British Gas Metering managers.

meter man · May 6, 2011

This is my first posting and although I'm no electrician may I express my utter disgust with what British Gas has just offered us on a tupe agreement! These lot are the biggest, greediest set of ****** I've had this mis-fortune to know. You have the manager of operations north and his wench who are probably on 100K and they offer us less holidays, ******* pay but slightly better basic as we earn bonus. Electric and gas. When E-on were tuped in they upped their pays across the board to 23k. Granted a very good wage for fitting meters but the greed of these fat ****** is out of order. All this is happening while the union are fully involved.

Guest123 · May 6, 2011

As it's your first post I'll cut you a little slack. I would like to point out that swearing in any way shape or form is not permitted on the forums.

Please read the forum rules.

Thank you.

Knobhead · May 7, 2011

With information on the metering side of things you could find a few friends on here.

G77 · May 26, 2011

are there any updates on this? seems bg are tupe'ing lots of metering staff in from various places. one i know a bit about it from enterprise (formerly UU)

bg have just bought up ph jones too and obv got their hands on quite a few gas and electricity meter fitters during this buy out.

i have been told that all the electricity meter fitters which go to bg are to be on the same salary and t's and c's. the electricity meter fitters have been told they will also be trained up to be dual fuel, which, is going to have to involve the ccn1 and met1. as with these new moden qualifications, your required to do 6 months buiding up your portfolio by shadowing or doing an aprenticeship. not sure how thats going to work when the electrical meter fitters should be out attempting to get some of these 53million smart's on the board!

chris huhne has told "the big 6" to chill on the smarts for the next three years until the backend data system is sorted. afaik, eon is the only one of the 6 who has said there going to go ahead and do it anyway.

i'd be really interested to know any info on who bg are tupe'ing in or any metering info at all.

this is my first post and i came from google so i'll now check out where the metering discussions take place on this board.

dual trained · Nov 8, 2011

i know people who work for british gas in there smart metering they all tell me the pay is low 18400 bg contract they want you to be 3 phase trained for no extra money medium pressure gas train again for no extra money they didn`t even give there guys any 16mm cable untill about a month ago they say they train there new starters how to fit gas and elec meters but i`ve know of a meter fitter who put together a semi con gas meter the wrong way round they don`t teach them what fitting to use to do pipe work when they have to move gas meters and as soon as they see a elec meter with an off peak live they go to bits they wont even let the fitters down grade a fuse in the main cutout thats to big for the cables they have to call the DNO out they can`t solder because all the the training they got at there training center was to solder a few bits of pipe its a joke and the guys that do know what they are doing are just expected to train up their staff for no extra money all of the new managers that where not tuped in have not got a clue how to fit a meter but can tell you that you must work faster and not make any mistakes or you get supended and on top of that you have to go through sale training even though they say its lead genration everyone i know that is working for them is waiting for e.on to start ther smarty program and they are go to jump ship as they hate british gas

meter man · Nov 13, 2011

dual trained said:
i know people who work for british gas in there smart metering they all tell me the pay is low 18400 bg contract they want you to be 3 phase trained for no extra money medium pressure gas train again for no extra money they didn`t even give there guys any 16mm cable untill about a month ago they say they train there new starters how to fit gas and elec meters but i`ve know of a meter fitter who put together a semi con gas meter the wrong way round they don`t teach them what fitting to use to do pipe work when they have to move gas meters and as soon as they see a elec meter with an off peak live they go to bits they wont even let the fitters down grade a fuse in the main cutout thats to big for the cables they have to call the DNO out they can`t solder because all the the training they got at there training center was to solder a few bits of pipe its a joke and the guys that do know what they are doing are just expected to train up their staff for no extra money all of the new managers that where not tuped in have not got a clue how to fit a meter but can tell you that you must work faster and not make any mistakes or you get supended and on top of that you have to go through sale training even though they say its lead genration everyone i know that is working for them is waiting for e.on to start ther smarty program and they are go to jump ship as they hate british gas

I can do nothing else but Agree. BG are offering even less now.

