On Saturday, January 28, 2017 at 12:49:24 PM UTC, wrote:
Hi friends,

Having used this group for a number of years, I'm hopeful that someone will be able and kind enough to advise on this:

For my house, I have external, old-style pre-payment gas & electric token meters. So to top up, I drive to a local shop to get my key/card credited with £X amount.

I gather that if I had smart meters installed, I could top up using a mobile phone, which sounds more convenient. However, I am thinking of letting my house out to successive short-term holiday tenants during the summer, and want the tenants to pay for the gas & electricity they use. Would switching to smart meters still make sense in this case? Is it easy to enable the tenant to top up the gas & electricity using their own phone and bank account - or are there obstacles making this impractical?

One other reason I'm thinking of installing smart meters is that I hope they are thinner than the existing meters! The plastic cabinets in which my existing meters are housed, stick out from the wall by about 10", partially obstructing the pathway to my front door. Can anyone tell me the approximate thickness of the new smart meters, i.e., how much the project from their mounting boards? I don't want to go the expense of having the meters sunk into the wall, but can I use cabinets that are shallower than the ubiquitous bog-standard ones?

Many thanks if you can advise on either of the above.

Al_n

Thanks to everyone for the helpful suggestions. Actually with the duel fuel tarrif I'm on, (Ebico?) prepay is no more expensive than a credit account, However I get the point made by a couple of you that making the holiday tenant have to faff around topping up does seem niggardly, when the weekly rent is going to be high. That's a good point. Deducting the cost from their deposit or including it in the rent seems a more equitable option, now you mention it. Thanks!

Al_n