Faulty gas meter - huge bill

parker1982

A relative has recently received a gas bill for over £600 so has caused a bit of a panic (never gave meter readings and just accepted the estimates).

I've got 2 relatives who live 2 streets apart, identical house types, both with British Gas on the same tariff. Spend similar amounts of time at home. my brothers gas units are 4 per week, my cousins are 27 per week. The only real difference between their usage is my cousin has the central heating on for 1 hour in the morning compared to my brother.

Using the compare your usage tool on the BG website, it shows shes using around 7 times as much gas as the area average.

My thoughts are the meter is faulty as I cant see any other reason for such a massive variation. I will be speaking to BG on Monday, just wondering if anyone else has gone through something similar.

Robin9

Do look at the actual accounts - estimated readings ? What tariff ? Has the meter been changed to a metric one ?

Get your facts together ?

spiro

When you say units, are you comparing like for like meters?

Robin9

BG won't talk to you about their accounts - only yours.

macman

Identical regions, house sizes and hours of running mean nothing-what matters is insulation levels and (primarily) heating levels. I set my room 'stat at 19C. Someone on here yesterday said that the 'natural temp' (for them) was 22/23C. Do you really think that our bills would be the same, everything else being equal? I'd expect their heating cost to be at least 30% higher.
You simply can't make such comparisons unless all the factors are the same-which they never will be.
However, I suspect in this case that the OP is comparing metric units to imperial units as suggested by spiro above, in which case the variation is about half. Compare the actual kWh usage, not the volume.

victor2

macman wrote: »

Identical regions, house sizes and hours of running mean nothing-what matters is insulation levels and (primarily) heating levels. I set my room 'stat at 19C. Someone on here yesterday said that the 'natural temp' (for them) was 22/23C. Do you really think that our bills would be the same, everything else being equal? I'd expect their heating cost to be at least 30% higher.
You simply can't make such comparisons unless all the factors are the same-which they never will be.
However, I suspect in this case that the OP is comparing metric units to imperial units as suggested by spiro above, in which case the variation is about half. Compare the actual kWh usage, not the volume.

Hits the nail on the head there.
Very unlikely to be a faulty meter, but not impossible.
Few things you can check...
With no gas appliances running (fully shut off the boiler if it has a pilot light), check the gas meter and note the reading, including the fractions of units. An hour later, verify that it hasn't changed.
Assuming it hasn't, gas isn't leaking away and/or phantom usage isn't being recorded.
Then use one appliance for an hour and see how many kWh have been used by taking the readings again and converting the units to kWh. The formula should be on the latest bill, as it is different for imperial (marked HCF) meters and metric (marked m3) meters. Just double check that the bill matches the meter type as well.
Takes a bit of effort, but will give you an idea what is using how much, plus you have the other house to compare it to. The heating will far and away be the highest user, but they could have a boiler which is running very inefficiently, or could be using it more than is really necessary.

parker1982

Thanks for the replies, bit more info:

Calculations done on the actual readings taken this week.
Both have metric meters.
Same tariff = Fixed price August 2015
Arranged to be added as a nominee so I can speak to BG.
Average usage for the area for 3 months = £63 (taken from BG compare your usage tool), brother pays £12, cousins currently working out at around £180.

Both have them set for 19 degrees.
Cousin runs her heating 1 hour in the morning and 2 hours in the evening.
Brother starts work first thing so only uses heating 1-2 hours on an evening.

My brothers meter is marked as M3, will have to check the cousins later to be sure.
Had my cousin try running one appliance at a time and she said when running the hot
water there was a jump in the reading but no change when the central heating or cooker were used.

Regarding the boiler, this was replaced in December, but wasn't compatible with the
existing meter so BG replaced the meter with a reconditioned unit. The boiler is A rated,
and all the readings are based from when this meter was installed to present (no actual meter readings from the previous meter so not mentioned that period previously).

If the meter isn't faulty, I'm wondering if its possible for a boiler to be fitted incorrectly and that could be causing the problem.

facade

From your first post, is the problem the estimated bills have always been too small, and now there is a real reading the £600 is taking up the deficit?

You need to check actual consumption over a couple of weeks by repeated meter readings.

System

Meter replaced - this would have resulted in an actual meter reading being passed back to supplier. Surely, the question you should be asking is whether the current actual usage is excessive. It's a pretty simple calculation. My guess is that this is a catch up bill.

victor2

Hengus wrote: »

Meter replaced - this would have resulted in an actual meter reading being passed back to supplier. Surely, the question you should be asking is whether the current actual usage is excessive. It's a pretty simple calculation. My guess is that this is a catch up bill.

Plus, if you are using figures from the catch-up billing to compare usage, it will be way out. The data BG will be showing is the (low) estimates followed by a large spike when actual readings were taken. You'll only get realistic usage figures when both the "from" and "to" readings are actual ones.

parker1982 wrote: »

Had my cousin try running one appliance at a time and she said when running the hot
water there was a jump in the reading but no change when the central heating or cooker were used.

Presumably, it's a combi boiler if the usage increased as hot water was drawn off. Cooker usage will be very small, but the heating will be the greatest user - WHEN the boiler is heating the water, not if it is just pumping already heated water round. Running the heating for a period of time (like an hour), with the thermostat demanding heat, will cause the boiler to cycle the burners on and off as the radiator water cools.

parker1982

facade wrote: »

From your first post, is the problem the estimated bills have always been too small, and now there is a real reading the £600 is taking up the deficit?

You need to check actual consumption over a couple of weeks by repeated meter readings.

I don't believe so, the issue is that the BG compare your tool shows that over a 3 month period the average cost in the area is £63, and hers is £180 based on consumption. I would expect this to set off some sort of alert to BG in the same way you'd expect a bank to get in touch with unusual transactions on an account. Even so, I think its reasonable to expect customers to be submitting a meter reading on a monthly basis to catch things like this straight away.

Hengus wrote: »

Meter replaced - this would have resulted in an actual meter reading being passed back to supplier. Surely, the question you should be asking is whether the current actual usage is excessive. It's a pretty simple calculation. My guess is that this is a catch up bill.

When they swapped the meter, BG took the figure from old meter and then when they installed the new meter they didnt align the figures, so in the space of 1 day her units used went up by about 4000. I phoned them a few days ago and they then correctly aligned those which reduced the bill but now left with this issue of why her usage is so high.