GB2496915A - Card slot seal for pre-payment gas meters - Google Patents

Abstract

A card slot seal is provided to cover the card slot of a prepayment gas meter when the card slot is not in use. The seal is made of a durable material such as rubber which allows repeated removal and replacement and provides a good seal around the card slot. The card slot seal prevents water and other liquids from entering the card slot when it is not in use, ensuring that the card reader of the meter can operate reliably. An attachment point allows the seal to be attached to the meter through tying material such as string. The card slot seal may have instructions on it to remind users to keep the card slot seal in position to block and protect the card slot and card reader from damage.

Description

Universal Card Slot Seal Millions of homes within the UK utilise gas pre-payment meters. Whilst a proportion of meters operate correctly, large numbers do not and experience repeated problems due to being located outside and being directly affected by dampness, rain, wind or snow.

Problems can also occur with meters which are located inside but are situated near leaking water appliances i.e. under a kitchen sink or underneath boilers which can adversely affect the operation of the meter when a leak occurs. Many of these meters (figure 5, 6) located outside do not have a meter box to cover them or a door on the hinge to protect them and sometimes even when meters have both items already installed, water is still able to penetrate through the keyholes of doors andlor holes on the meter box casing, causing damage to the card slot. This often results in no heating and/or hot water facilities being available even when a valid pre-payment card exists as the credit cannot be transferred on to the meter due to a damaged slot.

The Universal Card Slot Seal (figure 1, 2, 3, 4) would eradicate all of these problems as it would simply slot into the meter (figure 5.1 C) and be securely fixed to the meter by a piece of string (figure 5.1 D). The occupier would always be reminded to insert the Universal Card Slot Seal as the wording KEEP IN SLOT' will be clearly printed on the front of the seal (figure 5.1 B) and when the occupier decides to take the Universal Card Slot Seal out to insert credit, the seal will not be lost as it will be securely fixed to the meter which it is perfectly safe to do so as no strain will be caused to the meter (figure 5.2 C). The Universal Card Slot Seal would prevent water ingress into the slot which then would enable occupiers to continue using their gas appliances as normal without the risk of not being able to insert their card into a damaged slot (figure 5.2 B), The material and design of the Universal Card Slot Seal will be critical to the invention becoming a success within the industry as the rubber material is not only flexible but also durable enough to be capable of being repeatedly removed and replaced within card slots.

As the material being used is rubber, this will create a water tight joint on any card slot thus making rubber an ideal material to be used. This will be a cost effective way of preventing water ingress to card slots as repositioning gas meters outside is extremely expensive and after an initial non-recurring cost to produce the mould, the same mould can be repeatedly re-used on a recurring basis. As demonstrated in the drawings, the cost of production would be minimal due to the size (figures 1, 2, 3,4) and lightweight nature of the design.

Although the dimensions provided apply to a standard prepayment meter it is recognised that there are alternative card slot applications for which the Universal Card Slot Seal concept would be readily transferable in addition to other models of gas pre-payment meters which would have different dimensions. Such alternative card slot applications would include mobile card payment systems (figure 7, 7.1, 7.2).