Are the rumours of smart meter fitters condemning domestic installations true?

[PetrolDave]

1 hour ago, Ttaskmaster said:

 

Nope.

Under kitchen sink, underground box, side of the house, and all sorts of locations, depending on various factors. Could even be in the middle of the road, in a few cases.

Smartmeters (and other types of devices) do need power, though, so wiring is a factor.

 

You learn something every day - every house I've ever lived in has had the water meter in the pavement.

[Ttaskmaster]

12 minutes ago, PetrolDave said:

You learn something every day - every house I've ever lived in has had the water meter in the pavement.

We don't even have one out here.

Some places have two, one for clean and one for waste. Many places in towns and cities don't have room on the pavement for meters, while others are supplied by pipes so deep you'd never be able to install one.

Non-residential properties are even more varied.

[fabiamk2SE]

Meter monkeys only do a basic course in meter fitting, they aren't trained in anything beyond that. Due to this, they ‘fail safe’ if they aren't sure or just dont know. 
 

This means they ID or AR appliances or installations where theres nothing wrong.. i’ve been to a few where theres nothing wrong (maybe just an old open flued appliance or something that they didnt know anything about, so classes it as unsafe) so its a case of test and reconnect for me. I know Cadent go to quite a few like that to. They cause quite a fuss in the trade with people following them around. 
 

I'm looking forward to having one change my meters 😂. 

[Ttaskmaster]

Lucky we use fully qualified technicians then, and not just average monkeys...

[fabiamk2SE]

1 hour ago, Ttaskmaster said:

Lucky we use fully qualified technicians then, and not just average monkeys...

wish they all did. 
 

i can’t speak for electric but for gas alot of them just have MET1 😆

[Ttaskmaster]

3 hours ago, fabiamk2SE said:

wish they all did. 
 

i can’t speak for electric but for gas alot of them just have MET1 😆

Ours have to be capable of wiring up a lot more than just meters, though. Anything from a FLIP to a whole catchment sized pumping station, pretty much!

[fabiamk2SE]

17 hours ago, Ttaskmaster said:

Ours have to be capable of wiring up a lot more than just meters, though. Anything from a FLIP to a whole catchment sized pumping station, pretty much!

If they were all that good mate, there would be far less of other peoples time wasted 😂

[cheezemonkhai]

If they made the meter company pay for the costs where no fault was found and an inconvenience charge to the householder of hundreds a day, I bet you would get more qualified “fitters”. 

[fabiamk2SE]

1 hour ago, cheezemonkhai said:

If they made the meter company pay for the costs where no fault was found and an inconvenience charge to the householder of hundreds a day, I bet you would get more qualified “fitters”. 

true but more qualified would mean more money 😂

[cheezemonkhai]

23 minutes ago, fabiamk2SE said:

true but more qualified would mean more money 😂

 

That's the meter companies problem. We are already paying through the nose for something most people don't actually want anyway.

Frankly I think SMET1 and SMET2 are a joke, but since the wholesale prices have fallen through the floor, I am sure they could cope with the charges.

 

Not to even mention the fact that it's far cheaper to do something right the first time, than take two or more attempts to get it right.

 

For Gas and Electric, it would be far better to have zigbee enabled meters and a hub which bridges to a smartphone app, or even bluetooth direct to a smartphone app.

Those that don't have a smartphone can be given a meter panel, which is esesntially a super cheap smartphone in a stand case.

 

So the phone app talks to the meter every time you log in to the app.

The customer chooses when to submit meter readings, either manually or on a schedule.

 

 

These meters would be better because:

 

 - No need for an expensive to set up and run mobile phone network

 - No problems when the system doesn't have a phone signal for a short while

 - No need for the companies to be constantly snooping and building a giant database

 - Privacy for the user and control of data by the customer

 - Simpler, proven technology (Smart lightbulbs for example)

 - No need for loads of meter displays that just are not needed

 - It's much harder for a hacker to hack one part of the network and remote shut down or cause other problems when the meters are not all centrally controlled

 

If these happened, then I'd gladly have one, as it is you have little choice.

