Hi All,
I had a call from Meridian Energy a week or so ago as we’ve been laggards at being home so the new power meter could be installed – thanks to the electric gates for keeping out many unwanted guests! :-) So I arranged to have the gentleman install the new meter early on Wednesday morning (as I’d been in Auckland for work). It took him about 40 minutes to install and off he trundled.
A few things miffed me about the engagement:
- It somewhat urks me when I have to clean up after tradesmen, especially after they install a unit in my property to make life easier for them/their employer
- The new units are being installed to remove the requirement for people to manually read the meter – we live semi-rural, and as such required a larger than normal external aerial. When I asked if this could be put in the ceiling as it was ugly and I’d prefer I didn’t have to look at it, I got the response you’d expect I would receive – needless to say, I will be ‘moving it'…
- You’d expect that a nice new meter would be a little more ‘modern’ – there is no LCD screen, it’s the standard analogue counter that the pervious model had, there is no ability to see how much power you’re consuming, peak power statistics etc
- Since this unit was put in to make life easier for the power company, it in fact costs me money to make it easier for them, as well as their cost savings in not having someone read my meter. These new units poll a site to update the statistics on my power usage and I’m paying for that privilege. Is this another way they can increase profitability? Shouldn't they be offering me a discount or adjusting power bills to take this into consideration – I THINK SO!
Nick