Hi there @gooner1511 ,

Sorry to hear this trouble!

The first thing that’s worth noting, is that it takes six to eight weeks for newly installed smart meters to be fully commissioned and activated. Once this happens, the meters can then start to submit readings properly, but only after this process has completed. One of the ways you’ll know it’s all up and running, will be when your IHD shows the correct tariff data. If you don’t see that yet, it’s still setting up.

As for your bills, provided you continue to make payments to your account each month as usual, you should build up credit and this will re-balance your account when the meter readings next go in. You won’t pick up any more of a bill than normal, as long as you’re still making payments.

In the meantime, see if you can pop some manual readings in when you get chance, since this should help to update your account and help the system to catch up.

Thanks for the reply,if I put gas meter readings in they'll be from the new meter which isn't even registered to my account so to avoid confusion I'll wait until this is hopefully progressed.

You’re welcome.

Yup, that’s a good plan as well. If you try to enter the readings from a meter that’s not currently registered, it will almost certainly cause issues and either get rejected instantly, or throw your account massively out of sync. Your account credit should help to smooth things over once the next reading comes in though. As long as you keep making payments and don’t have a sudden surge in energy usage, there shouldn’t be any bill spikes!

As for the testing, I’m not really sure why the installer thought they found a problem, and as a forum volunteer I wouldn’t be able to access your account notes to see what happened. But it does seem a bit strange though.

What I also know is that OVO isn’t responsible for anything beyond the meter, for which we’ve got a guide for that at 

As far as I’m aware, an engineer installing smart meters is allowed (and most likely required) to cap off anything that looks like a possible safety issue that they come across, in order to make it safe temporarily. But any repairs of appliances etc beyond that are beyond the suppliers control and that requires another engineer.

Blastoise186,

Yes pay the bill by DD so it's accumulated quite s bit so far.

Rather than a faulty appliance personally I'd say faulty diagnosis,which my gas engineer told me the installer most likely didn't have the correct gas Safe certificate.

Different certificate for different parts of gas,ie the installer has a cert for installing meters but probably hasn't a cert for gas fires,boilers, cookers etc so to be safe he's capped it off because he thought it was a safety issue. Which is potentially a lot of hassle to the consumer like in my case.

Safety first I agree but like my gas engineer said to leave me with no gas supply when a gas fire which is not being used is the problem condemn the fire and leave the supply on especially at this time of year.

Let's hope the meters work after all this

That would make a bit more sense, especially if there’s a way to isolate just the bad appliance without compromising safety. I’ll see if @Tim_OVO can feed that back internally.

Based on the mention of the 19th January, that makes your meters roughly three weeks into the commissioning process, so they should be around halfway through right now. I’d estimate the process should complete by the 24th March at the latest. If you still don’t see any progress by then, feel free to stop by again.

Yep that makes sense to me, @gooner1511 - but to be fair I’m not trained in either. As you say: safety first. My understanding is that the engineer can test appliances but is only responsible and covered insurance wise for the meter. Perhaps that’s why they recommended you hiring someone specifically. Or maybe it’s as simple as shutting off the fire appliance wasn’t possible or the less safe option….

I haven’t actually heard of the term ‘spillage’ in this context. Is this a term referring to a micro leak does anyone know?  

Tim_ovo,

I'm an electrician not a gas fitter but the way spillage was explained to me was there should be visible signs of gas / soot escape around the flue or surrounding the fire.

In my case there wasn't any gas or soot escape around the flue or fire it was a visible soot mark within an enclosed fire.

The first thing my gas engineer said was is there any smell of gas (there wasn't) which obviously is the main safety aspect.

The main thing in my case is if the meter installer hasn't got the relevant gas Safe module (ie install fires, boilers, stoves etc) he shouldn't be condemning something he shouldn't be inspecting.

I know with gas we eer on the side of caution which is correct but capping off the supply rather than an appliance which the meter installer considers faulty I find strange.

Maybe the gas Safe rules say this, like I've said I'm not a gas engineer, just my observations.

gooner1511

Over 2 months since smart meter fitting (Jan 19th) still no meter readings and still not the new correct meters (electricity is correct meter but not recording on my account).

Six to eight weeks to be commissioned,this has long since passed but no communication of any sort from OVO.

The Ihd still only displays electricity and not dual fuel.(no account details)

10 weeks this Tuesday and I'm no further forward than when I first posted

Will be ringing tomorrow for an update but I won't be holding my breath.

Wish me luck ;)

Gooner1511

Hi @gooner1511 ,

I’d also recommend checking your account in MyOVO first, before you contact the support team. It’s possible that your IHD might just need to be paired up with the meters, and if so the support team can do that for you fairly quickly.

One trick I’ve come across is to check the Meter Info to see if the details there match up - and also check the Supplier Contact details as well. If they don’t match with what you expect, that could indicate the IHD isn’t paired yet.

Hopefully this can get resolved soon though!

