Inspector Same as mine but with different suppliers for each fuel Eon, keep telling me that my electricity meter has reached the end of its life and have just offered me £50 to have a smart meter fitted before the end of April. Decisions Decisions

    Nightrider_1uk keep telling me that my electricity meter has reached the end of its life and have just offered me £50 to have a smart meter fitted before the end of April

    So the meter has reached the end. It needs to be replaced therefore. Are you saying that, if you decline the offer to receive £50, they will fit a dumb meter instead? The cynical in me thinks that, if smart meters were great, they wouldn’t be offering you money. 🍭

        MediumRoastSteam No, they are no longer fitting Dumb meters. If you need a new meter it has to be Smart, same as in new builds. It’s smart fitting by default. Any meter over 10 years old can probably be deemed too have reached the end of its life, but there are many of these happily chugging along. However by sending you a letter saying the meter is now obsolete they are pressuring people to change to smart who might otherwise might not have. Of course it also covers the’re backside should a fault occurs in you old meter. (Hate to think what the insurance company might make of such an occurrence).

        Of course, should i choose to take up the offer, I fully expect them to give a date before the end of April for fitting then push the date out at the last minute and get out of paying

          Can you have a dumb meter fitted yourself

          I hate the push for these smart meters, they can remote in and turn of, change to prepay at the flick or press of a button.

          That’s actually on the ofgem website

          Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -

            Cuprajake I doubt that you would get a supplier to change to a dumb meter, they own the meter and the government push to have smart meters fitted and fine the suppliers if they do not meet targets

            If you could persuade them to change then it could cost you a lot to do so

              No as in get a gas man to fit one for you

              Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -

                Cuprajake No, the Meter belongs to the Supplier and its serial number is registered against your address on the database. I had this issue relating to two gas meters in a house that i’d converted into two flats. Supply company had them the wrong way round and I was getting very frustrated in trying to get them changed round on the database. inadvertently, one of their reps said my gas safe engineer could swop the meters over, se we duly did. Fast forward a few days when trying to ensure readings were correctly attributed to the properties, different rep got real shirty saying I had broken the law. He soon shut up when I copied him the screen shots from the previous conversations. But went out of his way to tell me (my gas safe eng) not to touch them again as they were their property.

                  Legal cartel

                  Would love to live off grid

                  Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -

                    Cuprajake Would love to live off grid

                    Spend the thick end of 23K on panels and batteries to allow you to be mostly off grid. Not completely of course, but you would probably be in the region of a 20 year payback on investment. of course the rug would be pulled out from under your feet because any government would find a way to tax it.

                    Once their buddies squeal, then you will find yourself no better off…possibly worse off. Look at electric cars, twice as much to buy, twice as much to run, full rate of road tax, no real investment in charging points (but who wants to pay 80p per kW)….that dream died fast..

                    Contact me

                      Costs a couple grand to be taken off mains power supply I believe

                      Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -

                        @“DavecUK”
                        I have the $ in my superannuation to pay for the panels and batteries plus a back up diesel generator (rural setting).
                        Every time I check, the money makes me more in my super than my power costs me from the grid.

                        I was cleaning the dust collector, which I normally do after every run. The area behind the dust try was wet - Condensation. I have no idea what’s behind the wire mesh - ex: electrical cables I know it’s an area under the drum.

                        Question is - is it safe to run?

                        I am sure experts here can advise.

                        Thx

                        Edit :

                        I ran it for 2 hours. It seems ok. I haven’t seen so much of moisture / condensation there. I have wiped, given them a good clean, dried them and left it open for ventilation until next time.

                        In any case, please advise what you guys think.

                        Can I ask a really stupid question….as usual?

                        Since the introduction of solar specifically, I hear people talk about when installing any sort of heating system other than a gas boiler about payback etc and ‘ooh it costs so much you would never get your money back or it would take years’.

                        Maybe I’m just dumb (leave comments below) but over the tears (sorry years) whenever I have had a new boiler or heating system installed, not once has it crossed my mind about payback. I have to have heating so I go with what I can afford, trying to get the best value for my money knowing that if for example I go for a combi boiler, I will hopefully get a good ten years out of it before it needs replacing. It costs me what it costs. I never think about payback, so why would I think about that if installing solar or an air source heat pump? If that is the type of heating I go for and it costs 5, 8 or 15 grand it is what it is, and as long as it does its job and lasts long enough then great. The only return I expect is for it to work for a number of years

                        Or am I getting the wrong end of the stick and simply not understanding it right?…as usual.

                          I guess we dont “need” solar so there is always the comparison of cost of system against how much electric that same money could buy you over time.

                          I had mine installed 12 odd years back.. so the outlay was a lot more than today but it was balanced by the FIT tarif - so there was a lot of expense versus time to recover the money along with the “free” electric. Of course as the prices have rocketed then whatever amount of power I get is a bonus.. and it can help reduce the expenditure across the spring and summer months.. but come Winter I am as reliant as anyone else on the grid.

