[bevel]

hi all

after 18minths i have finally got new smart meters installed (12 jan) and have been waiting for the end of jan to receive my bill (was not holding breath though) and no readings, bill shows old meter, wasnt told till i emailed them that it tales 3 MONTHS for them to be updated on the system, in the mean time nobody had told me to send readings and as the old meter does not exist i cant add readings for the last usage to my account manually as i have had to do every month (just says error with account). so im back on 'we will guess and tell you what we think you should pay', again! or estimated at they call it.

[retrotecchie]

@bevel

You can read your meters yourself, and from that, knowing your tariff and standing charges, can work out for yourself what your bill should be. Do that, and make an appropriate manual payment to your account. That will ensure you are paying for exactly what you use, until the system catches up.

Several things at play here.

Firstly, the meter installer has to report back to the supplier what the new meter serial numbers are so the account can be updated. This usually happens fairly quickly but can take a while if the installers only send batches of info back periodically, rather than every time they install a meter.

Secondly, I would expect some delay with E.On Next as they are not the best at getting all their i's dotted and it's crossed.

Thirdly, if the meters were only installed on Jan 18th, they won't be scheduled for a read until 17th of Feb or so, and in most cases, your account and meter details will simply not be fully updated and correlated until that first read comes in.

Yes, I know it's a work up, which is why I maintain that if you are happy to manually read and submit readings regularly from conventional meters, then stick with them. I see nothing that smart meters bring to the party other than exactly the same sort of problem you are having. Of course, Once they have bedded in and start providing regular readings, all good, but I've never heard of anyone who didn't have at least a week or so and usually a month before things worked properly.

If it ain't broke...

Also, smart meters do not 'send info'. The info has to be 'requested' from the meter. The default request frequency is monthly. Once you are up and running, you can change the frequency to daily or half-hourly for monitoring purposes, but even then that just alters the request schedule.