dual trained · Nov 13, 2011

just had a chat with one of my mates who works for bg smart metering said that in his 1 to 1 with his smart energy coach who is meant to be able to teach all the new guys how to fit smart meters you know the jobs where they have to move gas meters or have old elec meters with bunched tails or looped neutrals or just helping them along and get them upto speed also having advanced knowelge of fitting and tools this fool had to ask my mate how to do pipe work didn`t even know what fitting to use to move a gas meter or solder and to top it off has had too phone on more than once and ask him how to relight a boiler the first time he asked was unreal he phoned my mate and said the boiler would not relight so my mate asked him when he turned the boiler off and had a look over the boiler to make sure it was safe he asked him to tell him how to boiler fired up wheather it had a piolt light or was elec ignion the fool couldn`t even tell him what it was so my mate asked him if there was a gas valve that needed pushing in and the ignion button he couldn`t even say if there was so my mate told him to go and find the timer turn the heating to on or 24hours and turn the room stat to max if the boiler fired up it was elec if not you need to find the bloody gas valve he called my mate back 2mins later said the boiler fired up this guy is now just 1 level below the area manager now because in his job before in retail he was a team leader or manager so he must be able to run gas and elec meter fitters even though he can`t do the job right himself needless to say my mate is now looking for a job else where out of the gas trade british gas want manager who are great at conference calls but don`t know what happens on the ground

meter man · Nov 26, 2011

what area does he work in

dual trained · Nov 27, 2011

he works in the south east but get this last week my mate went to a job where he`d been told to replace a damaged gas meter he said when he got there he asked the lady what was happening she said that she was getting 90p bills from british gas and knows that this was wrong as she has a gas fire a cook hob and a boiler so he done what he always does and told her to turn on the cooker so he could see what the meter done as soon as she turned the hob on the meter started to move so he asked her to turn the cooker off and turn the gas fire on same again meter moved just fine no funny sounds coming from the meter he showed the lady the meter and told her it was working fine but she insisted that it wasn`t working so he just said he would change it as it was no skin of his noise he then done what any meter fitter does he checks to see what fitting he`ll need from his van to do the job thats when he almost had a heart attack now you need to know that the meter and reg on site when he got there was a british gas one so had been fitted by somone in the smart metering department LOL this year and he later found out that another so called engineer had been in the house and looked at the meter on the ecv there was a tee in steel and the reg was connected to the middle and there was a copper run from the other he asked what the hell was that copper run connected to the steel and she said as calm as you like thats goes to my boiler so he just didn`t belive it so he followed the run outside round the house and into the garage too the boiler now for anyone reading this who is not gas trained the pressure of the gas in the mains comes in at about 75mbar and you reg brings the working pressure down to 21mbar + or - 2mbar this thing was working of the mains pressure from the street and then we have to think that the meter is being bye passed now my mate knew that this woman didn`t know how dangerous this was or illegal because she was the one calling bg telling bg to change the meter saying it`s not working when he told her what was happening he asked her when her boiler was installed hoping that she would say that the boiler was installed after the gas meter that bg had fitted but she showed him the gas engineers gas safe number and when the boiler was insatlled 2008 three year ago after he told her to tunr the boiler on and showed her what was happening and why her bills where so low now as you can imagine this woman was really shi****g herself asking if the boiler could of gone bang my mate put everything right and changed the meter then told the woman not to phone bg and say anything as bg would then chase her for three years gas for that boiler need less to say my mate is trying to get another job away from bg as fast as he can before they really hurt or kill somone he doesn`t want to be associated with a company like that oh by the the way the first engineer who fitted the gas meter was bg trained and the next guy too my mate used to by a contractor fitting meters for bg

grimysparks80 · Nov 27, 2011

Ive never understood how it is that unqualified people can do this meter fitting. Its one of the most important parts of any electrical or gas installation so surely the work should only be carried out by fully qualified gas fitters/electricians.

dual trained · Nov 27, 2011

i don`t think you get it the bg guys where qualified and trained by british gas to fit gas and elec meters there training is just so rubbish that they couldn`t see what was wrong