Is my Gas Bill Wrong

angrydad1802

I'm new here so be gentle.

My Disabled Son moved into rented accommodation in October 2020 and I set up his utilities with E.ON now moved automatically to E.ON Next.

The property had smart meters installed prior to him moving in which we hoped would help him keep on top of his bills as he has learning difficulties and doesn't understand the concept of money and how bills really work.

For some reason the smart meter readings weren't going through to E.ON so we were uploading manual readings every few months. Then all of a sudden in May the Electricity readings were going through but still no Gas readings. 

I continued to enter the Gas readings Manually but hadn't noticed that for some reason the gas readings were not being applied to the bill and they were using estimated data. Then in August when I entered the manual reading they generated a gas bill of over £5,000. My son lives alone in a well insulated mid terraced property uses the heating for 2 hours per day and heats his water via a combi boiler. According to the Hugo app which we have linked to his smart meter account and entered the correct tarrif details he is using well under £2 per day on his gas bill.

E.ON next have initially stated that the property is fitted with a conventional credit meter until I sent photo's of the smart meter and all the relevant details and they have finally conceded that the meter is a smart meter and for the past 2 and a half months have said that they will get the records updated. They still however insist that the bill is correct based on the readings provided. They have justified this by stating that the bill is generated by the following formula (copied verbatim from the bill).

Volume used x 2.83(to get cubic meters) x 1.02264 (conversion factor) x 39.1(calorific value) ÷ 3.6 (to get KWH)

looking at all of his bills to date they have billed him for a total of 75617KWH

Am I right in assuming that because he has a metric smart meter that the above calculation is not correct.

I have taken a reading today and based on the reading when he first moved in I believe the following (metric) calculation is the correct one for his usage. Could someone with a bit of knowledge please check my maths

Total Volume Used  M3 - 2381 x 1.02264(Conversion Factor) x 39.1 (calorific value) ÷ 3.6 (to get KWH) = 26445.78 KWH

If I am correct this would mean that his account is a few hundred pounds in credit rather than the £4,200 that they are demanding immediate payment for.

Advice would be appreciated.

JGB1955

Sorry - something wrong going on here.. 26k kWh is double the annual average gas use.

molerat

You are correct.  They are incorrectly billing for an imperial meter so are charging 2.83 times the amount of gas used.

As a side note the calorific value will change with each bill in case you were not aware.

You also need to make sure you are taking the correct reading from the meter, the m3 one and not kWh - easily confused.

FreeBear

angrydad1802 said: E.ON next have initially stated that the property is fitted with a conventional credit meter until I sent photo's of the smart meter and all the relevant details and they have finally conceded that the meter is a smart meter and for the past 2 and a half months have said that they will get the records updated. They still however insist that the bill is correct based on the readings provided. They have justified this by stating that the bill is generated by the following formula (copied verbatim from the bill).

Volume used x 2.83(to get cubic meters) x 1.02264 (conversion factor) x 39.1(calorific value) ÷ 3.6 (to get KWH)

The 2.83 conversion is only required if converting from imperial (100s cubic feet) to metric (cubic metres). A smart meter will be metric - No body makes or installs an imperial one in the UK or Europe.

Send Eon.Next a clear photograph of the meter and instruct them to update the national database recording it as a metric meter. Once that is done, they then need to recalculate all bills from the time your son moved in using the correct units.

If they don't want to play ball, send the same demand, but head it "Formal Complaint". Eight weeks later, you can then refer it to the Energy Ombudsman.

Robin9

molerat said:

You are correct.  They are incorrectly billing for an imperial meter so are charging 2.83 times the amount of gas used.

As a side note the calorific value will change with each bill in case you were not aware.

You also need to make sure you are taking the correct reading from the meter, the m3 one and not kWh - easily confused.

Quite possible.

. Read the meter - as above can be difficult to read - if it has a small keypad you will have to press 9 - you need to look for an entry which has m3 against it.

angrydad1802

It was sent as a formal complaint back in August along with a photo of the meter. They agreed in August that the meter was in fact Smart. They have since then failed to update the accounts.

Since then there have been 6 chase emails from myself the final one being a request for a deadlock letter at the 8 week point.

They failed to respond until I notified them with a 7th email informing them I had escalated the matter myself and gave them the ombudsman’s case reference. The response was a simple complaint acknowledgment.

This was followed by a further email demanding immediate payment of £4,200.

Phoned them again today in response to the demand and was met with a response of we cannot discuss the matter as it has been referred to the ombudsman but they can confirm that the bill is correct.

Now that it has finally dawned on me where the error is I will call back on Monday spend 90mins on hold and ask them to explain to me how many KWH I have used.

angrydad1802

JGB1955 said:

Sorry - something wrong going on here.. 26k kWh is double the annual average gas use.

That would be about right then as that is his total gas usage from October 2020 until today.

ariarnia

the 'average' is for a family in a house so its very possible your son has used a lot less if he lives alone in a smaller property (tho obviously he might have used that much if he likes a hot house or has long hot showers from the boiler).

do you have the meter reading from when he moved in? (it should be on the account if you look back through the statements). then if you can give us the meter reading as of today. that way we can tell you at least how many units (roughly) have been used. 

if he's been on several tarrifs then its more difficult to work out what the bill should be as you need to know when the units were used. 

QrizB

If you get any push-back from E.ON Next, remind them that you've got a smart meter and all UK gas smart meters are metric!

FreeBear

angrydad1802 said:

It was sent as a formal complaint back in August along with a photo of the meter. They agreed in August that the meter was in fact Smart. They have since then failed to update the accounts.

Since then there have been 6 chase emails from myself the final one being a request for a deadlock letter at the 8 week point.

They failed to respond until I notified them with a 7th email informing them I had escalated the matter myself and gave them the ombudsman’s case reference. The response was a simple complaint acknowledgment.

This was followed by a further email demanding immediate payment of £4,200.

Phoned them again today in response to the demand and was met with a response of we cannot discuss the matter as it has been referred to the ombudsman but they can confirm that the bill is correct.

Now that it has finally dawned on me where the error is I will call back on Monday spend 90mins on hold and ask them to explain to me how many KWH I have used.

If/when you get to speak to a responsible adult, point out to them it is a bit presumptuous on their part to be chasing an alleged debt before the Ombudsman has made a ruling.

wild666

You could also alter the temperatures on his boiler to 55 degrees for heating and 50 degrees for hot water this can result in a saving of 20% or more on the daily usage of gas.
If you have the opening reading from when he moved in then just use that against the present reading for example 123 in 2020 the initial reading, 456 present reading then take the 456 from 123 that will give the total units used since he moved in and multiply the figure by 11.3 to give the total kWh used.
Eon should be able to pull 13 months readings from the meter if it's sending readings but if it isn't sending readings expect them to estimate usage over each 6 month period which is going to be little in summer months and lots in winter months. 

If the smart meter are being read then try signing up with an energy monitoring company like Loop or Ivie.