Massive Electric Jump on Meter

MrsB100

We have lived in our house for 15 years and use British Gas for our electric. We have been a bit complacent with meter readings (as in we don’t really) but when the meter was last read in August 2019 by British Gas. The estimated consumption was pretty spot on and only had a small increase in Bill. I yesterday checked our meter and couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing.  We are on Economy 7 and the usage had gone up some 114,000 KW since August 2019. Equating to usage of some 214KW per day!! This was on the night meter.  This is almost as much as our entire usage in the proceeding 15 years.

It had gone up so high the person at the call centre couldn’t even put the reading in the system and they sent an engineer out. After looking at it they said the meter looked correct but something had very clearly gone wrong. To add to the problem this reading is what British Gas have been taking as our night reading, when in fact it should have been day!  They have been reading our meter wrong since we moved her in 2006. 

We are two people living in a cottage.  Has anyone had experience of this?  I am absolutely terrified. I am waiting to register a 24 hour period and it looks to be about 45kw which is high but unusually we did put our underfloor heating on all day in the kitchen which genuinely is very unusual. This would be a very high energy day for us.  Clearly no where near 214kw per day including all over the heatwave.  This is going to be about £20K+. Something has clearly gone very wrong and a massive kick in the …. To us for not regularly checking our meter ☹ I feel sick

Anyone have any experience of this? Heard anything like this.

Robin9

Give us your readings please and a photo if possible and a copy of the most recent bill (blanking out personal info and account number)
It can be easy to mis-read a meter - watch out for the decimal point !!!!!!!!!!!

MrsB100

We had two engineers here yesterday. I doubt that all of us would read it wrong.  120688 the reading from BG in Aug 2019 yesterday was 235110.

Robin9

What did the other register read.

Photo please - and then the meter readers on this forum can comment.

matelodave

Hopefully BG will see that there's been a problem but its very difficult to try and work out what it is and when it happened if the meter hasn't been read for the past 18 months or so

I suggest you start doing daily readings of both registers so you get some idea of your consumption profile to show BG some evidence or what your normal usage is.

I'm afraid you are joining a long long list of people who haven't bothered to keep an eye on things and now getting a big bite on the bum from which it may be difficult to extricate yourself from.

MrsB100

Other was 080504 August 19 and 088986 yesterday.  This is what BG thought  and have been charging us as day meter but is now quite clearly the night. I'll get photos

MrsB100

matelodave said:

Hopefully BG will see that there's been a problem but its very difficult to try and work out what it is and when it happened if the meter hasn't been read for the past 18 months or so

I suggest you start doing daily readings of both registers so you get some idea of your consumption profile to show BG some evidence or what your normal usage is.

I'm afraid you are joining a long long list of people who haven't bothered to keep an eye on things and now getting a big bite on the bum from which it may be difficult to extricate yourself from.

Yes that is what we are doing now.... agreed.  But BG must see unless we are running a fairground 214kw a day is excessive. But, I am worried common sense may not come into this. Very hard for us to prove we haven't used it I guess apart from previous 15 years consumption

matelodave

MrsB100 said:

matelodave said:

Hopefully BG will see that there's been a problem but its very difficult to try and work out what it is and when it happened if the meter hasn't been read for the past 18 months or so

I suggest you start doing daily readings of both registers so you get some idea of your consumption profile to show BG some evidence or what your normal usage is.

I'm afraid you are joining a long long list of people who haven't bothered to keep an eye on things and now getting a big bite on the bum from which it may be difficult to extricate yourself from.

Yes that is what we are doing now.... agreed.  But BG must see unless we are running a fairground 214kw a day is excessive. But, I am worried common sense may not come into this. Very hard for us to prove we haven't used it I guess apart from previous 15 years consumption

Have you still got all your old bills as evidence or are you hoping that BG has been saving them just in case this sort of thing may happen.

I'm not being unkind but you are sort of hoping that someone else will have more common sense to try and sort it out than you displayed by not checking your bills and meter readings and just accepting estimates.

MrsB100

Yes, I have all my bills. I'm not hoping for someone else to sort out at all.  What I actually asked is if anyone has any experience of this happening to anyone else.  I am more than capable of sorting it out myself. The fact other people have kindly offered is not what I asked for at all and not what I have taken up.