They're meant to last 15 years, which is longer than the expected 10 year service life of the meter. The idea is that the meter should need replacing before the battery does.
But alas some meters do a terrible job of battery management and things like lots of valve operations or tons of firmware updates can drain the battery faster than anticipated.
Just another guy passing by... The unknown tech way...
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The reason you can't change the battery yourself is for anti-tamper reasons. If it was customer serviceable, then someone could just deliberately leave the battery out and get away with "free" gas (except they'd be stealing it).
That is just poor design. The meter should shut the gas off with no battery fitted for x number of minutes or hours, obviously allowing time to replace the battery.
And if your battery goes flat and it takes a week to get any answer from your supplier, does that mean you are getting free gas?
I mean, your mobile phone doesn't allow limitless unmetered calls if the battery goes flat, innit?
In those cases, your usage gets estimated based on industry data.
If your meter is in Prepayment Mode, it does kill the supply just before the battery dies, which is a very good way to encourage the customer to have the meter looked at (it also sends a dying breath alarm back to the supplier). But in Credit Mode, it simply sends an alarm back to the supplier and keeps the supply on.
There are no penalties on suppliers if they do not fix meters.
they are incentivised to fit meters, but not to make them functional. The result is all too obvious.
Current Eon Next customer, ex EDF, Zog and Symbio. Don't think dual fuel saves money and don't like smart meters. Chronologically Gifted. If I offend let me know by private message, but I’ll continue to express my opinions nonetheless.
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