Asbestos backboard removal- Whose responsible?

The only asbestos report carried out 16 years ago by the management company specifically excluded individually owned meter cupboards, and any new one commissioned, if they were minded to, would do likewise. The likelihood on any joint approach by 27 owners, not all occupiers, is nigh impossible. The current quote for an asbestos report for the individual meter cupboard, and subsequent board replacement is approx £500 , for a property which currently only pays about that much per year for its electricity usage. It is ludicrous, and all because of a radio signal to switch to and from on or off peak, and this situation is replicated many thousands of times throughout the country. Surely there is a better way?

Did this quotation come from SSEN? I know that some network operators are helpful in having backboards replaced, even though the owner usually has to supply the board itself. But dealing with asbestos needs specially trained operators with special equipment, and it won’t be cheap whoever pays. As I see it, these is the situation:

• If the electricity supply concerned is controlled by a radio teleswitch (RTS), that switch and the meter it’s connected to if it’s a separate unit will have to be exchanged before the radio signal is switched off this summer. No-one can say what will happen to the RTS-controlled heating in a particular system when the signal stops.
• No ordinary meter engineer will touch a meter or other equipment on an asbestos backboard.
• There may be funds available to help with situations like this where the victim is elderly and financially vulnerable. Electricity suppliers and distributors may have hardship funds; Citizens Advice and other charities may know of other sources of help, and local authorities (in England at least) have had Household Support and similar funds to help those in financial difficulty through no fault of their own. MIL may want to consider appealing for help to her MP - a letter from the House of Commons sometimes opens doors that would otherwise remain shut.
• Ludicrous or not, there’s no-one to blame for this situation; those who ‘created’ the problem had no way of foreseeing it, and they’re all long gone anyway with the complete reorganization of the electricity supply industry over the past 30-40 years.

I realize that this isn’t what you wanted to hear, but please let us know how you get on.

All this piecemeal seek help from here, or there, for thousands of (probably old and vulnerable) people, is not the answer; the simplest wholesale answer is not to switch the signal off.

The long-wave transmitter at Droitwich is so old that it pre-dates transistors and uses valves. A few years ago, there were ten of these valves left in stock. The last time I heard, there were two left. No-one makes them any more, and the BBC’s transmitter people bought up the entire world’s stock some years ago. They would rather switch the transmitter off before the last valve blows so that at least they can name the date. With any luck, it will still be transmitting until 30 June, but no longer. You may find this 14-year-old article interesting: Radio 4's long wave goodbye | BBC | The Guardian   

As my friend Firedog mentioned… That is not an option.

It’s either flip the Off Switch manually on the 30th September 2025… Or the Valves will do it for you on a random date when the last ones go bang…

You have to play by the rules unfortunately… And I’m afraid those rules are being dictated by precisely how long those Valves have left before they blow because IIRC there are none left in spares - the BBC/Arqiva is on the final set.

All we can say is that SOME RTS Meters might handle the RTS Shutdown better than others, but we’ve agreed with OVO that we have to make a 0% promise about that. Some of them will probably choke immediately upon loss of control signal and get stuck in the last known state, others might revert to local timers. We just… Don’t know…

We just have to prepare you for the worst case scenario - where your heating/hot water potentially gets jammed either permanently ON or OFF and your Peak/Off-Peak rate gets jammed on whatever it was on before the signal died.

When the whole system was invented back in the 1980’s, no-one back then ever thought we’d come along and smash it to pieces 40 years later. So technically they never really built the system to deal with long-term outages or total shutdowns - because they never thought it’d happen.

That’s all we know.

And back then it was considered a good idea to use asbestos board to mount the meter on. 

One more point: I’m not sure of the arrangements in Scotland (you haven’t told us where MIL lives yet ...), but I referred you to the local authority for help. They could be helpful as regards the asbestos itself, too: I think you’ll find that hazardous materials are within the purview of their Environmental Health department, so an amenable council might send an EHO (otherwise known as ‘ratcatcher’) along to check whether there is indeed asbestos in your meter cupboard (and indeed everyone else’s is the block), which would be a good first step. If there isn’t, this particular panic is over. If there is, the ratcatcher should be able to advise. If it’s only the main fuse that contains asbestos, the DNO should replace it at their expense. If it’s the backboard …    

I follow everything that’s being said, but who is going to help thousands of old people when they discover that they are paying peak time rates for their storage heaters? and that they apparently should have known that this problem was going to hit them? The supply companies have a duty to provide correctly functioning meters, if they have a problem doing that it should be for them to fix.

That’s exactly what OVO has been doing, they’ve also been working like mad on getting it done.

