Dave Liquorice wrote:

On Sun, 10 Feb 2019 01:42:52 -0800 (PST), wrote:

We see a meter reader once a year or less, the cost must be
trivial.
We send 'real' readings by E-Mail monthly.

1 - 5 minutes per house, say average 3 mins at (guess) £10 an hour =
50p a year. Adding employment costs increases that, but not to anything
that makes it worth installing a smart meter for that purpose.

3 mins average to read a meter? Get real. Might just be able to
manage that from stepping over the threshold in and then back out.
But you need to add to that, walking back to van, looking up the next
place, driving to it, parking up, walking to door, waiting for
answer...

Round here 12 mins/meter (5/hour) would be more like it or
£2.00/meter. 25 million meters(?) = 50 million quid and about 3,000
meter readers to read every meter at least once a year. Plus cost of
maintenance. fuel, insurance, etc on 3,000 vans...

In a urban area you might get down to 5 mins/meter (12/hour) for one
of the "big six" or the supplier who was the original regional
company, but but not for all the other (50 odd?) smaller suppliers
with far lower "meter density".

My impression is that meter reading is done jointly for all the
suppliers. I don't know who runs the service or how it is paid for.


--

Roger Hayter