Smart meters

I think they give out info in real time so that you can see the costs and adjust usage accordingly. You will be paying through your bills for manual meter readings. Where are the details about smart meters being unreliable?

These meters are quickly gaining a reputation for being unreliable.

 

Source of this information please?

In many newspaper and consumer TV programmes......people getting erroneous bills and finding it very difficult to argue against them.

I simply look at the cost per Kw/h for each type of energy, together with the standing charges, and chose the cheapest.

So not sure how we are 'paying for' manual readings?

But people sometimes get erroneous bills whether on smart meters or not.

You will be paying the wages of a manual reader in the costs somewhere along the line, they're not free...not that I want to see anyone losing a job.

Then those people can simply challenge their bill by pointing out that the cost per Kw/h x the number of kW/h used isn't correct.

I would guess that electronic transmission is fairly accurate and could be checked against previous usage.

We have had a smart meter for a while now, no problems with it,  and it's been interesting to see which appliances use the most electricity. Have not had any problems with bills.

One of the reasons the suppliers are giving for installing the smart meters is that the old ones are not always accurate. I also read my own meters every month but still the suppliers have to do a check at least once every two years, for safety reasons. I would not have a problem with them installing new meters as long as they are not actually unreliable as you are stating.

There seems to be a great amount of mistique surrounding utility bills.

When I buy 6 tins of beans, I expect to pay the cost per tin x 6.

When I buy 40 litres of diesel I expect to pay 40 x £1.09 (or whatever it says on the sign this week).

Why do people buying gas and electric see it any different?

I know that the utility providers try to surround it all with smoke and mirrors, but basically it's as simple as that.