Alas, asbestos backboards are Out-Of-Scope for OVO as they’re not “Supplier Owned” and therefore OVO can’t touch them - and nor can any other Supplier. I’m not sure chasing OVO will do much here - you’ll need to seek assistance from another entity if you need a financial (or other!) boost to get that fixed.

So they will be allowed to leave sleeping dogs lie and charge all these people too much for their electricity? Cant be right,

No, that’s not what I’m saying.

Per this guide, OVO cannot replace your meter backboard as you (the customer) are responsible for maintaining it. If it’s stuffed with asbestos, OVO cannot touch your backboard at all. You are also responsible for providing a backboard that OVO can fit a meter to.

These rules are global - there’s no known exceptions. You should speak to Citizens Advice if you need help replacing the backboard.

In these situations, collaboration is required - you have to work together with OVO (or whoever your supplier is) and your DNO if you want to swap a meter that’s on an asbestos backboard and/or has asbestos fuses hooked up.

AFAIK OVO can’t be held responsible if you don’t make it possible for them to do their job properly. I would imagine the inability to swap the meter because your environment isn’t suitable (e.g. due to asbestos) would probably be considered your problem to resolve.

Why do you think people will be paying peak rates for storage heaters? This is the first time you’ve mentioned them …
There are plans available for those who use storage heaters, and this will be taken into account when the time comes to exchange the meters. 
 

What plans are they? OvO haven’t mentioned any “plans” in their first 3 attempts to change the meter.

It’s terminology related. OVO uses the term Plans instead of Tariffs, but they’re one and the same.

The Plan(s) you get offered is whatever OVO feels works best when you book the meter swap.

plans.ovoenergy.com 

You are clearly not on the same page. Yes, this is one meter, but this involves thousands, and should have a global overview. However, SSEN have now decided to send a compliance officer to sample the board, so that saves £150 at commercial rates, we’ll see what happens after that, and if they offer to save this particular old person another £350 at commercial rates to replace this particular board if necessary. Still does nothing for the other thousands affected, though, but hey,ho.

Keep us posted with how it goes with SSEN ​@shirleyambarrett. I hope this gets sorted for you ASAP. 

You’ll remember my response three days ago, when I wrote “I know that some network operators are helpful in having backboards replaced, even though the owner usually has to supply the board itself. But dealing with asbestos needs specially trained operators with special equipment, and it won’t be cheap whoever pays.” I’d be very pleased to learn that SSEN have joined that club.

It’s not clear what you expect to happen. Everyone affected by the RTS shutdown will have been bombarded with news about it, and a great number have already reacted and are now enjoying the peace of mind that comes with their shiny new meter. Some subset of those affected will face other challenges, like having an asbestos backboard. This won’t necessarily come to light until the procedure has been followed to order a meter exchange (a phone call to the supplier) and an engineer has been to the property concerned. The campaign to alert OVO customers to the RTS shutdown started last summer as soon as a viable alternative became available, and I expect other suppliers were sparking at the same time, in addition to the widespread coverage in all the media designed to persuade people to act.

Please keep us up to date with what happens in this case; your MIL’s experience may help others in the same sort of situation.  

SSEN compliance officer tested board, no asbestos, smart meter fitted. Apparently, since I raised this with the MP to pass on to Millipede’s dept (coincidence?) OvO are now having a specialist team to deal with these who will be trained to recognise the difference between asbestolux and supalux to obviate the need for testing according to the meter replacement engineer.

Thanks for following up. It’s good to know that everything was sorted out in the end. 
  

So, it took a technician with special testing equipment to determine that there was in fact no asbestos in this backboard. He obviously couldn’t tell just by looking at it, even though he was a specialist. It’s not surprising, then, that a lowly meter installer wouldn’t have the knowledge, skills or equipment to make this determination. 

I hope you now realize that everyone in this case has acted just as they should have. There is no blame to attach to anyone that I can see. What did your MIL have to pay for the testing carried out by SSEN?

As an afterthought, what did the ratcatcher say? Was he not able to tell that this backboard didn’t in fact contain asbestos?

I was told, as the sample was being taken, by the specialist, “ I can see its not asbestolux, but as we’ve got to this point I will take the sample and test it because you are stuck with the people with their heads up their backsides who want a certificate before they will stop covering their heads in fright” Note that OvO are now taking this on board properly. Thanks for your supercilious comments nevertheless.

Sorry if you found my comments supercilious. As regards the SSEN technicians remark about ‘people … covering their heads in fright,’ see what the official word is about the dangers of asbestos: Why is asbestos dangerous? - HSE 

I think I’d like a second opinion before drilling into a suspect backboard.

The point is its not suspect when you know what you are looking at - comes down to training.

But you do have to look at the fibres under a microscope not just by eye.

(Photo taken from a Personal Injury Lawyer’s awareness newsletter).