Smart meter fitting in council block

Hello, has anyone else managed to get a smart meter fitters who live in a council block? The council are saying that SSE need to arrange to pick up the key to the mains cupboard from their offfice, do the fitting and return the key. Unsurprisingly SSE have said no.

What have others done?

Cheers,
Peter

We had a similar problem (though for Virgin Media cable) with them needing access to a locked electrical intake cupboard a few years back. A maintenance appointment was needed, arranged via the council's repairs call centre, so that someone with keys from the council could be onsite. Clearly budget costs mean they no longer do that!

But might be worth checking just what lock is on the electrical intake cupboard. If it is a standard FB-type key then the SSE engineer may already have one.

Hope you get it sorted.

You’re very lucky, Imhave the opposite problem, British Gas are implying they can install the smart meter without me asking for one!

Depending on your boiler type, you cannot have one.
I also live in a council flat and the heating is managed from a boiler house or something for the whole estate.
I wanted to install an "independent" one and it wasn't possible.
I m also with SSE and they want to install one. I keep telling them it isn't possible and I don t want theirs anyway.

We had a EDF smart meter installed, worked perfectly but their charges were expensive. We did price comparison and changed to British Gas who have advised we cant have one in a tower block, even though my neighbour has one installed with them.

Don't make sense, does it!

I looked at installing one but living alone I wasn't convinced I'd save anything.

Your boiler type has nothing to do with whether or not you can or cannot have a smart meter. If your name here and the heating system infers you’re location on the Scovell Estate then I can tell you that I have had smart meters installed for gas and electricity. Neither now work following a change in suppliers, but they did.

BTW, if you are, like me, using gas only for cooking then I would urge you to check out Ebico for your gas supplier. They have a tariff where there is no standing charge, but the gas itself is more expensive. It will save you a small fortune. Before switching to them I was paying, get this, over 1,400% more for gas than I am now. Almost all the cost was the standing charge. My gas bill now is the minimum they will take out per month as a direct debit; the princely sum of £2 a month. Even with this I am substantially in credit.

I tried to change to a smart meter in December/January and twice British Gas came and failed to collect the key for the mains cupboard from the Council. On the phone, British Gas's customers service say that their engineers know exactly where to collect the key but every time, they failed to do so. I have given up in the meantime but it is really annoying as we have one of those old key meters. Just as we were leaving the flat for a 2 week holiday, the electricity went off: we had forgotten to load the key and had to scramble to get some electricity]] and rush not to miss our flight! Fortunately it happened just before we set off or we would have come back to a right defrosted fridge-freezer mess.

A neighbour collected the key and returned it same day after work done

If anyone has a key for an electrical intake room pm me lol, nasty neighbours playing music all hours.....it would be a remedy. (tongue's in cheek James)