Yes, I did need to sit on the garden bed once I had vaulted the English Box, all after I had fetched the secateurs and cut back the roses, in order to read the metre. I know the posters here all live in Australia but it's as if WA in particular, has unique people living there. Sorry, but just thinking of the advice of Justis here when I wrote that.
Lumo is the power company who is responsible for both my electricity and gas. Here in the deep south, we can choose from a large number of private power company. Some differing on very minor differences and I, like very many others, harbour an anger about how long we have wasted of our life getting and giving phone calls from and to these companies. Indeed recently they are now no longer permitted to cold call us, hence no more cold calling demanding that we fetch a copy of our most recent bill so they could explain that they can improve on the "plan" we are on.
Then they refuse to read the metre because their reader is unable to unlock his phone screen as he's walked beyond my property.
I began my Victorian based accountant eith this story but he knew where I was going and so then launched into his story about an inaccessible metre and the reader's craxy response. It's a common complaint and many people get "estimated" bills only unless they ring quickly and complaint. They are then ordered to read the metre while they remain on the phone with the call centre call barking directions at you. Loads of people have "estimated" bills, very overstated (this was admitted by the reader with whom I was chatting) and then the overcharge is used to gradually reduce subsequent bills.
The official readers use their phones to record the number, but householders are required to access their metre and read to them both the black numbers and the red ones. If one of the numbers is clocking around and largely disappearing, then you may only see the bottom part of the number and may get it wrong. That's why I got another call from Lumo as they guessed it was a wrong read, and asked me to read it again. This time my read was accepted as being far more likely to be true. Electricity metre is a smart metre and connects directly with the company, so no issue at all. It's only the stupid gas metre. And no, there is no option to provide a photo of metre as that would create another can of worms for them.
Now I am going to go back to bed..... good night jo jo.