 

Edited 6 May, 2020 by cheezemonkhai

[VWD]

On 05/05/2020 at 11:33, fabiamk2SE said:

If they were all that good mate, there would be far less of other peoples time wasted 😂

And that is why I won't have my house "converted" to so called Smart meters. At the moment, we use prepay, where the billing situation is sent to power company every time we top up. So no need for smart meters. Then there's my appreciation of the situation. Years ago, I came back into telecomms following the Least cost routing revolution. My job was to maintain and commission Smart Boxes , installed by (from what I saw) blokes who'd had minimal training on installation. A lot of the quality of work I saw was not up to standard and I often  refused to commission these installations. This led to the firms responsible doing something about  standards. But today we have (IMHO)  a similar situation. I've had a lot of conversations with sparkies on cable terminations and one thing that comes out is that a calibrated wrist is preferable to a torque screwdriver.

[Ttaskmaster]

On 06/05/2020 at 08:33, cheezemonkhai said:

If they made the meter company pay for the costs where no fault was found and an inconvenience charge to the householder of hundreds a day, I bet you would get more qualified “fitters”. 

If we did that, we'd also have to make the customer pay for every time they blocked the sewers with fat, grease, nappies, wet-wipes and all the other silly things people try to flush.... On average, that's about £5,000 a day, per incident, not including streetworks fees or tankering. May God and your bank manager help you if your pipes cross beneath a railway.....!!

 

[cheezemonkhai]

31 minutes ago, Ttaskmaster said:

If we did that, we'd also have to make the customer pay for every time they blocked the sewers with fat, grease, nappies, wet-wipes and all the other silly things people try to flush.... On average, that's about £5,000 a day, per incident, not including streetworks fees or tankering. May God and your bank manager help you if your pipes cross beneath a railway.....!!

 

To be honest, if you put non flushable stuff down the loo, we all do pay for it through increased bills.

 

Not had problem with water or emergency gas/electric.
 

However I swear some of the “fitters” training can only consist  of being given a picture of how to do it if everything is perfect.

 

Costing a house owner hundreds of pounds, because you don’t know how to do the job you’re paid for is hardly the consumers fault.

 

We as a country need to understand knowledge does cost, but it is cheaper to do something right first time than badly a few.

[PetrolDave]

1 hour ago, cheezemonkhai said:

We as a country need to understand knowledge does cost, but it is cheaper to do something right first time than badly a few.

That is SOOOOOO true.

[Ttaskmaster]

1 hour ago, cheezemonkhai said:

To be honest, if you put non flushable stuff down the loo, we all do pay for it through increased bills.

 

Nope.

Maintenance is OPEX, but is funded by shareholder investments not customer bills. The levels are determined by forecasts and limited by the regulator, which is why some things are cheaper to 'fix on fail' than to maintain.

Edited 11 May, 2020 by Ttaskmaster

[cheezemonkhai]

8 minutes ago, Ttaskmaster said:

Nope.

Maintenance is OPEX, but is funded by shareholder investments not customer bills. The levels are determined by forecasts and limited by the regulator, which is why some things are cheaper to 'fix on fail' than to maintain.

 

I don't know the details of that, but frankly if there is a blockage in a part of London, then all users of that sewer should have a (potentially nominal) charge placed on their sewerage bill (Up to a sensible maximum per household).

 

Sadly if it doesn't cost people, most don't seem to give two hoots.

[Ttaskmaster]

1 hour ago, cheezemonkhai said:

 

I don't know the details of that, but frankly if there is a blockage in a part of London, then all users of that sewer should have a (potentially nominal) charge placed on their sewerage bill (Up to a sensible maximum per household).

 

Sadly if it doesn't cost people, most don't seem to give two hoots.

And that's exactly why there isn't such a charge, because the one person who is causing the blockage is being paid for by everyone who is innocent.

[cheezemonkhai]

Stocks?

[Ttaskmaster]

20 hours ago, cheezemonkhai said:

Stocks?

Pillory is better 😉

Edited 13 May, 2020 by Ttaskmaster

[VWD]

On 11/05/2020 at 14:01, cheezemonkhai said:

 

We as a country need to understand knowledge does cost, but it is cheaper to do something right first time than badly a few.

