pre paid gas meters

HappyMJ

If you are paying too much per kWh that is your problem you need to switch to a cheaper supplier. How many kWh's do you get for your £7? It is very easy to do you own meter test. If you have a combi boiler just turn the water on and using a stopwatch take a meter reading exactly 60 seconds apart for 6 minutes. You'll need to read all the digits including the red ones. If you have a conventional heat only boiler then wait till the house has cooled down and turn the boiler and thermostat to max with all the radiator valves open. The difference between each reading should be about the same then multiply the sum of the readings by 10 to get how much gas is used in 1 hour. Look at your boiler manual to find the gas flow rate. They should match or be fairly close.

macman

The meter can't be tested on site. So they change it for a new one, if the old one is found to be accurate, you are charged for the change.

MickMack

33trevor wrote: »

I have a problem with my pre-pay gas meter. I am paying about £7 a day for gas. Had appliances checked yesterday, all ok. No leaks detected. Phoned BG for advice.....nothing. All they can do is get meter checked, but it seems that they have to take the meter away to do this. Help anyone.

There have been cases in the past where older meters which measure gas volume in hundreds of cubic feet (ft3) have been read but the owner has been charged based on the newer meters which are in cubic meters (m3)

Is it an old meter, if so you might need to check the units

Also rather unhelpfully gas suppliers tend to charge in KWH units but the meter reading is in cubic meters (M3) but there are websites where you can convert, i think its roughly 11Kwh = 1M3 so you should be able to work out your unit price

spike7451

MickMack wrote: »

There have been cases in the past where older meters which measure gas volume in hundreds of cubic feet (ft3) have been read but the owner has been charged based on the newer meters which are in cubic meters (m3)

Is it an old meter, if so you might need to check the units

Also rather unhelpfully gas suppliers tend to charge in KWH units but the meter reading is in cubic meters (M3) but there are websites where you can convert, i think its roughly 11Kwh = 1M3 so you should be able to work out your unit price

I believe Watchdog did a piece on that issue;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2009/01/are_you_paying_too_much_for_ga.html

I pay around £30 a month for my gas with Firmus energy for heating & hot water.

duchy

BG's price went up a lot recently-I'm really noticing how much more I'm feeding mine at the moment too.

SwanJon

MickMack wrote: »

33trevor wrote: »

I have a problem with my pre-pay gas meter.

There have been cases in the past where older meters which measure gas volume in hundreds of cubic feet (ft3) have been read but the owner has been charged based on the newer meters which are in cubic meters (m3)

While this may happen with the suppliers' computer systems, and thus affect bills & statements, I have never come across a prepayment meter that is charging in a different unit to the one it is recording in - the meter knows if it is metric or imperial.

As such, how much you are topping up won't be affected even if the computer system is wrong.

You can check how much you are paying per kWh by looking through the screens on the meter.
From the credit screen with the card out press and hold the red A button until the screen changes.
The prices are on screens 9 & 10. It's also worth looking at 25, 26, 27, 00, 01, 02 & 03 to see what is happening to your top ups.

chanz4

Take a reading the same time everyday for a week, if its around about the same mon-friday but slightly higher sat/sunday dont bother with the test your meters fine you need to cut down on usage

chanz4

SwanJon wrote: »

While this may happen with the suppliers' computer systems, and thus affect bills & statements, I have never come across a prepayment meter that is charging in a different unit to the one it is recording in - the meter knows if it is metric or imperial.

As such, how much you are topping up won't be affected even if the computer system is wrong.

You can check how much you are paying per kWh by looking through the screens on the meter.
From the credit screen with the card out press and hold the red A button until the screen changes.
The prices are on screens 9 & 10. It's also worth looking at 25, 26, 27, 00, 01, 02 & 03 to see what is happening to your top ups.

The billing systems can have this issue if on the flows it says imperial when it should be meteric. Also this can happen when its a converted iron bridge meter

SwanJon

chanz4 wrote: »

The billing systems can have this issue if on the flows it says imperial when it should be meteric.

Agreed, but as above this won't affect how much the meter charges.

chanz4 wrote: »

Also this can happen when its a converted iron bridge meter

It's been a while since I've come across any Ironbridges. If I remember correctly the Meter serial numbers for these (on the prepayment module) is something like L**500 (or L**501), where ** is a 2 digit year.

If I do remember the format correctly and the OP has a different format MSN then we can discount that option. It's probably so rare it wouldn't be the first thing to look for.

chanz4

Ngrid and scotia are using refurbs of these at the moment. One question which was ignored was when was the last l/lords gas inspection done