HUGE gas bill... help!

D_M_E

You just press a button and it provides a figure - yes, but what and which figure?

When you press the button, doe it say KWH right next to or under the figure you are providing?

If so then this is the wrong figure.

The reading you want from a push button gas meter should say M3 or something similar next to the reading and this is the reading you should supply to your supplier.

What happens if you keep pressing the button?

Does the meter cycle through readings?

If so then the M3 reading is the one to give your supplier, not the KWH one which is about 11.2 times the M3 reading.

EDIT - what brand and model is your meter and do you have an instruction manual for the thing?

Robin9

My meter is an Elster themis Alpha and this has a single black button and the first screen is in m3 - Lisa and danny is that like yours ?

Pressing the button pages through some help screens, right and left arrows show Rate 1, rate 2 etc but in useful info.

Its the Secure Liberty thats a pain - where you need to press button 9


Have you any other readings from the last 12 months ?

Andy_WSM

D_M_E wrote: »

You just press a button and it provides a figure - yes, but what and which figure?

When you press the button, doe it say KWH right next to or under the figure you are providing?

If so then this is the wrong figure.

The reading you want from a push button gas meter should say M3 or something similar next to the reading and this is the reading you should supply to your supplier.

What happens if you keep pressing the button?

Does the meter cycle through readings?

If so then the M3 reading is the one to give your supplier, not the KWH one which is about 11.2 times the M3 reading.

EDIT - what brand and model is your meter and do you have an instruction manual for the thing?

I think you're close to the issue here. When I had gas (I don't any more) the smart meter would give the reading in both kWh & M3. The first press of the button would give the reading in kWh and it took an additional press to get the (volume) M3 reading.


If the OP is submitting readings in kWh and the supplier is multiplying these up through the conversion formula thinking they are volume readings then there's the discrepancy.

Robin9

As in #10 - the supplier has also read the meter and confirmed the readings

brianposter

Lisa_c31 wrote: »

Could it possibly be that there was a fault with the meter that has corrected itself?

This is not impossible. We have recently won a court case in Spain on the basis that our electricity smart meter was providing incorrect readings for about six months, presumably because of a software fault in the meter.

D_M_E

It's also possible that whoever read the meter for the supplier simply did as OP did and pushed a button and noted down the first reading that showed, which could well be the wrong one.

Lisa_c31

Thank you all for your help so far.

I’m currently running the heating on full for an hour to see how that effects the reading so will update as soon as I know that.

The meter is a Landsit GYR Libra 310, I’m not sure we have an instruction manual for it but I can check.

When we first press the button it just says “Credit - On” then when you press it again it says “15804.862m2” which obviously gives us the reading of 15804. If you continue to press the button, nothing happens, it just scrolls through those 2 screens. There is nowhere that it shows kWh as one of you suggested may be the case.

Unfortunately we haven’t been taking regular readings ourselves and so we have been unaware of the issue. Obviously a huge lesson learnt by that now and we will be taking regular readings.

I believe that that covers all points raised and hopefully helps? I will update with the increase in usage from having the heating on full for 1 hour once the hour is up.

I really appreciate your help, advice and time, thank you all!!

Lisa_c31

So I have had the heating on full for an hour (the house is roasting!), the reading doesn’t seem that bad, it’s only increased from 15804.862m3 to 15805.887m3. That doesn’t seem like a massive increase but then I don’t really know. As I said in an earlier post I do think our main issue was February through to July when the reading (according to the smart meter thing in the house) was off the chart. If this is the case and the readings now look normal how to we go about proving a fault that is no longer there?

D_M_E

For an hour on full the boiler should probably use approx 1.5 M3 or about 16KwH or thereabouts.

Your reading given above is about half of your 70,000KwH so there must have been a misread somewhere - either that or a faulty meter or a leak somewhere.

When the boiler has finished the hour, power everything gas down, shut down the boiler and turn it off.

Next, go to your gas meter and there will be a tap next to it which should have a lever on it to turn off the gas supply.

Turn off the supply and wait a minute or so.

Now, with the display showing the reading, turn on the supply.

Does the reading bump up lhe reading on the last fraction digit when you turn on the supply?

If so then you have a leak as the bump in the reading is the system repressurising after loss of pressure from a leak - this is what the gas man did to start finding a leak in our system, turned out to be a leaking seal.

System

By the sound of it, you are reading your meter correctly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LDDgzKmiGw

Taking your readings above, you have used 1 cubic metre of gas which for a metric meter equates to about 11.22kWhs

You need to check your last bill to make sure that you have a conversion formula similar to this on your bill:

* Your energy usage is calculated from your gas
consumption using a standard industry formula:

Units Consumed (Cubic Meters)
× Volume Correction (for temperature & pressure)
× Calorific Value (energy in each m3 of gas)
÷ 3.6 (convert from joules)
» Usage (in kWh)

For you:
53.0 × 1.02264 × 39.3† ÷ 3.6 = 591.7
† Average calorific value shown to one decimal place

If the supplier is mistakenly using a cubic foot to Kwh conversion, then the single unit that you have used today will appear on your statement as 31.5kWhs. It is a common mistake that suppliers often make.