Gas meter reading gone up by 400k

Smallchap

Hi all,

My girlfriend recently submitted a gas meter reading and remarked to me that something seemed off. She said it had gone up massively. It's her house so she deals with bills and readings etc. However she said she struggled to understand the readouts and asked me to have a look.

It's an old school imperial meter measuring in cubed ft. It's a number display though and not a dial so no confusion there. I assumed there was a simple explanation. After checking the readout she is correct with her reading of it. After checking her supplier account each reading up until now (validated) is in the range of 3***. This increases steadily over the course of the year with this supplier. The recent reading is 7***. According to the meter we have used 400,000 cubed ft of gas this quarter.

I assume that usage is beyond the level of "boiler is inefficient" or "might be a leak" and if true would be more in the region of there would be a crater where the house used to stand? We are guessing the old meter is now faulty. I have checked the reading again today and we have used 5 units in roughly 2 days. 250 cubed ft a day. This seems much more reasonable. At this usage it would take 4 and a half years to use the 4000 units we apparently used in 90 days.

I can't believe her supplier is going to send her a bill for all that gas as surely something must flag that as a mistake, but she would rather not wait to find out. I guess the two questions first are, are we missing something obvious or being stupid? And Who do we contact is it her supplier/British Gas and what do we want to achieve? New meter?

SmallChap

PeterGr

Suggest that you get a table of meter readings for at least the last 12 months, and keep taking daily readings. Then raise it with your supplier urgently.


Also why do you assume 1 unit is 100 cu.ft. It is more likely to be just cu.ft which you multiply by 32 (approx.) to get kWh. 4000 units is 128,000 kWh which is consumption on a commercial scale.

Mr.Generous

Just in case … You ignore the last 2 digits on gas meters, so if last month was say 7298 and this months was 786451 things might not be as bad as you thought.

Could she have forgotten to ignore last 2 numbers?

Smallchap

We have 12 months of meter readings. As I said it goes up steadily (a few hundred units a quarter) and then jumps by 4000 units on the latest reading.

I am assuming 1 unit is 100 cubic feet because its my understanding this is how the meter reading works. On a cubic metre display the 5 digits are just cubic metres used. On a cubic ft display the 4 digits are hundreds of cubic ft used. I could be wrong on this? But I believe 1 unit is 100 cubic ft.

I wish it was that simple. The reading has gone from approx [3650]xx to [7650]xx

[Deleted User]

If the imperial meter is in an area such as an outside box or a garage then it could be venting a leak where it would be not that noticeable especially if the outside box door is nt shut as many are.
Just a suggestion, something to rule out before blaming a faulty meter.
Personally in 20 years of meter reading I have never known a mechanical Imperial gas meter advancing the index uncontrollably . .Digital metric meters occasionally can do this.
The problem is much more likely to be a mis read where a 4 is read as a 7

chrisw99

I found this useful tool for converting gas meter readings (both imperial/metric) into kWh...

https://www.ukpower.co.uk/home_energy/gas_meter_readings

If you have jumped up 4000 units that = 126,634 kwH. Using my gas rate of 3.47p a kWh = £4,394 !!

Have you had a bill yet??

Tom99

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Yes the meter reading is in 100's cubic feet.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]If you look at a past bill you can see how that figure is converted:[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]100's CuFt say 1,000[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]x 2.83 to M3 = 2,830[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]x Correction factor 1.02264 = 2,894[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]x Calorific Value 39.2/3.6 = 31,513kWh[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]The above factors will differ slightly depending on your supplier.[/FONT]

macman

Post a piccie of the meter please. As Houbara suggests, this has to be a misread. Also post your annual usage in kWh from the last annual statement.
How much is your DD currently set at for gas?

Smallchap

Hi again all, thanks for your responses.

The meter was probably once external to the house but is now inside a garage built around it. I guess it could be leaking? Although I would like to think I would notice the smell of gas every time I need to get my car out. Is it possible to have an intermittent leak as the current increments seem fine. More on that below.

I understand the scepticism and in part that's why I wanted to post before contacting the supplier and making myself seem stupid. After Googleing 50 threads of similar complaints they all boiled down to user error or actual usage. Perhaps this is the same.

We have not received a bill for this quarter yet, due in a couple of days which is why we were asked for the reading. Looking forward to a £4.5k bill haha!

Similarly this is the fourth quarter with this supplier (and that my girlfriend has owned the house for). Ie she is now at the one year mark so doesn't have annual usage figures.

Pic below of the reading taken 3 days ago. I've just checked it now and the reading is at 7682. An increase of 7 units in 3 days seems fine to me and would suggest no leak? Unless intermittent if that's even possible?

http s://imgur.c om/a/R5SUK9A

I'm fairly sure our reading of it is correct. However I've never seen the meter before now and my gf took no pictures previously (why would you if it was working fine). I guess previous readings could have been wrong. However my gf thinks she's had at least one meter reading in the previous 12 months and pic below is of the validated readings we have given to our supplier previously.

http s://imgur.c om/a/xYFzU5j

Are we being stupid haha?

Sorry 2 spaces added to the image links. As a new user frustratingly I can't seem to add any links or images to posts. Probably not the worst policy!

Tom99

Well there is no error in your current reading. If there had only been one past reading it might have been a 7 but recorded as a 3, however you have 4 past readings so I don't think they can all be a mistake.
Looks like a faulty meter that has jumped from 3 to 7.

chrisw99

A picture speaks a thousand words eh... that is definitely a 7. The fact her previous readings were 2945 then 3369 rules out reading the first number incorrectly as there was a rollover from 2 to 3 in there.

Even if it had somehow rolled from 3999 to 7000 so it's really now 4675, that's about £1200 of gas used since August so probably not the answer either.

Really does seem like it's rolled to that number somehow.

We have not received a bill for this quarter yet, due in a couple of days which is why we were asked for the reading. Looking forward to a £4.5k bill haha!

Hmm, if I were you I wouldn't be waiting a couple of days for a 4k bill, I'd be on the phone right away kicking up a fuss.