I got home yesterday to a freezing cold house due to no gas supply. I called out an engineer who very quickly found that (for the second time) the gas meter had failed due to water ingress (it lives outside in a meter cupboard). He said he replaces a lot of meters for that reason, coastal areas are particularly susceptible apparently.
However, he also told me the most common fault now is failing internal batteries. Electric smart meters are - unsurprisingly - powered from the supply but the electronics in gas ones use a battery. The first gen gas meters are now running out of power and as the internal batteries are nonreplaceable the meters have to be swapped out. Of course when the electronics fail the supply is shut off!
On the plus side, the engineer from SGN was with me in two hours but it's taking a lot longer than that to get the house back up to temperature.
