Gas Meter hasn't moved since October! 12 January at 12:32PM in Energy 3 replies 383 views

Sibbers123

Hello all!

My gas meter hasn't moved since October (when I moved in). It is a SMETS2 (Smart Meter). I have notified my has supplied twice and waiting for an engineer to come and sort it. In the meantime they are estimating my gas usage. I live in the property on my own and spend around 25% of my time at my girlfriends so they have seriously over estimated my gas usage. The previous occupier was a family with two children, so it is very unfair that they estimate it based on historic use.

What are my rights and what is the best way to resolve this? I keep taking pictures of the meter and sending meter readings with the same reading in the hope it will speed them up!

Thanks

EssexHebridean

Have you raised the issue with the meter as a formal complaint with them? If so, if 8 weeks have passed without resolution then you can take it to the Ombudsman - even the threat of this might make them decide to get the meter replaced more urgently. Once you have the new meter, your use then should inform an appeal against the previous estimates. 

dunstonh

We had something similar with our water meter and I kick myself for raising it with them.   Water table is high where we live and for about 6 month of the year, the meter would be underwater.   I couldnt read the meter and rang them.  I turned out that every period when it was under water, the meter stopped working and froze. They put a new meter in (the first since the 1980s). So, for years we were paying £15pm when we should have been paying about £40

They didnt bill us for any extra use as they had no way of telling what that use could have been.

You wouldn't expect to pay estimates on historic use by a third party.  You may well find that they don't charge you anything.

Ally_E.

We had a problem with a water meter too and Thames Water didn't charge us for 4 months while they were sorting it out. I doubt the energy company would do the same though.