprise when it turned up with one - mechanical timer).

 

Guess that's what I get for not doing sufficient research in to what I'm buying (especially for such a major buy), but I rather just assumed a 5 year old Worcester-Bosch boiler would've had more than that.

 

That I'm not using a huge amount of gas as a result probably just points to me being tight

 

Not sure whether or not there's a basic one for frost protection somewhere in there. The condensing outlet goes in to an internal waste water pipe anyway (the boiler's in the bathroom), so the risk of it freezing up is pretty much zero.

 

It's possible to get a thermostat for it and it's on my to do list, I'm just rather lazy about such things. Not sure if it's a DIY fit though.

Edited April 4, 2022 by Reorte

[Metr0Land]

14 minutes ago, hayfield said:

 

 

 

The OP clearly stated his next tariff requiring one

 

That was the post before the one I was rsponding to.  No mention of tariff in the post I quoted.

[boxbrownie]

2 hours ago, spikey said:

@hayfield and @boxbrownie our stat is in the hallway, which opens into the kitchen which is where we tend to spend much of the morning and afternoon. Unless something unusual is happening, the accurately-measured temperature in the kitchen is normally within 0.5°C of the temperature shown (as opposed to set) on the stat.

 

Our heating comes on at 0600 when I leap joyfully from my bed, and it goes off at 1500.  In the evening we move into the living room, which is heated by a small multifuel stove.  There is no heating overnight.

 

We live in a very basic and cheaply-built Victorian semi with stone walls and no effective damp course.

I wondered because I couldn’t sit in the lounge evening time at 17C……I’d be in my skiing gear 😁

[hayfield]

5 hours ago, Reorte said:

Well it doesn't. It's on or off. No preset levels, just runs when it's turned on (either set to completely on, or via the - rather to my surprise when it turned up with one - mechanical timer).

 

Guess that's what I get for not doing sufficient research in to what I'm buying (especially for such a major buy), but I rather just assumed a 5 year old Worcester-Bosch boiler would've had more than that.

 

That I'm not using a huge amount of gas as a result probably just points to me being tight

 

Not sure whether or not there's a basic one for frost protection somewhere in there. The condensing outlet goes in to an internal waste water pipe anyway (the boiler's in the bathroom), so the risk of it freezing up is pretty much zero.

 

It's possible to get a thermostat for it and it's on my to do list, I'm just rather lazy about such things. Not sure if it's a DIY fit though.

 

 

I would seek advice from a central heating engineer!!

 

When we had the boiler moved to our pantry our central heating engineer required the electrician to fit a power socket for the boiler, the central heating engineer fitted the boiler to the thermostat. We have the same make of boiler, I would go for a smart thermostat

[hayfield]

19 hours ago, Reorte said:

Well it doesn't. It's on or off. No preset levels, just runs when it's turned on (either set to completely on, or via the - rather to my surprise when it turned up with one - mechanical timer).

 

Guess that's what I get for not doing sufficient research in to what I'm buying (especially for such a major buy), but I rather just assumed a 5 year old Worcester-Bosch boiler would've had more than that.

 

That I'm not using a huge amount of gas as a result probably just points to me being tight

 

Not sure whether or not there's a basic one for frost protection somewhere in there. The condensing outlet goes in to an internal waste water pipe anyway (the boiler's in the bathroom), so the risk of it freezing up is pretty much zero.

 

It's possible to get a thermostat for it and it's on my to do list, I'm just rather lazy about such things. Not sure if it's a DIY fit though.

 

 

I have the basic Tado system, as I said it was cheaper than the quote I received from BG for a non smart unit and I was able to fit it myself

 

https://www.tado.com/gb-en/smart-thermostat-overview

 

Others are available but this company guaranties the thermostat will save you money, lots of good features and you can keep your existing time spans if you wish

[SamThomas]

On 13/03/2022 at 10:40, Jonboy said:

I haven’t been overly impressed with the forced migration from SSE to OVO, but I do like the way that entering a meter reading online at any time, then automatically works out and shows the balance to date within around 2 minutes.

Exactly how I run my gas & electricity accounts - nothing "smart" about it, just common sense & the benefits are ;

 

Accurate bills.

 

Paymeny by BACS (from whatever account I wish to use).

 

No allowing anyone to help themselves to any amount of my money whenever they feel like it.

 

& the best part of it is the fact that I am in complete control.

[SamThomas]

On 13/03/2022 at 12:00, hayfield said:

I don't believe old meters can do this, unless that is you have a second meter ? In my case I have solar panels so need a smart not a dumb meter. The better rates available require smart meters, dumb meters are a disadvantage in this area. 

We have a non"smart" meter for the main house & solar panels have a non "smart" meter to measure the power generated.

Once a quarter we provide a reading from the solar panels meter on line & in less than 7 days the FIT payment in in our nominated bank account.

Currently recieving 22.5p/kwh for what we generate if we use it or not.

 

So, "old meters" can in fact work perfectly well with solar panels.