So, as I mentioned, I had an appointment booked for MDS to come on 5 November - but nobody came! I had no notification, so I phoned OVO today.

The OVO system knows nobody came, but has no information on why that happened. I was told I’d receive the £30 penalty for them not turning up.

The main issue is comms between the gas meter and the dual-band hub, but the hub is no longer sending electricity data to OVO because that was turned off remotely on a previous visit. The engineer didn’t understand why that was done. I’ve since had an email exchange with OVO where they said the comms would be switched back on, but nothing has changed.
OVO know all this, so you'd have thought arranging a replacement appointment would be simple - not so!

A new appointment was arranged for the 26 November, and then cancelled because the OVO system said I had to have 2 appointments - one per meter.
This happened about halfway through the call.
I was then given 2 appointments on 27 November (same engineer, same time), because they couldn't offer them at the same time on the 26th! In other words, they couldn’t modify an appointment on the 26th to cover both meters.

Since the comms to OVO could be switched back on remotely, I don’t need an ‘electric meter appointment’ but that didn’t seem to wash.

As you might expect, I queried why all this was necessary, and was told there's a new appointment system - if that's the case, it's a weird system

In the course of arranging the "gas appointment", I was asked whether it was a low, medium or high pressure meter, and instructed to look for a sticker and report back what colour it is.
The meter is outside my house, so I'm glad it's not raining today. I've never been asked that before. Perhaps this new appointment system has forgotten what meters were installed.

The call lasted 70 minutes, not including the time for it to be answered (which was quick).

Are you aware that the appointment system has been updated with the effects I’ve described?

Hey @GrandpaG 

Sorry to hear about this, I’ve asked one of our teams about this. 

Let us know how you’re getting on.

I wonder if @Lukepeniket_OVO would be able to shed any light here?

Sorry for all of the trouble you’ve had with this, I know it’s been a long journey.

We had one of our specialists look into this for us and they’ve confirmed the next best step would be to have a full replacement of both meters and including an Alt-HAN bridge. This should allow both meters to communicate as the should.

As we can't book the appointment here for you if you call our Support Team and let them know you've spoken with a specialist on the Forum. They've asked you to call and say that you need both meters replaced and Alt-HAN is required. The advisor will need to ensure this is on the job report before the engineers attend the appointment as they'll need to bring the necessary equipment with them.

Please keep us updated once you've spoken with them and we'll keep an eye on this with you.

Hi,

Thanks for looking into this. However, I was advised 3 weeks ago by Blastoise186 on this forum that “AltHAN is currently suspended while a critical fix is being developed”.

Are you saying that this has been fixed and AltHAN bridges are now available?

Hey @GrandpaG 

I checked this with our FieldForce team yesterday who confirmed they're taking bookings for this and the work can be completed.

We’d been waiting a while for them to become available so Blastoise186’s advice a few weeks ago was correct at the time, however the team have confirmed they can now do this.

Thanks very much Abby.

I called OVO support on the 13th, and passed on your advice from the specialist. I was told this would be referred up to higher authority and they’d get back to me by today.

I’ve just had the call back and have a new appointment on 21 January. Apparently that was the earliest they could offer with the necessary kit/engineers - not sure which, but they’re now sending SMSL rather than MDS who would have been coming on 27 November.

Seems a VERY long time to wait!!

It is worth noting that Just About Every Smart Meter Engineer In The UK is working flat out right now on getting RTS → Smart Migrations done - other than Emergency jobs, it’s literally their highest priority. I already know that Luke’s having a whale of a time with himself and his team zooming all over the place fitting meters.

Things should calm down again once those upgrades are done.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter who you ask - demand is insanely high right now and almost every Non-RTS related job is being pushed down the queue as a result.

Seems I’ve suffered from two issues beyond my and your control.

First: It has been clear for over a year that I need Alt-HAN to (hopefully) resolve my gas meter issue. Then came the problem with the old bridges that you reported.

Second: When new bridges appeared, most of the engineers are now focussed on solving the RTS problem.

I wonder what the engineers would have done if they had turned up on 5th November.

I’m sorry to hear it’s been such a long & frustrating process ​@GrandpaG. I’m relieved to hear the appointment has been re-arranged & I hope the engineer manages to resolve your issue.