Assume v. Presume

Current smart meter advert (in a Jane Horrocks-like voice):

"If we all get a smart meter, we could save enough energy to power every home in Aberdeen, Cardiff, and Manchester for a year"

Only a year? Why would I want to subsidise free energy to residents of those cities in particular?
 
[RANT]I must be missing something. How does a smart meter save you money, or energy? I still have the TV, lights, kettle, fridge, freezer and Humaxes on in exactly the same way as before changing meter. I still have to cook my dinner and heat my water. In the winter I need to heat the house. I just can't see how letting your energy provider micromanage your tariff and generally have a good nose at what you are doing saves energy. [Made me think of Officer Crabtree in his best French - "I have good nose"]. Until I'm forced to have smart meters "they" can bigger off. :D [/RANT]

"power every home in .... for a year". Very bad science. How long does everyone have to use a smart meter for to supposedly save energy to supply those cities for one year? One year? Ten years? Or is it implying that in one year the alleged saving is enough to power those cities?
I'm not sure I like the sloppy use of energy and power in the quote either - could imply they are the same thing.
 
Looking at it literally, which was my point, the question is how long do we have save energy for in order to power those cities for a year? It is not specified. There is similarly sloppy language in all these adverts, which leads to the suspicion that either the energy companies themselves don't know what they are talking about, or they have handed the whole thing down to some marketing executives to write copy and not bothered to vet it for correctness on the (probably correct) assumption that the vast majority of the target audience don't know and don't care.

Advertising Standards might have something to say about it, if anybody could be arsed to complain.
 
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On the general subject of smart meters and savings, I'm not ideologically against but damned if I'm going to the trouble of letting them fit one until universal interoperability and security are solved - and I have said so. Eon send you a card which implies you have an appointment for the fitting, which is misrepresentation in my opinion. I ignored the first, if they wanted to waste their time turning up uninvited that was their problem. But then they sent another complaining that I hadn't responded to the first, so I let them have it both barrels.

Something that bothers me is that a gas meter will clearly need servicing periodically to change a battery, and will rely on there being an electricity meter nearby for the Zigbee link to the hub. Physical access to mine is currently "inconvenient" to say the least, read the dials from a distance.

I don't believe a large proportion of energy use is "waste". The idea is that being able to monitor consumption/cost will encourage people to choose savings over comfort/convenience, but that ain't gonna happen! The best that might happen is to educate a new generation into being more efficient in their choices. The only benefit I can see in the short term is if everyone has peak and off-peak tarriffs and can then choose the best time of day to run the washing machine.
 
Black Hole said:
choose the best time of day to run the washing machine.
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:roflmao: My washing machine seems to be a little unbalanced. (yes, and so am I before anyone says it :confused:). I don't want it rumbling and trying to escape in the middle of the night. Therefore, I wont be running the machine overnight. With a BGS site (fairly) nearby, I don't want them thinking there is an earthquake every other night!
 
I have two main objections to smart meters, apart from a long-held belief that resulting 'savings' have always been wildly exaggerated and based on biased guesswork.

Firstly they have the ability to report energy consumption frequently. Anyone going on a winter holiday leaves a visible trace that their house is unattended when gas consumption falls off a cliff.

Secondly I have an 87-year old aunt who lives alone and was persuaded to have smart meter installed just to stop them pestering her. She now has a device sitting on her kitchen worktop showing the exact cost of energy consumed so far that day. It is very easy to imagine elderly people getting hyperthermia just trying to stop the figure mounting.
 
EEPhil said:
Until I'm forced to have smart meters "they" can bigger off.
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Quite so.
And I believe they can be remotely controlled (i.e. turned off), so all it takes is for some hacker to break in and they effectively have complete control over your house (and probably lots of others) because everything depends on electricity.
It'd take a lot to convince me of the benefit to me rather than the benefit to 'them'.

My electricity meter is in a box on the outside of the house (likewise gas), which is a bit of a worry if some organisation decides that I'm going to have one of these infernal devices against my will. One of my colleagues has already been virtually slammed into having one - the energy company came up with some bull about it being compulsory to have one of these when the meter was changed.
 