                          Pompeyexile Because the lifetime cost profile totally changes. Upfront capital costs are much higher with things like solar and heat pumps. The “payback” isn’t really about recovering your sunk costs because as you say there is a cost to any form of heating. But the promise of the expensive solutions like solar and heat pumps is cheaper running costs. So the “payback” calculation is really a cost of service calculation over the lifetime of the system. An artificial calculation might be

                          Gas Boiler - £2000 install plus £1500 a year bills and maintenance for 15 years - £24,500

                          Solar - £20,000 install plus £200 a year bills and maintenance for 15 years - £23,000

                            Cheers Gagaryn I knew someone could explain it to me.

                            whats the life span of solar panels and their battery? vs the lifespan of a boiler?

                            how quickly does a solar panel/heat pump become obsolete like a laptop or mobile phone?

                            i cant afford either, or have the space but its something id love to do, garden solar panels

                            Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -

                            Pompeyexile can afford, trying to get the best value for my money knowing that if for example I go for a combi boiler, I will hopefully get a good ten years out of it before it needs replacing. It costs me what it costs. I never think about payback, so why would I think about that if installing solar or an air source heat pump? If that is the type of heating I go for and it costs 5, 8 or 15 grand it is what it is, and as long as it does its job and lasts long enough then great. The only return I expect is for it to work for a number of years

                            The issue is specific and slightly different for all situations, plus much of the information on the Internet is misleading or way out of date, and the conclusions based on out of date information.

                            • The various incentives have changed
                            • FIT tariffs have changed and amounts can be very small, so it’s more important to use what you produce
                            • Prices have not come down rather the reverse..the headline prices you see are never what you get quoted
                            • Inverters don’t last as long as you think and are not factored into TCO
                            • Panels degrade (life expectancy is around 30 years
                            • Panels have to be cleaned or efficiency drops
                            • The amount of power is often overestimated
                            • You don’t get much power at all in winter

                            So when I asked for a quote for 3 kW or so on my Garage, perhaps 4 if I could get really high quality panels and a battery, it came to 23K….a ludicrous price. However lets take this system…apparently only from £13454..now we know it’s going to end up more, but lets pretend that it doesn’t rise.

                            https://worldofsolar.com/package-1/

                            I use about 8kW per day, sometimes 7…that costs me at the moment 34.5p per kW inc VAT, prices may not go up and I think long term they might well drop as I am not sure this is sustainable. Electric costs me around £82 per month. I won’t save on standing charge or anything like that.

                            Lets pretend my house roof faces the perfect direction and I get 80% (4.8kw) of generation for 6 hours a day)…that’s 28Kw per day on perfect days and lets say we get 75% of those for the summer May to Aug…5 months. April and Sep, perhaps we get an average of 6kW per day, and the other 6 months not that much, lets call it 1kW per day every day. The feed in tariff is usually around 5p but I have seen higher prices quoted by sites that sell solar power…..so lets go with a 10p payment for every unit you export…unlikely, but lets do it.

                            • Summer months no electric costs and £1.50 per day (deducted electric standing charge) for the excess energy. for 4 months I made +£180
                            • Spring and late autumn months my electric costs were only about £2.2 per day inc standing charge I’m -£122
                            • Winter I’m paying around £3.50 per day inc standing charge so - £630

                            Realistic Caveats: The inverter will provide around 5kW draw max and then start using grind power above that, inverter lifespan is around 10-15 years and panel lifespan around 20…we will pretend no degradation, no charging losses and 100% efficiency. I’m also going to assume an inverter replacement halfway through the 20 year period at £2800 and that batteries last 20 years maintaining 100% efficiency (which they won’t). No faults with the system for 20 years are assumed. Panels cleaning costs are not included

                            • My electric Bill without solar (6 months at 10kW and 6 months at 8kW per day = £711 for the other 6 summer months £586 all inc standing charge Total £1297 per annum

                            With solar

                            • My electric Bill 4 months +£180 spring autumns £-122 ..that’s +£60 for the period.
                            • The winter 6 months -£630
                            • Inverter amortised replacement cost of once within 20 years -£140
                            • Total cost 570+140 = £710 per annum, my saving being £587 per year.

                            So a 6kW system with 5kW battery costing £13.5K if you can actually get one for that (which I doubt), over a 20 year assumed life will save you £11750. However you spent £13.5K, so you will be £1760 down on the deal. At this time your inverter, batteries and panels will need replacement.

                            I have taken the most favourable view and it simply doesn’t cost in at even current electricity prices!

                            Contact me

                              @“Cuprajake”#p4066Depends who you ask! Modern panels from reputable companies generally come with a minimum 25 year warranty so depends how you are defining obsolete. Old laptops in general continue to work - it’s our expectations and uses cases which makes them obsolete. So although panels from a reputable supplier should still be supported in a couple of decades from now - the industry is likley to have changed - the panels and invertors in 2040 and beyond will likely be cheaper and more efficient.