Is my meter faulty? Huge gas bill!

Johnandabby

So thats about 7 kwh in 80 mins? I'm sure someone else will check my maths

Not a consistent increase though - anything special happened between 11.35-11.55?

macman

Sorry to query, but basic point-do you have any other gas appliances in the property? Gas hob/oven/fire? Is this actually your own meter? House, flat?
The definitive test is to turn off the supply at the meter. If the boiler still fires, then it's not your meter. If it does, then the meter is faulty.
Re the metric/imperial billing, how many meter units does that bill show (difference between opening and closing reads)?

FlakeHC

Nothing special between the timescales. We only have a gas boiler and no other gas appliances. The merer is definitely ours as we live in a detached house. I switched the gas main off during the readings above.

RavingMad

That points to a faulty meter then, surely?

We live in a 4 bed detach and only use 4 units a day

daveyjp

If the meter is increasing with the main gas off there is obviously a problem with it.

macman

So clearly a faulty meter. Get the meter reported as faulty, changed and make sure you are then reg'd for a metric meter, not imperial.
Once your correct consumption is established, the supplier will rebill you based on an estimate-this usually works in your favour.

insanegloss

Woah, not so fast there! You have remember that mechanical meters cannot clock up any usage without fluid (gas) flow, unless you have found a way of breaking the laws of physics and a solution to the worlds energy issues.

Same principle goes that they cannot clock up vastly more usage than you really use, sure there can be inaccuracies in the order of +- a few percent which isn't what the OP is suggesting.

There are much simpler and much likely explanations that aren't meter accuracy related. Metric imperial mix up, large (in terms of power, kW) boiler and not realising it, crossed meters, etc etc. Having been heavily involved in meter accuracy tests in my time at BG, the vast majority (especially gas) we're correct and within tolerance, and those that weren't, were not much over the tolerances.

insanegloss

What type of meter is it, one with an LCD display or not?

FlakeHC

LCD display. Spoke to gas engineer and he says figures are ridiculous. Thinks I my usage is nuts. 35000kwh since December. He also thinks it's most likely I have a gas leak. He is coming round tomorrow to check. I can't smell gas though

FlakeHC

LCD. It is a big boiler 42kw Greenstar CDI but it is only on 4 hrs a day and only supplies heating and hot water. Dishes are done in the dishwasher. The house is unoccupied during the day hence only 4 hrs plus we have a coal fire that we used during the cold winter months so there was few occasions that we boosted the heating. It also does not explain why the meter is still clocking up 1 unit an hour when the boiler is switched off at the wall and there is no pilot light on. Last night I took meter readings when the boiler was off and the meter still managed to clock up 11 units in as many hours.

I spoke to a gas safe engineer and he thinks I have a leak and is coming to check it tomorrow. His reasoning is that when I did switch the gas off at the meter the usage although did not stop dropped to about .64 units over and 80 min period. I can't smell gas though and I'm usually pretty good at picking up smells.