High gas consumption - faulty meter?

PeteHi

Our bills have just been put up to £173 per month for gas alone.

There are two adults and a 1 year old living in a 4 bed end terrace. (Radiators are always off in the rooms we don't use).

6 months gas consumption is 30,000kw.

The boiler is only 13 months old and is a Worcester bosch (decent make?).

We're all out during the day, so gas is only used in the evening and at weekends.

Seems a bit high to me, is there such a thing as a faulty meter?

Any ideas?

bryanb

Have you checked that your meter is not metric and being charged as imperial?

copier_guy

We had a Worcestor Bosch boiler fitted a few years ago and were hit by a MASSIVE bill.

after much debating with the installer and the gas company and Worcestor Bosch, they sent an engineer out who diagnosed a faulty gas valve on the boiler, apparantly it was working on full chuck regardless of the setting we selected!!

aelitaman

I have a Worcester Bosch boiler a combi and it is the largest they make (or was when I bought it).

My boiler uses 3 cubic meters of gas per hour at full power, of course in theory once the water in the CH system is at temperature it should not be on 100% of the time.

So if you have the heating on for 5 hours in the evening and 12 hours at weekend that is 49 hours per week x 26 weeks is 1274 hours in a six month period.

1274 x 3 cubis meters gas = 3822 cubic meters of gas

This is 42444 Kwh of gas.

So it is posible that you have uesed 30000Kwh of gas I have not factored in hot water for example my boiler expends .33 cubic meter of gas just keeping the temporary water store in the boiler hot so there is instant hot water, that is 111 quid per year.

You need to start taking measurements and check the temps that you have set for hot water and the radiators and how good is your installation.

I use about 24000 KWH of gas per year. most in the winter months in the sumer I am on about 5Kw per week which is showers and no stored hot water.

aelitaman

copier_guy wrote: »

We had a Worcestor Bosch boiler fitted a few years ago and were hit by a MASSIVE bill.

after much debating with the installer and the gas company and Worcestor Bosch, they sent an engineer out who diagnosed a faulty gas valve on the boiler, apparantly it was working on full chuck regardless of the setting we selected!!

What were the symtons?

Were the radiators boiling hot even if you set the temp of the water on the boiler to low? was it the same with the hot water?

copier_guy

Symptoms were not that obvious at the time as we had it fitted in winter, It switched off ok but it was either off or on, no middling.

I do remember thinking at the time that this boiler was very good, we had it on the lowest setting but the house was like an inferno, this was until the gas bill arrived.

WB boilers customer service was excellent though

smee29

I have come across this problem before - i would say your best option is to call your gas supplier and tell them that you feel that this consumption is high - that way they can ask you some questions and do some investigating to see why this is so.

Usual questions / things to consider...

1. Have you bought any new appliances that are supplied by gas? Have your circumstances changed, for example have you had any one staying with you for some time..?
2. Have your prices recently increased?
3. Is this bill to an estimated reading or an actual reading... perhaps they have over estimated your consumption - call in with a reading. If your last 2/3 bills have all been estimated and then they finally got an actual reading then it could be a case that they had been under estimating what you were using so you will be 'playing catch up'.
4. is it a dial or digital meter that you have? The dial meters can be easier to read wrong. Always read the lower number on the dial, no matter how close they are.

If your still worried I would take readings a week apart to see what your average weekly consumption is. Your gas provider should be able to use that information to find out what is happening.

Alot of suppliers will want to avoid going down the faulty meter route. If your unhappy with their explaination as to why the bill is high then you can have a check meter installed.... THIS ISN"T FREE. They will normally charge you to install one, and if the meter is found to be running correctly then you may get charged another fee on top. Be certain before going down this route.

I am sure if you call them then they can investigate this for you. If the bill is correct then they should be able to provide you with energy saving advise.

Good luck!

copier_guy

Forgot about that!!

Smee29 is correct, we did take gas meter readings during the problem, almost every couple of hours just to follow the readings, ours was quite scary.

Cardew

aelitaman wrote: »

I have a Worcester Bosch boiler a combi and it is the largest they make (or was when I bought it).

My boiler uses 3 cubic meters of gas per hour at full power, of course in theory once the water in the CH system is at temperature it should not be on 100% of the time.

So if you have the heating on for 5 hours in the evening and 12 hours at weekend that is 49 hours per week x 26 weeks is 1274 hours in a six month period.

1274 x 3 cubis meters gas = 3822 cubic meters of gas

This is 42444 Kwh of gas.

So it is posible that you have uesed 30000Kwh of gas I have not factored in hot water for example my boiler expends .33 cubic meter of gas just keeping the temporary water store in the boiler hot so there is instant hot water, that is 111 quid per year.

You need to start taking measurements and check the temps that you have set for hot water and the radiators and how good is your installation.

I use about 24000 KWH of gas per year. most in the winter months in the sumer I am on about 5Kw per week which is showers and no stored hot water.

It might use 3 cubic mtres(approx 33kWh) on 'full chat' but it modulates down and once the property - as you say - is up heat it switches off.

So you simply cannot take 1274 hours at 'full chat' as the basis for any calculation.

30,000kWh in 6 months is not really creditable with a modern boiler and for the usage of the OP - out all day. 10,000 to 15,000 would be more reasonable.


As said in post #2 the OP needs to check what type of meter he has and check what he is being billed for. A gas unit on a Metric meter(cubic Metre) is approx 11kWh and a gas unit on an Imperial meter(a unit is 100 cubic feet) is approx 31kWh.

Meters very rarely go faulty, and if they do it is more likely that it will be in your favour.

Also check that the bills are not based on estimates, or this could be a 'catch up' bill. i.e. previous bills were based on underestimated readings.