Gas and Landlord question

littlequickie

Hi all,

Am not sure if I am posting in the right place here, (long time lurker, just starting to post) but hope someone can point me in the right direction if not.

The boyfriend and I moved into our flat just over 3 months ago. It was a brand new conversion, one of four and we were the last to move in (by about a month). When we moved in our gas meter was reading 0.0009 but we recently checked it as we are due a bill and wanted to send a reading in. It is now reading over three times the amounts of the other flats. :eek: The only things run by gas in our flat are the heating and hot water. We have not turned the heating on at all since we moved in, but the flat has been very warm from day one which we assumed was just how the flat was as its above a shop.

We are really concerned we are going to get hit with a massive bill and be unable to pay it. One of our neighbours works for our letting agents and she came to have a look at the boiler - we have had no manual and no instrucations on how to use it except for a quick guide on a magnet stuck to the boiler which gives only very very basic instructions which we used to ensure the heating was off and to turn the water temp down by 5 degrees. She found a dial that was hidden inside the body of the boiler which we knew nothing about (not mnetioned on the magnet), it tucks underneath it in a hole and you have to press it for it to spring down, hers was visible when she moved in, ours was completely hidden. It is some sort of timer dial for the heating. We have a horrible feeling that this may be the source of the problem somehow and we had no knowledge of it.

We have reported all the above to the landlord and asked for an engineer to come out and check the boiler over as well because there is no way two people (all the other flats are two people as well) could have used the amount of gas our meter indicates we have unless there was a fault or it was set up incorrectly. This was 2 weeks ago and despite several calls we have still not had an engineer contact us or visit. :mad:

Does anyone know what our rights are with regards to claiming part of the bill back form the landlord if no fault is found on the boiler when they eventually send an engineer. We are very happy to pay for what we have used but if it was set incorrectly from day one and we had no manual and turned everything off we could, could the landlord be liable for not providing us with the right info? According to our neighbour the builders left manuals for the boiler, cooker and fridge when they completed the conversions but our landlords removed these before anyone moved in.

So sorry for such a long post its turned into a bit of an essay. Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks

LQ

bryanb

How did the radiators feel during this time?

littlequickie

Hi,

All radiators were off and cold but the room with the boiler was very warm. Our neighbour says hers was never that warm so we have a feeling the problem could lie there.

Can a pilot light be set to use excess gas (or is that a silly question, I am have little knowledge on these things)?

bryanb

A pilot light uses minimal gas. If the water temp was set too high maybe the boiler was trying to keep up, especially if you were using water regularly. That is assuming your system has a hot water storage tank.

littlequickie

Possibly, it is set to 50 degrees and when we moved in was 55 but we turned it down -would this be too high? We both work so only use water first thing in the morning and when we get back at night weekdays. Weekends we are much the same as we don't spend masses of time in the flat. Sorry I am not really helping much here am I?

bryanb

50 degrees sounds reasonable, it's hard to know what to advise, perhaps a check on the meter. Maybe turn all the gas off for 24 hours and see if the reading increases, pipework could have been confused , and maybe your meter feeds someone else.

littlequickie

That's a good thought. I will suggest it to my boyfriend tonight. Maybe we can turn things off and see what happens. Sorry to have been so non specific with it all, am just a bit baffled and worried.

We went away for the bank holiday weekend and it was still using a unit of gas a day (went up three while we were away) so could possibly be part feeding something else.

Am just a little worried we may have a fight on our hands trying tp prove we have not used all that is says we have. Sigh. Its never simple. The water company can't find our water meter either - its not with the others that are new. No idea where it is.

Lovely flat, just been a pain getting things organised. Only got council tax banded two weeks ago - 3 months after moving in and over 6 months since work on it was completed.

Thanks for the suggestions, much appreciated!

HaushinkaGreenDay

Hi littlequickie,

It does sound as if your meter is either connected to someone else's gas (it does happen!) or it's faulty.

Another possibility could be that the boiler is cycling on/off - either due to a pre-heater if you have a combi, or due to a thermostat problem if you have a hot water cylinder. I doubt they would account for a massive increase in gas, though.

Out of interest, what is your meter reading now? 1 metric unit per day is around 11kWh a day, at a calorific value of 40.1. If you have a hot water cylinder and were using it, this would be about normal. Also, pilot lights can use a surprising amount of gas - if it's permanently on it can use anything from 3kWh per day upwards.

I hope it gets sorted for you.

Your landlord was rather naughty though for taking away the instructions for the boiler and CH timer system - by law he should give you a copy so that you can operate the equipment safely, efficiently and properly. This also applies to any other equipment provided with the flat, e.g. oven, fridge, dishwasher etc.

You should ask him to provide the instructions - I can understand that he may not want tenants to have the original copies, as they can get lost/damaged, but he can easily photocopy the relevant sections for you, and he's obliged to by law, anyway.

Good Luck!

Haushinka

PS

The Health and Safety Executive recommends a hot water temperature of no less than 60 degrees celsius, to ensure bacteria present in the water is killed off. This applies even to non-stored hot water systems, e.g. combi boilers, as bacterial growth is accelerated at temperatures below 55 degrees celsius.