Meter readers..
Author
Discussion

saleen836

Original Poster:

12,503 posts

239 months

Wednesday 2nd December 2009
quotequote all
Was having a read through the bumpf to become a meter reader and have come to the conclusion you have to turn into superman or such like to hit their targets! Firstly you have to pay a one off fee of £800 for the 'training/set-up costs/admin fee' etc, this gets deducted from your monthly wage @£200 per month, you get paid so much per meter read, they don't state how much this is however they do state earnings dependant on area are between £320-400 per week for a 40hr week,they also state you should average 250 meter readings [bold]per day[/bold]!! My math skills tell me with those figures you have approx 30secs for each meter reading, this doesn't include the time taken to get from property to property, I know blocks of flats and most modern houses make life easier with meter boxes being on the outside of the property but is anyone on here a meter reader and able to post up some real life figures?

XMES RUS

1,318 posts

254 months

Wednesday 2nd December 2009
quotequote all
per day, are you sure???

jesus it takes my meter man 10minutes to walk up my long drive past my collection of exotics, pass the dogs, dont collect 200 quid and send him to jail.

tribbles

4,170 posts

252 months

Wednesday 2nd December 2009
quotequote all
I make it 1:55 minutes per reading (8 hours, 60 minutes per hour => 480, divide by 250 => 1.92). Plenty of time!

bazking69

8,620 posts

220 months

Wednesday 2nd December 2009
quotequote all
Totally unrelated but when we had family over from the States they thought that everyone who drove a Smart Car was a meter reader. They couldn't understand why there was so many meter readers about!!

saleen836

Original Poster:

12,503 posts

239 months

Wednesday 2nd December 2009
quotequote all
tribbles said:
I make it 1:55 minutes per reading (8 hours, 60 minutes per hour => 480, divide by 250 => 1.92). Plenty of time!
Ahh, I worked it out a different way, 40hrs divide by 1250 units= 0.032
I read the calculator wrong! is 1.92 enough time though? how long do you wait once a doorbell has been rung? if no one answers you then have to go back another time/day to attempt take the meter reading, taking in to account they expect you to achieve that figure 5 days a week where is the time taken for toilet/food/drink break? all these will reduce the time per property.

tribbles

4,170 posts

252 months

Wednesday 2nd December 2009
quotequote all
saleen836 said:
tribbles said:
I make it 1:55 minutes per reading (8 hours, 60 minutes per hour => 480, divide by 250 => 1.92). Plenty of time!
Ahh, I worked it out a different way, 40hrs divide by 1250 units= 0.032
I read the calculator wrong! is 1.92 enough time though? how long do you wait once a doorbell has been rung? if no one answers you then have to go back another time/day to attempt take the meter reading, taking in to account they expect you to achieve that figure 5 days a week where is the time taken for toilet/food/drink break? all these will reduce the time per property.
I was joking about it being plenty of time smile

I know my house's meter can be read without me being present (it's outside the front door).

s3fella

10,524 posts

217 months

Wednesday 2nd December 2009
quotequote all
I wont let them in to the house at all! You dunno who they are scoping out all my stuff! I tell them it's in the garage and the door is broke!

We had some bogus meter readers round here a couple of years ago, one Asian guy pitched up at mine and showed Southern Gas ID and said he was here to read the meter. I told him we were nto with Southern Gas, so he went in his pocket and got a Britsh GAs ID out!! laugh

He finally gave up when I told him (correctly) that I did not have gas at all!!
He went off and got into an old VW Sharran which had 4 other blokes in it!!

Reg clocked and reported to the rozzers, who I am pretty sure put their very best man on it immediately! !

So now I just read my own.;)

footyking

397 posts

204 months

Friday 4th December 2009
quotequote all
i used to be a meter reader. it wasnt actually that bad becuase if they weren't in you posted a card through and if they were helpful they filled it in and left in the window or outside. I never had to pay anything though. I work for E.on and used to get about 1300 meters to read in a week but because we did both gas and electric sometimes you'd be able to read two in one house which made things easier. Blacks of flats and new estates where a dream come true if you got them but they were usually saved for the bosses mate. I dont know who you have applied with but we got a basic (i think it was around £1400) and then had to hit at least 80% to get paid out on targets. (1040 reads a week)

I think once you hit a certain percentage you got so much per read and then you got extras for things like small commercials (corner shops etc) and super reads which where meters that had not been read for over a year!

Think it worked out for the year i did it i got £19k. Not great but you get to choose your hours between 8am and 8pm and if you were short on the week you could go out on a saturday morning when you get to annoy people by waking them up on their weekend.