Faulty electricity meter in my favour

pluspad

Hi all,

I am concerned my electricity meter is faulty. We are with British Gas and a shiny brand new meter was installed last November. The meter has been read a number of times by me and by British Gas, the last time by British Gas a few days ago before my most recent quarterly bill.

The bill is for the period 17th November 2015 - 13th Feb 2016 - 89 days, and it says I have used 140kWh. My bill came to just £37 and some change??

This seems awfully low for 3 months usage, we have a 4 bed detached house.

Does this sound like the meter is faulty? Should I contact British Gas?

[Deleted User]

Its hidden away in the T/C s to report a faulty meter ( if known ). the meter most likely to break down is a small white digital meter, usually made by Ampy or Landys and Gyr which has a habit of going blank at every opportunity, but then you would nt be able to see a reading to know you have used onlky 140kwh..Can you give me the make and model of the meter and yes of course you should report it to BG , theres no such thing as a free lunch.

Eric_Disley

It might be that the meter is faulty or it might be that the previous reading was wrong or the bill has been calculated incorrectly? You could keep an eye on it over the coming week and see how many units you use? Or stick something that uses a lot of electricity on e.g. a 3 kWh electric fire for 20 minutes and see if the reading goes up a unit?

I'm sure plenty will come along and say it's your legal / moral / patriotic duty to tell British Gas if you think it's under-reading but up to you as far as I'm concerned. There might be a big bill down the line if it was found to be faulty and they tried to re-coup the loss.

pluspad

sacsquacco wrote: »

Its hidden away in the T/C s to report a faulty meter ( if known ). the meter most likely to break down is a small white digital meter, usually made by Ampy or Landys and Gyr which has a habit of going blank at every opportunity, but then you would nt be able to see a reading to know you have used onlky 140kwh..Can you give me the make and model of the meter and yes of course you should report it to BG , theres no such thing as a free lunch.

I'll double check the make and model tonight.

Eric_Disley wrote: »

It might be that the meter is faulty or it might be that the previous reading was wrong or the bill has been calculated incorrectly? You could keep an eye on it over the coming week and see how many units you use? Or stick something that uses a lot of electricity on e.g. a 3 kWh electric fire for 20 minutes and see if the reading goes up a unit?

I'm sure plenty will come along and say it's your legal / moral / patriotic duty to tell British Gas if you think it's under-reading but up to you as far as I'm concerned. There might be a big bill down the line if it was found to be faulty and they tried to re-coup the loss.

Testing it over the next week is a good idea.

Anyone have any experience of suppliers trying to reclaim money from a faulty meter under reporting usage?

[Deleted User]

Its a very common thing with electric meters going blank. They just estimate ( in the customers favour ) on past or future usage. I average about finding one a week over the year with the little Ampy digital meters going blank.

matelodave

Suppliers will estimate your consumption if they think the meter is wrong. It's up to you to decide whether their guess at your consumption would be accurate.

Hopefully you've got records of what your consumption was with your previous meter and you are reading this one correctly. Trying to get away with not reporting it as soon as you've noticed might just backfire with a big bill.

Did you check it when it was installed and take a reading - new ones aren't always set to zero.

pluspad

matelodave wrote: »

Suppliers will estimate your consumption if they think the meter is wrong. It's up to you to decide whether their guess at your consumption would be accurate.

Hopefully you've got records of what your consumption was with your previous meter and you are reading this one correctly. Trying to get away with not reporting it as soon as you've noticed might just backfire with a big bill.

Did you check it when it was installed and take a reading - new ones aren't always set to zero.

Yeah both I and the installer checked the reading after the install, it wasn't set at zero, it was 1141. The screen is still working on the meter and a few days ago was 1281.

I don't know if it is faulty, that was the reasoning behind this post ,to try and get an idea if 140kWh for 3 months is possible/reasonable/completey crazy etc...

You say they will estimate if they think the meter reading is wrong, how would I know if they have done that?? The most recent reading they took from a few days is on my latest bill(not an estimate)

Thanks for all the advice.

matelodave

140kwh over 89 days is unfeasably low - its about 1.6kwh a day. Assuming that like most people you got a fridge, freezer, use the lights, TV washing machine etc I'd guess that most people would average around 6-8kwh a day, so a more realistic amount would be 550-650kwh.

Even if I go away and shut nearly everything down I can't get mine to less than 3kwh a day (Fridge, Freezer, router, Sky box and a couple of powerline adapters to connect the sky box to the router))

Lady321986

Sounds faulty or you have solar panels, guessing the last one is not likely as not mentioned.

You should report it really so you don't have problems in future. If it was other way around and over registering think what you'd do.....

Also in their T&C's in section 5.6 it states your contract is to tell them. Hope this helps.

[Deleted User]

140 kwhrs over three months in summer is very possible if you have solar panels, and an old mechanical meter with a rotating ring. Many of these meters dont have a backstop on the ring and will take units off as fast as you put them on AND credit the feed in tariff meter. Digital meters will not go backwards. I ve seen many people with these who know about it and make sure each quarter advances its reading so as not to alert supplier.
OP has a digital meter so we can rule that out. If BG meter readers come out and read the meters ( thats us at G4S ) then they will accept the readings. A human will not even check it and find it odd. My own electric smart meter has advanced even less than the OPs in the last 3 months so its not unusual. So its down to the OP if he/she informs supplier.
I would like to add that the Ampy.landys and Gyr or Seimans little digital meters is known to act strangely before it gives up the ghost and go blank.we have had a couple of posts on here about the same meter adding units madly then going blank, so I suppose the same meter could subtract units also.

CashStrapped

sacsquacco wrote: »

I would like to add that the Ampy.landys and Gyr or Seimans little digital meters is known to act strangely before it gives up the ghost and go blank.we have had a couple of posts on here about the same meter adding units madly then going blank, so I suppose the same meter could subtract units also.

What meters (of the modern digital ones) are usually the most reliable? Do certain utility companies favour a certain make of meter?