Gas consumption up over 10,000 Kw/h in 1 month!!!

oopsidaisy

Hi, hoping for a bit of advise please.

I manage my grandparents utilities online and for the past 18 months we have been with First Utility and can't compain because everything has working without a problem. I submit the readings online, my grandparents pay for what they have used... a happy little merry-go-round.
Until yesterday, I open their January bill and it is £570!!
So I start checking meter readings, bill frequency, previous payments, comparing this months usage with same month last year... etc... etc... and all I can come up with is that their gas consumption for last month is 10,000 kw/h more than it is ever been in the 18 months with First Utility.
So I bit my lip and rang my Grandad to give him the news and he is sure that they haven't done anything out of the ordinary last month to any other winters month.
So my questions to you are...
What do I do???? What could cause such a significant fluctuation in consumption???????

I have emailed First Utility but apparently they can take up to 10 days to get back to me. I understand calling them on the phone is a nightmare..... so do I arrange for a gas engineer to come and check out the meter and the supply and any appliances they have running on gas? If I do this what sort of expense am I looking at? Is the meter in the property owned and maintained by the supplier or the property owners?

I look forward to receiving your advise.

Kind Regards,

Ooopsi.

macman

The meter is not the property of the occupier or owner, only the supplier can initiate a meter test via the meter asset company, which may or may not be the supplier or DNO.
Gas meters are not tested on site anyway they're replaced and the meter sent for testing: if it's found to be within tolerance then you'll be charged the fee for a meter change.
Are you sure the readings are correct (both opening and closing) during that month?
Who read them: agent, owner, or estimated?

Count_Dante

I wouldn't have thought it was possible for a normal sized house to use 10,000KWhs of gas in a month. It is far more likely that there has been an error in the readings, either now or previously.

molerat

Have they been using your reads for billing or inventing their own ?
Have they mysteriously changed the reads from metric to imperial ?
Was the last meter read accurate ?
Has the meter been changed and not recorded ?

dogshome

From your post it seems that you are pro-actively manageing your G'parents Gas/Elec bills - You give the readings, you recieve the bill to check it and then G'parents pay the bill directly.

Are the bills issued Quarterly?.
How many Gas Kwh on the Jan.2014 bill, compared to the Jan 2013 bill?
Has the Gas meter been changed ?
Does the Meter No.on the bill match that on the actual meter

A long shot
Supplier errors in the type of Gas meter the customer has, is a regular problem and though usually caused by a meter change, FU recently made one on a simple Customer Switch of supplier, so it's worth doing the check

The meter will be either marked as ft3 as an Imperial type meter, which delivers close to 31.5 Kwh per meter unit, or m3 for a Metric type meter which delivers close to 11.2 Kwh per meter unit.
By dividing the meter units used into the Kwh charged, you can check that billing is or isn't correct, for the meter type