Thinking about removing your gas supply? Here's some advice! Tutorial

Hi, is there any difference in cost  between removing a smart gas meter or an old (1960) gas meter ?  I’m planning to remove my gas meter in the next few years, but would like a smart meter (electric) fitted sooner.  I imagine smart meter fitters do electric and gas both at the same time.

  Thank you

Howdy @TeeJones !

That’s a good one actually. Could you show us some photos of that gas meter by any chance? I’m just curious more than anything else, since we don’t really see meters that old very often!

From my understanding the cost to remove a gas meter and permanently disconnect the gas supply is the same regardless of whether it’s a Smart Meter or not and also regardless of how old the meter is. You can check out OVO’s job list over at this guide:

As for getting an upgrade, yup. OVO’s engineers can upgrade gas and electric meters to Smart Meters in the same job and at the same time, provided OVO is the supplier for both. If someone else supplies your gas, you’d need to get them to do the gas meter separately as OVO wouldn’t be able to do it. There’s no charge to have a Meter Exchange done for the purposes of upgrading to Smart Meters, so you’re welcome to have the MEX done now anyway and then drop the gas supply in the future once you’ve stopped using it.

Either way, as part of the service OVO will also take care of disposing the removed meter(s) in an environmentally friendly way (recycling as much as possible) and also handle the paperwork related to it, such as updating ECOES and Xoserve records with the new meter details. In the event of a meter removal, OVO would also be able to cease future charges related to the disconnected supply and you’d simply have to pay off everything up to that point.

Hope that helps! We’ll be here if you need us. :)

Possibly better to state “may be expensive initially”, as a few suppliers will happily remove your meter for free in order to help you on your journey to #StopBurningStuff so it’s worth getting in touch with your supplier to see if they charge or not.

Thanks neal! I can “utilise” my Super User permissions for that kind of change. It’s only a single word, but I’ll tag an update note on it anyway until Tim or Jess can put a proper Mod Note on it. I’m not subject to the one hour edit limit!

Oh wow, I was thinking of something totally different! Thanks for sharing. :)

It’s probably using Imperial measurements as well actually, which OVO can support, since it’s mainly just a case of running a different calculation when converting it to kWh than it is for the Metric measurements used these days.

With that being said however, I’d say that space is absolutely perfectly sized for an S2 Flonidan UniFlo Smart Gas Meter. They’re about the same size as any other diaphragm gas meter so it should be an easy case of the good old switcheroo. Good thing that’s what OVO uses too! There’s not technically enough space for a Flonidan SciFlo using ultrasonic measurement, but you don’t see those as often anyway.

I've been on the phone to OVO to arrange for our gas meter to be removed. Having discussed this with other people and read information about it I expected the entire process to be in OVO's hands. However I was told to contact SGN (our gas network) to arrange for the supply to be capped then OVO would remove the meter.

Have OVO given me incorrect information?

For info, Octopus's website says their engineers will remove the meter and cap the gas supply.

You’re right that a gas meter removal is something we can arrange without the need to involve your transporter, @M.isterW.

It’s disappointing to hear that the advice you received from the Support Team wasn’t accurate on this one - I’ve just sent you a PM to follow this up with you directly.

Hope we can get things sorted for you. 

@Jess_OVO can I ask if this information is still correct? We are currently trying to get gas capped and meter removed but are being told by Ovo that we have to contact our transporter (Wales & West Utilities). The transporter is saying they need to dig roads up and everything which seems unnecessary. 
 

The information above is still correct. It’s mostly a case of just removing the meter and capping off the supply. The pipework from the street remains in place to allow a future reconnection if you later need gas services again.

Thanks very much @Blastoise186. You don’t happen to know if there is a specific phone number to call Ovo on, or is it a case of going through the regular support number?

Mostly the main line. But new options might appear at https://help.ovoenergy.com if you go there.

Im assuming the information is still accurate but I am currently on the phone with Ovo and they say they can uncap a meter but cant cap one. They say i need to go to the transporter. As with some of the replies above they are wanting to dig up the road and charge me £1000 but says Ovo should be able to cap at the meter and avoid all this substantial cost  

@M.isterW any thoughts ?

OVO can remove your meter and will charge about £160. However, I strongly recommend that you don't ask OVO to do it. I have just come out of a year long struggle to get them to stop charging me after removing my meter. I eventually complained to the ombudsman which forced OVO to stop charging me and refund all my money. I'm not the only person who has had the same problem so my recommendation is that you change supplier and ask them to remove the meter. I can recommend Octopus as their customer service is much better. Also, I think they don't charge for meter removals.

I have a referral link for Octopus that you're welcome to use, which will get you £50.

https://share.octopus.energy/grey-crick-824

I'll add that some of OVO's customer service agents think the gas network operator needs to be involved, to remove the gas pipe. This is incorrect. All that needs to happen is that the energy company remove the meter and cap the pipe (fit a screw on cap). The gas network operator might then choose to remove the pipework but ours didn't bother. They can't work out where it joins gas main under the road so the pipe is still under our driveway.

My friend has a gas meter in their flat (they have recently moved into the tenancy), however the flat is all-electric with no gas appliances/heating.  OVO can ‘see’ the meter and have advised to get it capped but that it’s the responsibility of the landlord to do this.  However, the landlord (housing association) are deflecting back to OVO saying it’s up to the supplier.  The standing charges are building up and he’s extremely frustrated that the situation is going nowhere. Any advice?

I believe that both are correct, and your friend is misunderstanding what needs to be done in what order..

Yes - normally if a property owner requests a gas meter removal then their supplier will request that the distribution network to disconnect the supply, and then the supplier removes their meter.
In effect the property owner is authorising their supplier to make a disconnection request to the network distributor.
https://www.energynetworks.org/customers/disconnecting-from-the-gas-network

But also yes - A landlord cannot request to their tenants gas supplier that the meter be removed.
They are the tenants supplier, not the landlords.

Note though that a landlord may not want the gas meter removing from their property, they would then have the potential problem of any new tenant having to get a new one fitted when you leave.

When the landlord is a HA then it’s the HA who request that a gas supply is capped, they often/usually do it between tenancies for safety reasons.*
They make that request to the network distributor, not to any supplier. (and the meter stays where it is).

So your friend needs to get that across to the HA, that the request to the network distributor to disconnect/cap the supply should come from them as the property owners and not from their tenant.

Then once it has been disconnected/capped the request for meter removal should be made by your friend to their supplier (in this case OVO).

Which will be what OVO are telling your friend, that OVO won’t remove the meter until the HA has had the supply capped, and OVO themselves won’t request a capping on a tenants say so.

Conversely the HA are telling your friend that they can’t request that OVO remove the meter. your friend has to do that - once the supply to the meter has been capped off.

*My gas was capped like that when I moved in here, there was a gas meter in place but it was capped off from the distribution network.
Once I had signed up with a supplier of my choice I told the HA who it was and the HA requested to the network operator that it be uncapped again.

Hey @LeleyD 

Nukecad has already left a really fantastic reply here and has covered just about everything you could possibly need, I hope that reply was helpful for you.

We’ve got a really helpful guide from one of our other volunteers on the process of having a gas meter removed:

I did just want to add a few topics we have on similar themes, it might be helpful to see how others went about those situations:

Let us know how you get on.

As several have found going down this route, it is the removal of the entry for the meter on the national database that is important in taking the standing charge out of the equation. 
Not an easy task, make more difficult by the third party (HA) involved.