Re your article (British Gas boss says all UK households should be forced to fit smart meters, 8 May), after being harassed by email, text, telephone, letters and finally doorstepping, and being told that we had to get smart meters for safety reasons, we relented and spent a fun day at home with the fitter. The smart meters don’t work; they never worked. Apparently they don’t work in our type of house.
The European Space Agency might be able to wake up the satellite Rosetta 673m kilometres away, but our power supplier cannot wake up our smart meters. Sorry, I have to rush, they want another meter reading. You see, they are experiencing a high level of calls so no one can answer the phone.
Jim Fleming
Edinburgh
• Smart meters are only useful to customers if the visual display unit placed in each home actually works so as to enable householders to monitor fuel consumption. If it doesn’t, energy firms can refuse to repair the display unit if they have been installed by an earlier energy supplier, or if they have been put in over a year ago. Appeals to the energy ombudsman are fruitless. With more than 4m smart meters known to be malfunctioning, this is very much a one-way street exercise, primarily benefiting mammoth energy suppliers.
Andrew Warren
Cambridge
• One problem is that installation teams and power companies don’t seem to communicate with each other, hence the dismal litany of misunderstandings and repeated emails, all asking for the same information, and requests to take pictures of the meter and its details – something I imagine the installer should have done. I blame Margaret Thatcher, but then I blame her for most things.
David Redshaw
Saltdean, East Sussex
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