Impossibly high gas consumption

Wolfy6

Hello everyone!

I live in a 4-bedroom house together with 4 other people (that makes 5 of us). Our gas & electricity supplier is British Gas. A while back, the housemate which held the accounts decided to move out, so I moved the accounts to my name. Since then, I have received a bill on the 1st of October, and since then, I haven't heard anything from them.

Thinking that this is odd, I decided to submit a meter reading, to maybe encourage them to send me the bill. Once I did so, I realised the numbers our gas meter is showing are absolutely insane.

To give you an idea, from the 30th of August to the 27th of September (roughly one month), our usage was 866kWh. Between the 27th of September and the 1st of October, they gave us an 'estimate' of 111kWh. What follows is the real fun part. After submitting the read, our usage from the 1st of October until now (25th of November) is a staggering 4620kWh.

Now, I know this is for almost 2 months, and I also know that the last bill was based on an estimate. But judging by the fact that for one month, we had a usage of 866kWh (based on submitted readings), this should have been around 1700kWh, not 4620.

I cannot remember exactly when we turned the heating on, it may have been on in August or it may have been off. Our heating consists of a boiler upstairs and about 5 radiators. Having said that, how can the usage possibly be so high? Can the meter be broken?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

HappyMJ

As it gets colder consumption increases quite dramatically. A "staggering" usage of 4,620kWh over 7 weeks isn't that bad at only 84kWh per day which is quite normal for this time of the year. Your usage per day will be even higher in December, January and February.

dogshome

Chances are that your meter is OK - Your problem with the present billing is due to that 'Estimated' reading in October.
This was far too low, and now the situation has caught up to reality with an actual reading

Assuming you have the past bills up to the date you took over the account, it would be worth doing the homework by going through them to see what your true Annual consumption figures are

This will not only give a good measure of the yearly cost to each House-mate, but will also allow you to use a Switch site to check the value of your present supplier agaist all the others

macman

You may not have had the heating on, but you are presumably heating your hot water also by gas (and maybe cooking)?
5 people sharing, that's quite a lot of baths and showers probably.
Your ex-housemate may have realised that the bills were under-estimated, and did not submit reads in the knowledge that he/she was moving out, and would benefit by leaving the catch-up bill to the rest of you. Or just didn't bother submitting regular reads at all, without realising the consequences. Assuming that you have a reading from their exit date, pursue them for their share.

[Deleted User]

Check that you are being billed for the correct type of gas meter, if you have a metric meter, 8 numbers, and they are billing you for an imperial meter. 5 or 6 numbers, you would get a bill approx 2.8 times more.

Cardew

I agree with the above that 4620kWh in two months(Oct/Nov) is not that high for a 4 bed house with 5 occupants - around £20 to £25 a week.

It sounds like a student house?? where possibly some of the bedrooms are used as 'bedsits' and students are not known to be ultra careful with gas/electricity use!

Is the house well insulated - again, if a student house, many are not well maintained.