Wow, that is terrible. I have to say that this seems quite typical. It took me 6 weeks and several messages to support to get my smart meter to work, and this should have been a really standard and straight forward case. And even now it is not really working properly. Clearly the backend infrastructure is far from mature.

I again telephoned the customer support and was told it would take up to 45 working days from the date when the smart meter health check was completed by myself,so would expect this to be looked at by the end of may. (Meters were installed on Jan 19th)

It seems a bit excessive (up to 5 months) if I'm honest,if it cannot be completed by remote means I'll have to wait for another engineer visit.

God knows what that will bring.

The saga continues....…

P.S wish I hadn't bothered with the 'smart' meters!!

Gooner1511

June 2nd still no working smart meters

Received an email (15th May) telling me that I would need an engineer visit but they couldn't give a timeframe for when this visit will occur.

Someone is going to contact me to book it in and the wait continues no contact so far.......

Really starting to get annoyed that this issue cannot be sorted within a reasonable timeframe,Jan 19th meters were installed and they aren't even the correct meters on my account

Very very frustrating 🤬

I'm a patient person but nearly six months (and counting) to resolve this issue and still no end in sight.

Gooner1511

Oh no! That’s not what you should have experienced. Sorry about that.

I’d definitely recommend letting the Support Team know that you’re still waiting and provide a link to this thread. Live Chat is the fastest way for this and you can get to it from over here.

I’ve also alerted @Tim_OVO about this as well, just in case he knows anything.

Thanks will try live chat a bit later

Any help is appreciated thanks Blastoise186

Gooner1511

Anytime! :)

It sounds like what might need to happen is either forcing the meters to be commissioned again, or more likely a Meter Exchange (MEX) to swap them out completely with brand new SMETS2 smart meters. If it’s the latter, you’ll also be offered a new In-Home Display too. You can decline the IHD if you’d rather not have one, but it’s probably worth having. You won’t be charged for any of this as it sounds like a possible fault.

Really sorry to hear you’re still not fully up and running with those Smart Meters, @gooner1511. 

As @Blastoise186 suggested it’s worth raising this to the team on webchat.

Hope they can get things sorted soon. 

Thanks Jess_OVO

I did as you suggested and there is no engineer availability in my area (Essex)

So no appointment could be made and have to wait for the back office to contact me with an appointment date.

Not holding my breath though

Another 8 days still no contact....…

This is appalling customer service,but in my position you'd have thought that someone would have called to apologize but nothing from OVO not a whisper.

What would happen if I were to move energy supplier ? 

Frustrated

Gooner1511 🤬

It’s possible that the case is still open, but there is a 45 day turnaround time from the date that the case was opened. Someone will be in touch when they can. It might be worth checking your emails (including the spam folder!) as OVO prefers to get back to members via email rather than phone where possible.

Moving energy supplier probably wouldn’t be any faster to be honest. From memory, it’d be at least six to eight weeks post switch before the new supplier would even be able to try to schedule a Meter Exchange due to the processes that have to take place first.

Blastoise186,

I can't appreciate the 45 day timeframe I'm afraid,I raised the issue then did smart meter health check was told within 45 days I'd be contacted didn't happen.

Now you're saying because they said they'd contact me this will be another 45 day wait just to book an appointment, seems you go to the bottom of the pile every time you contact OVO.

Then will be waiting however long that will take for the engineer visit probably 45 days as well

Not having a go at you just venting a bit of steam because this situation in my opinion is completely unacceptable.

Not quite, it’s generally meant to be 45 days from the case being opened, rather than last contact. Any new updates on a case, such as by calling in won’t affect that. Emailing in more than once can sometimes slow down a response because it has to go back to pending before someone has read the new email, so it’s not recommended to email in while waiting for a reply.

However, you’re not out of options. If you haven’t already, give this one a try. It’s probably the fastest way to get this one resolved with the least amount of effort.

Probably take 45 days to respond 

LOL

In all seriousness I think I will have to make a complaint then they will have to respond in a timely period...I hope

Np, that route actually gets a pretty fast response, so you can expect to hear from someone with some kind of update by this time next week.

There’s actually some other massive improvements that OVO are currently working on to improve customer service stuff. I’ve been invited to try those out but I’m not currently able to reveal the details as it might corrupt the results. But I can definitely say that the improvements being trialled massively speed up response times and overall customer experience is probably 5,000% better. Keep an eye out for a future blog post from me, as I plan to publish one when I’m able to.

Really sorry to hear that you’re still waiting for an engineer’s visit to get the Smart meters communicating, @gooner1511. If you’ve been added to our revisit list, we’ll be in touch as soon as there is an available appointment in your area, however I appreciate this has been quite the wait in your case.

As @Blastoise186 mentioned it might be worth contacting us to log this as a formal complaint. This gives us the chance to investigate exactly what’s happened on your account and escalate the issue to come to a fair resolution. Once escalated you should receive a response to your complaint within 5 working days.

Hope we can get this sorted ASAP for you. 

Update…

Complaint made today hopefully this might prompt some sort of communication.