Potterton Suprima: Approximate Gas Usage for Central Heating

uk1

Thanks for the replies.

The situation is becoming quite bizarre! I'll update!

The house is a naturally warm house in that when the central heating is on the radiators rarely warm up. I believe this to be because it is a modern (1996) mews house that derives most of it's warmth from the houses on each side and large south facing windows. In fact even when the ambient temperature outside - today - is 16 deg outside the inside temperature is 23 degs with no heating.

We've been with npower for exactly two years. On the meter readers annual readings ie when we started with npower and their opening reading, then plus one year the plus second year, we used £15 worth of gas in the first year and around £1500 since February this year for 21 days occupation based on official meter readings.The meter number we can see is also different by one digit to the one on the bill and they say the number on our meter isn't even on the national database.

So the process now is that they are going to investigate the meter number discrepancy (I have no doubt it is the same meter just an error when the house as built and original meter number entered) and when that is complete they will test the meter. The tell me that if the meter shows up as good during the test then they will bill for the full amount. There is no acknowledgement of the possibility of an intermittent fault. I can show that the number of days we have occupied are as I stated and that the central hating was switched off at the mains.

I mean this respectfully. Some of the npower people I have discussed these issues with neither provided reassurance or seemed to have a base level of knowledge. One manually calculated gas usage based on two readings and got it out by a factor of 11 ie he said it was £39 when I calculated (correctly) it was £435, and the tried to waffle over the error. Another didn't understand the nature of direct debits. Another did a search on the national meter database on the wrong address. I am concerned about the lack of competence and that common sense isn't going to be a part of this process.

I have an awful feeling this is going to end up, stressful and nasty. I have a feeling tha t they will say the meter is sweet and we'll end up in court.

Thanks for the interest from others including the npower lurker. I'll keep the thread updated.