Smart gas meter battery failure - Why can't it be replaced?

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
February 23, 2018
7 replies
39769 views

After my central heating boiler failed to fire up, discovered a blank display on my meter (pressing A still gave no display). After talking to OVO they thought it was almost certainly a battery failure and sent out an engineer for a fix.

Turns out he had to install a traditional meter because it was out of hours for OVO to give codes for a new smart one.

This means that we have to yet another visit to have a new smart meter installed

Questions are:
Why can't a battery simply be replaced under such circumstances. Should be quick and easy. It it isn't easy, why on earth not?

Why can't the unit send a warning beep to us and send a message back to base when low battery is detected?

Best answer by Lucy_OVO

Updated on 14/05/26 by Chris_OVO

All modern gas meters (smart and traditional) have an internal battery which powers the screen or dial (they aren’t wired to the power supply like your electricity meter). When the battery is low you may notice your gas meter will make a beeping sound. Unfortunately meter batteries aren’t easily interchangeable like replacing the batteries in a remote control so, if the battery has failed, then the meter will need to be replaced.

If your gas meter is making an electronic beeping sound, reach out to our Support Team ASAP to book in a free meter replacement. A battery failure could result in a loss of supply, in which case we’d schedule in an emergency appointment to make sure your gas is restored. Whilst we’d aim to replace your meter with another smart meter, during an emergency appointment this isn’t always possible. Not to worry, our Support Team can schedule in another gas-only smart meter installation.

If your smart gas meter is making a strange sound that isn’t beeping, see this topic on meter faults and how to get them sorted.

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Tim_OVO

OVO Forum Legend

@geoffenator

@peter.elliott both of you have mentioned knowing a thing or two about smart meters - can you help @GasAndGaiters :?

Tim

Carbon neutral - we need a community to get there! My green tech: Aclara SGM 1411-B smart meter, Chameleon IHD6

A

Anonymous

Hi,
There's not really much I can add. The battery is supposed to last for 10 years and the meter can send a low battery warning to the supplier. Batteries can usually be replaced in the field, but it may have been some other fault: the details will be in the engineer's notes for the job.

My gas meter is a Liberty EG4v and has a plate on the front stating that the operating temperature range is -10C to +40C. Was it particularly cold when yours failed?

G

GasAndGaitersAuthor

Rank 1

Thanks. It was a cold day, but the meter is inside a cupboard and wouldn't have got less than around 20 ish. I don't have engineers notes - presumably the failed meter would have gone off somewhere for checking but I'm not privy to any information from that.

Certainly if he could have replaced the battery it wasn't attempted and I would have thought that would be the first thing to try.

Interestingly enough, the failed meter was replaced by an old style because the engineer reckoned that since it was out of hours he couln't call OVO for the required installation code.

The engineer who came yesterday to replace the dumb meter with a smart meter said that the original replacement should have been a smart meter but operating in dumb mode until we could get a code.

This is an awful lot of messing around and disruption.

Lucy_OVOSolved

Retired Moderator

Updated on 14/05/26 by Chris_OVO

All modern gas meters (smart and traditional) have an internal battery which powers the screen or dial (they aren’t wired to the power supply like your electricity meter). When the battery is low you may notice your gas meter will make a beeping sound. Unfortunately meter batteries aren’t easily interchangeable like replacing the batteries in a remote control so, if the battery has failed, then the meter will need to be replaced.

If your gas meter is making an electronic beeping sound, reach out to our Support Team ASAP to book in a free meter replacement. A battery failure could result in a loss of supply, in which case we’d schedule in an emergency appointment to make sure your gas is restored. Whilst we’d aim to replace your meter with another smart meter, during an emergency appointment this isn’t always possible. Not to worry, our Support Team can schedule in another gas-only smart meter installation.

If your smart gas meter is making a strange sound that isn’t beeping, see this topic on meter faults and how to get them sorted.

OVO member but not got a smart meter yet? - Book today!
Interested but not yet an OVO member? - Check out our plans!

You guys know what’s watt

G

GasAndGaitersAuthor

Rank 1

Yes it has been resolved after the second visit to install the replacement smart meter.

I would suggest that if it true that a smart meter can be installed in dumb mode that your fitters be made aware of this so that at least the second visit would only be to make the new meter smart.

Since that would only involve entering codes, it could well be that I could have done that myself.

DonCallis

Newcomer

Yeah, the same thing happened to me a few months ago. Lucky for me, the OVO engineer replaced the old smart meter with a new one. Still, I don’t understand what was the cause of the problems because I didn’t notice any kind of error.