We as a country ,for a lot of years had a decent system. It was called apprenticeships, where a young person spent years learning a trade, being allowed to do more and more tasks under supervision ,till the apprentice proved they were worthy of the title of tradesman. And even then, the new trades person could call on their mentors to help them out with more complex tasks. Problem is that bean counters saw this process as financial loss, where the techical managers saw it as investment in the firm.

[Ttaskmaster]

15 hours ago, VWD said:

Problem is that bean counters saw this process as financial loss, where the techical managers saw it as investment in the firm.

That fell apart when apprentices completed their 'Journeymanship' (for want of a better term) and then got poached by other companies offering better pay, instead of staying on to work and generate back all the money it cost to train them. Meanwhile, your training tradesmen have had their productivity hampered by continually taking time out to teach the apprentice for X amount of years, so you lose working time and you lose the employee you just invested all that effort in. Trade colleges were supposed to sort that issue out, but they lack a lot of the 'real world' stuff you get from on-the-job training... and not necessarily everything related to the job itself.

[J.R.]

I had an excellent apprenticeship, far and away the best in the area and considered to be second only to Rolls Royce, excellent wide broad based training, first year off the job in an Industrial Training Centre (all closed down decades ago) then 18 months in the factory moving departments every month or so, then the final 18 months in the various drawing offices (I was a technician drawing office apprentice) of which there were many being a large company.

 

The apprentice pay was good because the craft and workshop technician apprentices were union members (closed shop) and we benefitted from their pressure, I had not realised quite how much so.

 

We were told that once qualified we would go on the full skilled mans rate and the company was a good payer, all the craft and technician apprentices who finished with jobs in the factory immediately went on the full skilled mans rate (there were a couple of female apprentices but no female workers in the factory hence my use of the term) but us draughtsmen were callsed as junior draughtsman until 25 even though i was working in the factory jig & tool drawing office.

 

I actually took a pay cut when I finished my apprenticeship whereas the blue collar workers got a huge pay rise, the only compensation was that I continued day release at college, as soon as that ended I left the company immediately to become a freelance contract draughstman, within 18 months I was back doing my old job on contract getting paid 2.5 times as much as the permanent staff, was sent to Coventry and sparked a walk out which resulted in 2 more contract guys being employed.

[VWD]

Tt- Like a lot of GPO/PO (T) blokes I served two apprenticeships, with trade training at wht was possibly one of the best training setups n the UK.It was a gradual training incline, not unlike that given to services trades folks.

My first training was as an apprentice, encouraged to learn how the telecoms world worked, then asked to use that knowledge to work out why a given system ( with faults applied by trainers) was faulty. After that I was qualified as a technician ,but  we were known as Telephone engineers. We were said to be able to help out in any discipline, even though our day to day job could be anything from installing a telephone to maintaining a telephone exchange. Erect a pole/help a UG bloke joint a cable- I've done both. Then we would progress to a more skilled level. I progressed to transmission- the dark art of knowing how  960 calls ( progressing to circa 1200)  could be carried over one cable. In this role we were expected to train apprentices and impress on them the importance of safety.

Next step for me would be management. A paper pushing job, with no technical content. And in most cases a pay cut. I got out to private industry  where my skills and technical expertise were appreciated.

[FirstAndLastSkoda]

My home is about 130 years old, and would appear to have been chopped and changed many times over that period. To the point I have the main cables for both my neighbors next to my fuse panel.

 

The sub contractor Smart Meter installer took one look and said, "Nope, I'm only Tier(?) 1 compliant, you need a Tier 3" and off he went.

 

Tier 3 compliant Smart Meter installer turns up.  Removed what he had to. Installed what he had to. Made a few comments that I'll likely need to update or upgrade in the future, but as is all is fine. And off he jolly well left.

 

That was last year, and I've had no issues. And more importantly I've had no one coming around at Stupid O'clock in the morning or evening asking to read my meter!

 

HTH

 

FALS

Edited 15 May, 2020 by FirstAndLastSkoda
FFS