Help. Smart meter gas kwh usage spike

Synderist

Hi, I have a problem.

I live in a 2 bed terrace house as the main carer for my elderly disabled mother. We have one gas fire in the back room, one gas fire in her bedroom and a gas cooker. There is no central heating and the water is heated via an electric immersion heater.

Had a smart meter for several years. No longer checked regularly until yesterday. Utter shock it was reading that the Gas kwh use over.the last 7.days was approx 2800 Kwh, last.28 days 14,000Kwh and.the last 12.months 88,000 Kwh.

So I checked the energy bills and the first 6 months of 2022 was showing 25,000 Kwh.

Now as I keep my energy statements from 2017 I coild see how many Kwh of Gas I have been using
2017 - 12,000Kwh
2018 - 14,000Kwh
2019 - 12,500Kwh
2020 - 14,000Kwh
2022 - 16,000Kwh.

So as it looks like I've been using
85,000 Kwh this year I panic and called the gas emergency, who came and.checked the meter last.night.  there is no gas leak.

The energy statements bill is due this or next week.   There is no conceivable way possible that the gas usage at this property has increased 5 fold.  

The smart meter seems.to be recording the electricity usage a accurately.   

I'm concerned as the direct debit is due to be changed at the end of this month, and my mother who is the bill payer and only on a state pension and attendance allowance wouldn't be able.to afford the £10,000 a year gas bill and subsequent hike in the price of the monthly direct debit

This hike in gas usuage is obviously wrong.   

But I can't see how the meter this year has started to take inaccurate measurements.  As it and the smart meter display  have been fine since 2017.  Unless the algorithm that calculates the Kwh from the meter has been changed remotely by utility company ?

What's the best way I can approach british gas.  

I really don't want them to come and  take away the meter.check it state it working fine (and then charge you for.the check) and claim the usage is correct. 
I don't deal with confrontation well so any advice is appreciated 

macman

Your figures don't make any sense. You said that you used 16,000kWh in 2022, then that you used 88,000kWh in the last 12 months. We are only 3 weeks into 2023, so which is it?
Give us some meter reads, current and from about 12m ago.
Obviously given the scale of the increase it is very much in your interest to have the meter checked, but more info is needed.
Have you checked from the bills that the conversion from cu m to kWh's is being done correctly? Approx conversion factor is 11.2.
Is your smart meter sending actual reads that are shown on your bills, or are they estimates?
When did you last supply a manual read?

Spoonie_Turtle

Are they perhaps calculating your kWh thinking your meter is recording in ft³ rather tham m³?

pochase

What do you think how they can check what is going on without them checking your meter?

Have you checked your bills if they show the meter readings as an estimate or were they correctly submitted readings?

What is the last not estimated reading on a bill (and when) and what is your reading today?

macman

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Are they perhaps calculating your kWh thinking your meter is recording in ft³ rather tham m³?

Unlikely if the smart meter was installed in ?2017 and the billing was fairly consistent until recently. OP needs to give proper info to make sense of this.
A false conversion from cu ft would result in the bills increasing by 283%, the OP is suggesting the factor is much higher than that, more like 550%.

macman

Has the OP possibly been submitting manual kWh reads as if they were cu  m reads?
The key to this is getting some historic reads.

Spoonie_Turtle

macman said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Are they perhaps calculating your kWh thinking your meter is recording in ft³ rather tham m³?

Unlikely if the smart meter was installed in ?2017 and the billing was fairly consistent until recently. OP needs to give proper info to make sense of this.
A false conversion from cu ft would result in the bills increasing by 283%, the OP is suggesting the factor is much higher than that, more like 550%.

Whoops, I misunderstood the post, yes I see that now.  Well, some of it is still confusing: 

"the last 12.months 88,000 Kwh.

So I checked the energy bills and the first 6 months of 2022 was showing 25,000 Kwh.

2022 - 16,000Kwh"

[Deleted User]

Hi,

Synderist said:

Had a smart meter for several years. No longer checked regularly until yesterday. Utter shock it was reading that the Gas kwh use over.the last 7.days was approx 2800 Kwh, last.28 days 14,000Kwh and.the last 12.months 88,000 Kwh.

are you talking about the IHD or actual meter, have you misread the actual meter?

Could we have some readings please?

CanNeverThinkOfAUsername

I think the OP is talking about his IHD and not the smart meter

Synderist

Hello folks thanks for.your response. Let's see if I can give some clarification.

Firstly I have written energy statements from British gas dating from 14toct 2016 to 13th July 2022.  

The figure of 16,000.Kwh was.for the whole of 2021 not 2022.  

I have a written energy statement for the first half of 2022 which states the figure of 25,583.01 kwh (compares.with 8613.15 with same period last.yeat 2021)

I am waiting for the energy statement for the last.half of 2022 to arrive within the next week.

The smart meter was installed early 2016

I'm.taking the.readings from the landis+gyr ecometer model no 5262C. 

The.meter that attaches to the gas mains has one very display and.2.buttons and I cannot work out how to take a reading from it.

So my landis + gyr is saying thr following

Gas usage today 18/01/2020 - 335.83kWh

Over the last.7 days - 2917.5kWh

Over the last.28 days - 13732 kWh

Over the las12.months - 88792kWh

Rate now 10.24 pence/kWh

Present total.resding 18269 m3

Electric usage 

Today - 7.66Kwh

Over last 7 days - 73.4kWh

Last.28 days - 296.7kWh

Over the last.12.months - 3074 kWh

32.81 pence/kWh

The other meter that attaches to my electric meter is the E470 smart meter.

Spoonie_Turtle

Can you not see your actual readings online in your account?