spooksman
Member
I know I'm late to the party, but I have a SMETS1 meter and moved to Octopus Go without issue. No problems at all, and the savings are HUGE with two EVs in the house...
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Seeking advice on U.K. electricity provider
- Thread starter tomcat
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- electricity tariff
spooksman
Member
Two EVs and a ground source heat pump here. Peak draw when heating the hot water tank for legionella boost is close to 15kW in the early hours. Octopus may not like me, but I love the 5p juice
Octopus actually arranged for a secondhand "Secure" SMETS1 meter to be installed for me 2 years ago because they were certain that a new SMETS2 meter with its different communication protocols would not work at our location. It's been absolutely fine and delivers the required half hourly readings.
Thanks VanillaAir_UK for this advice and my previous comment was obviously nonsensical!
I was unfortunately pursuaded to jump into the smart meter club by my previous supplier - EON - which turned out to be a SMETS1 meter however, following the recent change to the meter setup, my current provider - Bulb - is now able to read the meter, so at least I no longer need to take manual readings.
I’ll contact Octopus tomorrow to begin a dialogue with them and confirm whether they’re able to use my S1 meter or whether they need an S2 meter, in which case I’ll ask about the cost of a swap out. I imagine it would have longer term benefits anyway.
I also take your point about deciding on a charging pattern before choosing a tariff as well as considering the idiotic standing charges, which I’ve long believed are purely a device for making it more difficult for consumers to compare overall supply costs. If the regulator was any use at all they would have abolished standing charges decades ago. Good point though, thanks again.
I just checked and mine is a Secure brand (Liberty 100, to be precise), however I emailed Octopus to confirm that they can work with this model.
However, I just ran a check on them via Trustpilot and almost all of the recent reviews absolutely crucify them for abysmal customer service, including not showing up for / cancellation of appointments with no notice, not responding to emails etc. This doesn’t give me a comfortable feeling since Bulb has at least been very responsive in the 18 months I’ve been with them.
I expect if you don’t have any problems with your supply or had any occasion to contact them for support you might not be aware of this but I’d be interested to know if anyone in the TMC has had similar experiences.
Octopus have grown massively over the past couple of years ... they used to get top marks on customer service and were Which magazine recommended but I presume the scaling of the business means that the individual touch is now much harder. It used to be that you could even get the CEO Greg Jackson chipping in to sort things out for customers! It's more mixed now so similar issues to dealing with any other large organisation. I can only speak for my own overall experience which has been very positive. I doubt that overall they are worse than any of the other big suppliers.
You may well be correct and I have an extremely low opinion of all providers.
When they initially enter the market they’re good because they have to be in order to build a customer base but as soon as they’ve created their ‘revenue stream’, the quality of service drops off dramatically and they descend to the lowest common denominator, which is the level of the rest of them.
I’ll see how Octopus responds to my query as a prospective new customer but if no response, I may stick with the devil I know.
Crickets so far!
When they initially enter the market they’re good because they have to be in order to build a customer base but as soon as they’ve created their ‘revenue stream’, the quality of service drops off dramatically and they descend to the lowest common denominator, which is the level of the rest of them.
I’ll see how Octopus responds to my query as a prospective new customer but if no response, I may stick with the devil I know.
Crickets so far!
From what I read I'd be wary moving to octopus unless you already have a compliant meter, I had no luck getting one from my current supplier and have read of people being stuck on the wrong tariff with octopus for many months as they can't get a meter installed.
I went with eon as they don't need the smart meter, although after 2 days with them I'm now getting bugged to install one. I'll do that then see how things go and keep octopus as an option.
I went with eon as they don't need the smart meter, although after 2 days with them I'm now getting bugged to install one. I'll do that then see how things go and keep octopus as an option.
I too recommend Octopus Go, then after being setup I would request the switch to Octopus Go Faster, a flexible tariff start time from 20:30 which you can use to make the most of the cheap rate for washing machine, tumble dryer etc.
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I've personally had a great experience with Octopus, I only ended up moving to them because Bulb refused to help me get the smart meter they fitted working again.
Octopus took on the challenge of fixing it, first engineer visit powered everything down and back up (classic IT fix!) and it looked like it was working, sadly the readings never made it to Octopus, it looked like because Bulb couldn't communicate with it, it was never removed from them (something like that anyway). Next visit was sadly cancelled, third party contractor issue, but Octopus gave me credit as a way of an apology.
Third visit replaced the smart meter and it's worked ever since. Octopus then also backdated my billing to Octopus Go rates as the whole saga had taken a little while, in the middle of a pandemic, can't fault them to be honest.
Have a play with the calc I posted earlier on in the thread and make sure they work out cheapest for you
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