Smart meter can't connect despite 6 different comms hubs, is there anything else I can do to get the meter to connect?

Morning ​@MASSO and thanks for letting us know.

Did the engineer advise whether they’d be scheduling another appointment to try and fix things?

No, another visit has not been scheduled, hopefully I can resolve this myself by asking the DCC to “allow” the gas meter onto the electricity meter HAN network and me pressing the appropriate button on the gas meter. 
With regard to the electricity meter just wanted to advise that if after several failed attempts to find a long range radio signal (my case) then they can and will (with permission from your electricity provider) fit a 4G communication hub if appropriate.

Morning ​@MASSO I hope you had a good weekend.

Just to confirm, you’ve been in contact with the people at the DCC since the installation? I’ve asked for some advice from one of our Metering experts on this as well, and will get back to you as soon as I’ve heard from them.

Hi Ben

I haven't contacted the DCC yet in case my assumptions are wrong.

Thought I’d leave it a couple of weeks to see if the gas meter miraculously springs into life.

I know there is a HAN as the led on the electricity meter is “flashing” and both my Chameleon IHD3 and my Glow CAD are displaying my electricity usage.

However when I try and connect the gas meter to this same HAN using the “information” menu and “OK” button, the gas meter display returns a message saying that it cannot find the HAN.

The gas meter is installed approximately one metre away from the electricity metre. there is nothing installed between these two meters, no walls, no obstructions etc with a difference in height of about 300mm.

I had a good weekend, thank you for asking, trust yours was equally as good.

I wonder if this little utility would give any clues: homebrew.n3rgy.com. It just queries the DCC for details of your connected equipment, so any communication faults should become apparent. Insert your MPAN, tick the tiny little confirmation box and click Check meter. You can ignore any warnings about expired certification, but other warnings and any errors may help diagnosing the problem.

Hi again ​@MASSO,

I did have a good weekend thank you. Just to double check, can you see any gas readings coming through on your online account / app, and do the meter details on your online account / app match those of both meters?

This article shows you how to navigate around the ‘Meter Readings’ page, where your meter serial numbers are displayed. You can cross-reference these against your meters. 

Just poking my nose in again.

​@MASSO  Is your current gas meter SMETS2 or is it SMETS1?
A photo of it, or if yiu can tell us the Makers name and model number, should help identify it if you are not sure.

A SMETS1 gas meter cannot communicate with a SMETS2 electricity meter/coms hub.

I was in that situation myself last year so had to keep sending manual readings for gas, but I got a shiny new SMETS2 gas meter last November and all is communicating fine now and both meters are providing half-hourly readings.

The gas meter is an EDMI GS-60B, it was installed in November 2022 with an Aclara SGM1412-B meter, EDMI 420 communication hub and Chameleon IHD7 display, with everything operating in “dumb” mode.

I still have the same gas meter (EDMI GS-60-B) but the electricity meter has been replaced with an Aclara SGM1411B, the communication hub with a dual band hub and the display with a Chameleon IHD3.

The only information displayed on the IHD3 is the electrical energy in kWh, electrical power in W, electrical standing charge in pence and electrical unit cost in pence. I cannot access any information from the gas meter.

I also have a Glow CAD connected by the supplier (at the time of purchase)to the electricity meter HAN ZigBee network and my Wi-Fi network, this allows me to import the energy values into my home automation system using MQTT protocol without having to use the internet or DCC cloud servers. Again unfortunately only the electrical values are displayed and not the ones from the gas meter. If I do go onto the suppliers website I  can download the energy history in the form of a csv file but it only shows the electricity information and not the gas. The only meter ID on this webpage is that of the Aclara SGM1411B.  

Of the five LED’s on the dual band communication hub the only two that are permanently off are the “Mesh” and “Gas” LED’s.

Great, that is a SMETS2 gas meter so it should just need to be reconnected to the communications hub over the HAN (Home Area Network).

You can try doing it yourself.

I found instructions and a video here, the video shows an EDMI GS-60B being joined to the HAN

https://help.uw.co.uk/article/energy/how-to-reconnect-my-edmi-gas-smart-meter-to-the-smart-network

Once joined then I think that after a while  it should show up on your IHD without further intervention, the others may know more about that.
Then I believe it should just be a case of waiting for the readings to trickle through DCC to OVO and your bills, again the others can advise better about that than I can.

(Mine took a while to do that fully even though I could see them on my IHD. You might also want to make sure on your account that you are set to half-hourly readings for gas, at first my newly replaced gas meter was set to send monthly even though the electricity was sending half-hourly readings daily, a quick phone call to support got that sorted out and now both meters send half-hourly data each day).

Thanks, but I was already aware of the instructions to “reconnect” the gas meter, I've been trying to do this for the past eighteen months or so.

Each time I try it fails and I get the error message on the gas meter screen “cannot find HAN”.

I have therefore come to the conclusion that in order to get the gas meter onto the local HAN the DCC will first of all have to input the gas meter ID into the electricity meter software, it should then hopefully be just a meter of connecting the gas meter locally as per the instructions.

I don't think there is any more that can be done other than to contact the DCC/supplier and arrange for another site visit, this will be the seventh if I remember correctly.