My elderly mum had a new gas main fitted last year as part of an upgrade to the whole road. As it meant moving the meter I thought they would fit a smart meter anyway, but they didn't. I called in at her place two days later, on a Sunday afternoon, to be welcomed by a strong smell of gas. The emergency engineer arrived very quickly and found the screw in the test point loose.

I told him I was surprised she wasn't offered a smart meter and he said she is better off without one. He said he would't have one himself, as they are too unreliable!

I'm sure I read recently even the government have admitted the average saving per year was much lower than the original hyped up figures.
 
I got onto my supplier and told them not to pester me. They said something to the effect of "We will take you off the pester list then." Guess what, the following day, the phone went ..........
Of course, he asked me why I didn't want one, so I told him that I don't actually need a reason. He then said something to the effect of "I will take you off the pester list then." I await with my breath well bated for the next phone call/ letter/ email/ text.:frantic:
At least the 'Don't show this message again' link worked to stop the bloody big popup when I log on to my account.
 
Andy Fox said:
My elderly mum had a new gas main fitted last year as part of an upgrade to the whole road. As it meant moving the meter I thought they would fit a smart meter anyway, but they didn't. I called in at her place two days later, on a Sunday afternoon, to be welcomed by a strong smell of gas. The emergency engineer arrived very quickly and found the screw in the test point loose.
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Similar problem here. The new gas main fitted as part of upgrade. Didn't involve moving the meter, but I did detect a smell of gas. Thought it was as a result of open pipework. Seemed OK when reconnected, but I got the occasional whiff of something odd. Then some gas bod was wandering around, had a sniff in the "cloakroom" (where the meter is) and called gas emergency. The gas fitters belong in the wild west.
 
Trev said:
At least the 'Don't show this message again' link worked to stop the bloody big popup when I log on to my account.
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Deja vu time. I remember posting something like this before...
This reminds me of HHGTTG -
Douglas Adams said:
Arthur Dent: What happens if I press this button?
Ford Prefect: I wouldn't-
Arthur Dent: Oh.
Ford Prefect: What happened?
Arthur Dent: A sign lit up, saying 'Please do not press this button again.”
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Black Hole said:
Something that bothers me is that a gas meter will clearly need servicing periodically to change a battery
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I believe their small power requirements are derived from a battery charged via a small impeller in the gas flow, but don't recall where I read that.

I've refused to have them fitted too. In addition to the reports of unreliability, there have also been many regarding their accuracy.
One way to avoid them is to stick with newly established cheaper suppliers that rarely offer them : D
 
af123 said:
I believe their small power requirements are derived from a battery charged via a small impeller in the gas flow, but don't recall where I read that.
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That may have been a design aim, but my research indicates they have batteries which may last 10 years using Zigbee over a short distance.

I have used an electronic "tag" to get through the tolls at the Severn Bridges for years, and assumed it was a transponder powered up by the challenge field - like a subdermal dog ID tag. However, on a fairly recent occasion the barrier wouldn't lift, and the attendant said the battery had probably died (it's a sealed unit). The whole tag was swapped out.
 
What they mean is "because employees are now able to commit letters to the post directly from their computer, we no longer have the means to check them before they go out".
 
Black Hole said:
What they mean is "because employees are now able to commit letters to the post directly from their computer, we no longer have the means to check them before they go out".
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A spell checker would have trapped most, if not all of those mistakes. You can tell it's spelled incorrectly because the word has a big red wiggly line under it.
Is it not ushul 2 get sum 1 els to proof reed ofishal docments 4 farly obveus reesons.
 
Trev said:
Is it not ushul 2 get sum 1 els to proof reed ofishal docments 4 farly obveus reesons
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But that would mean someone else would have to judge and effectively criticise their performance, which is terribly non-PC these days.
 
af123 said:
One way to avoid them is to stick with newly established cheaper suppliers that rarely offer them : D
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True, I changed a few months ago to Tonik Energy (20% saving), and they weren't interested in smart meters. You can also speak to someone without going through the palava of press this, press that etc. Moving energy supplier with them was painless.
 
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