British Gas Electricity Bill

ljs2000

Thanks everyone for your replies.

I have found my meter readings which are

20 June (the day we moved in) 68 which was read by me

24 October 155 which was read by me

26 January 248 which was an estimate

26 February 344 which was read by me

08 April 3990 which was read by someone who came to read the meter.

I have a normal fridge, no swimming pool or anything that is out of the ordinary. I am really confused. I am going to check my usage every day for the rest of the week and see where I am on Friday.

Thanks for all taking the time to answer.

P.S. between me checking the meter last night at 7.30pm and now at 11.33am we have used 17.5 units (4077.5) we have only watched tele and I have the washing machine on!

KimYeovil

Has the meter reader reading not just been input incorrectly? Should it not be 0399.0? Or the earlier readings are wrong - they should be 2480 and 3440?

Are you sure you haven't used just 1.75 units overnight? If it is 17.5 then something is wrong.

macman

Switch everything you can off and look at the meter. Is it still moving? You must have has a meter fault develop since 26/2, as you can't possibly have used 3,646 kWh in about 40 days-that's about a years normal consumption in a house with gas CH!
Edit: your meter should have 6 digits on it. Ignore the one on the far right in red (0.1 units). Your readings should therefore consist of 5 digits including the leading zero if necessary.
You said your last reading was 4060-is this actually 04060 or 406.0?

ljs2000

macman wrote: »

Switch everything you can off and look at the meter. Is it still moving? You must have has a meter fault develop since 26/2, as you can't possibly have used 3,646 kWh in about 40 days-that's about a years normal consumption in a house with gas CH!
Edit: your meter should have 6 digits on it. Ignore the one on the far right in red (0.1 units). Your readings should therefore consist of 5 digits including the leading zero if necessary.
You said your last reading was 4060-is this actually 04060 or 406.0?

Thanks for your reply. The last reading last night was 04060 and today it was 04077.

I have just spoken to british gas and they put me through to the department that does checks before they will come out to check the meter. Whilst talking to her she said that she thought my readings had been far to low through the year and she thought the meter was probably catching up on itself now. I dont quite understand how the meter could suddenly catch up. I know my readings were correct when I gave them. The lady told me it would be normal for me to use 17 to 19 units a day as I have a fridge/freezer, free standing freezer, dishwasher, washing machine. I have always had these appliances even before I lived here.

ljs2000

mattcanary wrote: »

Just a thought ljs, did you phone in the meter reading to your supplier. If you did, did you give the 00s before the actual numbers in your meter.

As you have stated this is a new house, I'm assuming the start reading was very low so BG could quite easily have billed you based upon their being no 00s in front of the reading - meaning they have calculated that you have used a huge amount of electric.

Just a thought...

Thanks for this, I actually gave the readings online as I have online billing. I did put the two 00 first.

laurence_2

I did put the two 00 first

that probably is where you went wrong. Is the last number 04077 in red?

004077 is not the same as 04077

Or the meter reader went wrong, unlikely but possible.

Laurence

macman

ljs2000 wrote: »

Thanks for this, I actually gave the readings online as I have online billing. I did put the two 00 first.

Have you disregarded the 6th digit, (in red) which is 10ths of a unit? If you entered the 6th unit then this will have been taken as the last complete unit and your reading will be higher by a factor of 10.
For example, a reading of 407.7 should be entered as 00407.

ljs2000

laurence wrote: »

that probably is where you went wrong. Is the last number 04077 in red?

004077 is not the same as 04077

Or the meter reader went wrong, unlikely but possible.

Laurence

no, the meter reading is 04077.7

macman

ljs2000 wrote: »

no, the meter reading is 04077.7

Sorry to labour the point, but did you submit that reading as 04077 online then?

laurence_2

26 February 344 which was read by me

so was that reading 034400 or 003440?

Laurence