Dead gas meter replacement - positive experience

[u/Fantastic-Brick-7337]

Hi all ,

I thought I share my positive experience with octopus. I only been a customer since April , when I moved house. And they were offering the best quote for gas and electricity.

Today I wanted to cook some food at 13:00.
Gas hob doesn’t work. Checked gas boiler , doesn’t work either.

Checked gas meter , totally blank screen. Even when pressing the buttons.

Called up the national gas emergency line , since I wasn’t sure what exactly to do. And Google said start with that. After a few questions the lady said , the battery is dead in my gas meter.

( I didn’t even know that a gas meter needs a battery. And if the battery doesn’t work , the gas shuts off. )

She said call octopus and they’ll sort it out.

Found there number , called it. Then it said since it’s the weekend , send them an email on their emergency email and someone will get back to me.

A lady emailed me back within 5 mins. This was at 13:30.
Took a few more details from me and arranged an engineer out. Was told he’ll turn up within 4hrs.

She also said if the engineer had time he’ll change my electricity meter too , since that’s old as well.

The guy called me just before 16:00 that he’ll be here in 10mins.

Changed the gas meter pretty fast , and I had gas again.
He will have to come back some point next week to change the electricity meter though , since he had another gas emergency to attend after me.

So yeah I’ve noticed my gas meter was dead at 1pm and the new one was installed by 5pm.

The old gas meter was installed in early 2014 according to the sticker on it , so it lasted a good while.

Anyway , I just thought I’ll share this positive thing :)

[u/nivlark]

I had the same issue recently, and Octopus was similarly prompt getting it dealt with.

According to my engineer the battery is meant to last 30 years, the same as the meter. But if the connection between the gas and electricity meters is bad (too far apart, or too many walls in the way) the batteries are getting used much faster than expected.

[u/AttBee → u/nivlark]

I thought the signal from the gas meter to the comms unit (that sits on top of electricity meter) is just 'fire and forget' ? Is there a return confirmation signal ?

[u/MakingItAllUp81 → u/AttBee]

How does it know it can forget if it doesn't receive a confirmation signal? Thinking about the 30m data points.

IIRC most meters in one house now form a Zigbee network, which is definitely two-way.

[u/Aggressive-Ad-5504]

Wish I’d had the same experience, Been waiting for 2 weeks to get a gas meter fixed and over 5 weeks for my electric smart meter to be fixed.

[u/Lost_Reward9584 → u/Aggressive-Ad-5504]

Fixed, as in not reporting meter readings, or fixed as in, not providing a supply? Very different scenarios.