Smart meter questions

Mansard

We've just got a new tariff and part of the contract was that we had to get smart meters installed. We'd wanted them for a while anyway and so decided to make the appointment ourselves for as soon as possible. A friendly gentleman from British Gas came and installed it this morning and was all done within half an hour.

We've recently moved in to our new house. Our first bill for gas and electricity was on a standard tariff and we paid an estimated bill of £110. On checking my British Gas account after our second monthly bill (which was under £80, on our new tariff), I noticed the previous consumption estimate was four times higher than our actual usage the following month. Is it common for them to be so inaccurate?

Another question I have: when the gentleman from British Gas came to install our meters, he told me he had submitted the last readings on my behalf. After just checking my British Gas account, I see the gas reading submitted by the technician reads over four times higher than our usual monthly usage, and the electricity consumption shows a five digit number instead of two! Is this something that happens when you get a smart meter fitted? Am I to be concerned?

Something else that confused me: our electricity bill is always higher than our gas bill, but today - with our new smart meter - by midnight we had used £2.95 gas and 76p electricity. I was expecting the electricity to be higher than that considering it is never not in use and I don't think we've done anything else differently today than usual. Does this seem like a normal daily average cost?

All in all, I'm happy with my smart meter after the first day. I'm willing to give it a chance!

matelodave

Please, please read the meter, not the IHD. Check your bills against the meter readings and make sure that they are using readings from the meter and not still estimating. Dont just trust and assume that your billing is correct just because you've got a smart meter - check and make sure.

Even when my meter was smart, the bills were three months out of date so I would check and record my meter reading every month so I could correlate that with my account on the suppliers website.

Likewise do not take a lot of notice of the cost displayed on the IHD, its frequently wrong, wont include any discounts and may not even include the standing charge. Mine did but it was miles out and there was no way to change it.

IMO you should use the IHD to monitor your consumption in kwh so you can see whats on and whats off. Mines a convenient way to read the externally located meter remotely (but do check to ensure that what the device shows is exactly what the meter displays). I keep my own records and check my on-line bills & statements monthly.

Mansard

Thanks Dave, that sounds like good advice.

Incidentally, today, according to the IHD, we used £3.58 gas and £1.76 electricity - total £5.34. We have had the central heating on permanently though and the gas fire for several hours.

boo_star

When they fit the new meter they'll supply the final meter reading on the old one. This is the same if it was a "dumb" meter.

You should probably have taken a meter reading before your meters were changed but the fitters aren't really out to con you, so I suspect you were just using more energy than you were being billed for.

Robin9

There will have been a card left by the fitters but new meters will probably read 00000.00 - get into the habit of reading your meters regularly - watch out for the decimal point and ignore numbers after the decimal point., Keep a simple spreadsheet to work out cost. Don't forget that for gas you need to multiply your reading by approx 11.2.

[Deleted User]

The higher estimates will be based on historic readings from the property . Suppliers will need a full winter of your occupancy to get a better yearly estimate, especially with gas usage .Nearly all UK electric domestic meters will need a five digit number including any leading zeros..No such thing as a two digit electric meter reading..
The exception is the meters that most small suppliers are using , which are designed for business usage .These Secure Liberty meters have 8 digits for both gas and electric and have a decimal point on the last digit., so only the first 7 digits are used.

Mansard

Houbara wrote: »

The higher estimates will be based on historic readings from the property . Suppliers will need a full winter of your occupancy to get a better yearly estimate, especially with gas usage .Nearly all UK electric domestic meters will need a five digit number including any leading zeros..No such thing as a two digit electric meter reading..
The exception is the meters that most small suppliers are using , which are designed for business usage .These Secure Liberty meters have 8 digits for both gas and electric and have a decimal point on the last digit., so only the first 7 digits are used.

I know the meter reading is a five-digit number. What I said was about our consumption. On my British Gas account, for example, our previous two meter readings showed consumption records of 78 kWh and 70 kWh. Just eight days after the last reading, the reading sent by the British Gas man shows our consumption at: 94264 kWh.

I am still confused by this.