Reading a gas meter

maurice28

I moved into a new home in late October, and signed up to British Gas dual fuel OnlineSaver3 tariff. I also added EnergySmart to this, so am submitting monthly meter readings to them to ensure accurate billing. I just had a question about reading the gas meter.

I took a meter reading on the gas meter when we moved in, which is a ‘digital’ meter with five white digits, followed by three in red. I ignored the red digits and submitted the reading from the white digits, which was 05812.

British Gas then text me asking for my meter reading, which they asked for in the format G1234. So I checked the meter reading, which for argument’s sake (I’ve forgotten the exact reading) was 06812. So I text back G6812.

Just wanted to check, have I done this right or wrong? With British Gas asking for just 4 digits I ignored the first zero as it was a zero when I submitted it the first time.

The gas bill came back at £80, compared to £36 for electricity, for the month. I know it’s hard to judge if this is right, but just wondered if anyone could advise if I’m likely to have messed up the reading!