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Unable to have a gas Smart Meter fitted, due to broken meter bracket. Who is responsible?

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Hello,

Sorry if this is a bit long-winded, but we are getting so frustrated with this matter.

Earlier this month, the fitting day arrived for our new OVO electricity and gas smart meters. The engineer was brilliant and fitted our electricity smart meter in no time. However, he was unable to fit the gas smart meter, as the bracket on the old gas meter was broken.

We live in a house owned by a housing association and, when we had an annual gas inspection in 2016, we and a neighbour required some work done and, in doing this, the contractor must have broken the bracket on the gas meter, but we never knew about it until we came to have a smart meter fitted. We have lived in the house since it was built and the gas meter was brand new and has been sitting in a meter box in a cupboard, clean and in excellent condition, until the bracket was broken. 

The OVO engineer also wasn’t sure about the regs regarding the plastic gas pipe coming from the gas meter, as the pipe is in a cupboard (made of brick and attached to the house), so he called out Cadent. The Cadent man wasn’t sure of the regs regarding the plastic gas pipe, but he shook the meter bracket in front of us (the OVO engineer had gone by this time) and said it was solid and safe. He said he would return in 3 days, when he found out the regs regarding the plastic gas pipe. He never returned and my husband contacted OVO, but we are still awaiting them getting back to us!

So, I contacted the housing association and explained things to them. The compliance manager got back to me and said he has discussed this with their gas contractors and can confirm that there are no concerns with regards to the pipework at our property and went on to say this would be confirmed by the attendance of Cadent engineers not issuing any safety concerns or isolating the gas supply.  

So, that’s fine; however, we still have the problem of the broken bracket and the compliance manager said housing association is not responsible for it. He advised us to contact the meter company and advise of this update and request that the meter is replaced.

This is where we are going round in circles, as the OVO man cannot replace the meter bracket, so cannot fit the gas smart meter. 
The gas meter is now almost 28 years old, so does need replacing, but how can we get around this problem? We didn’t break the bracket and so don’t want to have to pay for it to be replaced. 

Thank you, in advance, for any advice anyone can give, as we really need this gas smart meter, now the prices have gone up so much. 

 

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Best answer by Tim_OVO 24 October 2022, 14:54

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Blastoise186
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Howdy @SunnyDay ,

Thanks for the detailed question! It really helps us out. :)

Can you also show us photos please? It’ll help us figure out what to recommend.

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Hi @Blastoise186 ,

Many thanks for your prompt reply. I have taken some photos of the gas meter bracket, from various angles. Hope this helps. 

 

Blastoise186
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Mostly looks OK to me?

Except maybe the missing piece on the right pipe support. That could do with being replaced.

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Tim_OVO
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Updated on 13/07/23 by Emmanuelle_OVO

Thanks for sharing this, @SunnyDay. 

 

I wouldn’t want to comment on what may need to be replaced around that gas meter. Far better leaving that to the professionals. One thing I can do is help ensure you make progress. We have a topic here about who owns what around the gas meter:

 

 

Unfortunately it doesn’t explicitly outline meter brackets. I know that smart meters that need a bracket fitted (for example semi-concealed gas meters) can have a bracket fitted by the OVO engineer on site. So this tells me it’s the supplier engineer who can do work on the bracket, rather than the Gas Transporter, in this case: Cadent. Perhaps @Lukepeniket_OVO has a second free this week and can tell us if supplier engineers carry gas meter brackets with them, and whether they think the photo above shows something obvious...  

 

 

Carbon neutral - we need a community to get there! My green tech: Aclara SGM 1411-B smart meter, Chameleon IHD6
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Hi @Blastoise186 ,

That’s what we thought. When we looked at it, it isn’t actually broken; the contractor who fitted the wider gas pipe cut the bracket, to get the replacement pipe in and then soldered the gas pipe joint to the bracket. The Cadent man said it was secure, but the OVO engineer said the bracket would need to be replaced. 

Blastoise186
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Yeah, seems a bit dodgy to me but I’m not the expert sadly.

But I think if a certain someone stops by… You’ll be impressed. :)

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@Blastoise186 It does look a sloppy way of doing it. Sorry, I’m a bit confused by your last sentence.

Blastoise186
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Let’s just say that Luke knows a thing or two about gas meters :)

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Hi @Tim_OVO ,

Thank you for your reply. If the bracket was secured by screws, then the OVO engineer could replace it, but he wasn’t allowed to take off rivets. A couple of little rivets are causing a big problem. 

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@Blastoise186 Ah, I see. Thanks for that. 

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UPDATE: After chatting to a helpful man on the OVO online help chat and explained the whole situation and he arranged for another engineer to come and sent a message to him, to fully explain the situation. Again, a really nice engineer came, but explained that our gas smart meter was again unable to be fitted, due a possible buit-over service and the fact that the meter bracket is riveted, rather than screwed. He got Cadent to come out again. The Cadent man said he didn’t think there was a problem regarding it being a built-over service, which was also confirmed by the compliance officer from our housing association, but he took photos of our meter, said he’d go away and check it out, get written confirmation for OVO and also try to see if he could come back and remove the rivets from the meter bracket. Since then, we have heard nothing. We can only presume that his request has gone into the system and disappeared. So, this afternoon, my husband again rang Cadent, to be told the riveted bracket is OVO’s responsibility and that their records show that the meter position in the outside cupboard is compliant and not a built-over service, plus he is unable to email confirmation of this 🤔 So, here we are again, going round in circles. Beginning to think we will just have to stick with the old gas meter…

Blastoise186
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Just to let you know, we’ve taken this one backstage for advice. It’s going to an internal team and we’ll update you once the moderators hear back.

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@Blastoise186 Thank you for that. We just want a gas smart meter and never realised what a headache it would be. 

Blastoise186
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It usually isn’t this difficult! You just got unlucky with an edge case that we’ve never seen before. And I’ll be the first to admit, you haven’t just stumped all the forum volunteers - you’ve managed to catch the forum moderators off guard too.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
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@Blastoise186 I must admit, we expected it to be a simple job, as with the electric smart meter. Oh, well, hopefully, a solution can be found. Thanks again. 

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