Leaking gas in retal flat on wrong meter.

Bboy

Hello all,

this is complicated.

The building that I rent a flat in is an ordinary old house that has been converted into four flats, two upstairs and two downstairs.
Flats one and two (upstairs) share one gas boiler running off their own gas meter.
Flats three and four (downstairs) have a different gas boiler running off a different gas meter.

When I moved in some two years ago, the landlord told me this is your gas meter, it is only for the flats upstairs.
Ever since then I have been taking a reading from that meter and paying for the usage. Everything was fine until I had the bill for the last winter quarter.
The cost had gone up over three times. I expected an increase because of the recent price hikes, but this was crazy.

I contacted the landlord and explained this, he wasn't interested. He said everyone's bills had gone up. I said no, this is too much, can I have the system checked please?
He replied, there is no system just a boiler and that is under two years old and has been checked. So nothing was done. So my upstairs neighbour and I paid the bill.

Since then (about two months ago) I have been checking the gas meter readings weekly.
They have continued to increase. I have asked for the system to be checked several times but to no avail.
I even asked for the landlord to lower the heat setting on the boiler, which he did.

Last week I awoke in the middle of the night, I felt dizzy. I could not smell gas, but I opened the windows and started to feel better.
I decided to order two gas alarms . When they arrived, I put one in my kitchen and one in my bedroom.

Last night the alarm in my bedroom sounded. I awoke my neighbours and called the emergency gas phone line.

The engineer arrived. He checked my gas meter and found no problems. 

He then checked the other gas meter and found two serious leaks.  Both leaks were after the meter.
We now have both gas meters turned off.
He put on his report that he couldn't do a full inspection because he did not have access to the boilers.

The boilers are in a locked garage / basement at the back of the house and only the landlord has a key and he is on holiday in Portugal.

Now it gets interesting.

The gas leak was from the meter for downstairs. Our gas bill had increased, but the downstairs tenant's bill had stayed reasonable.
So it seems that the upstairs tenants were paying for the downstairs gas and vice versa. 
I guess that the amount overpaid for the winter bill is about £600 and the current bill about £350.

So how do we claim for the extra we paid and from whom? 

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Stephen

MultiFuelBurner

That's going to be difficult to unravel.

Do you each have an individual mprn for your gas supply(on your gas bill from your provider)

Just because there has been a gas leak doesn't necessarily mean your higher bill is because of this. But yes it's a coincidence that needs investigating.

You need to get to the bottom of whose meter connects to which boiler and the leak point first and then get those registered correctly for all four flats.

Then if it is the case of the leak being on the landlords side of the meter and it affecting your bills you need to have a nice conversation with them as a first step and guage their response.

theoretica

You will soon have a gas engineer out to sort the leaks - ask them to document which meter goes with which property.  You may even have a system where one meter does the downstairs boiler but upstairs kitchen (how do the pipes run to give a leak in your bedroom?)

Once you have that documentation you would need to get the address records sorted out with your energy supplier and billing swapped if they are indeed the wrong way round - then your neighbours may be the ones arguing the leak should not be paid for.  Or maybe they were just using a lot of energy if their bills didn't go up when they did.  But the first stage is checking on which meter really serves what!

Bboy

Hello and thank you for your comment.

At the moment we are stuck because the engineer can't find and fix the leak until he has full access, but he can't get that until the landlord returns from Portugal.

Yes, I have the mpn for our meter, I will ask the downstairs tenants when they return from work.

When the supply is reconnected after the repairs, if I get them to turn on only one meter first and then check which flat has hot water, that should clear up which meter supplies which flat.

MultiFuelBurner

Sounds good a bit of active investigation 👍

Good luck and maybe you have right of access to break in being without heat and hot water.

The LL are they contactable even if in Portugal as I don't know about you but it was 0oC here last night.

artyboy

If there is a leak, wouldn't the gas company have (or be able to obtain) emergency powers of entry? Really quite surprising that anyone thinks it's ok to just wait for the LL to get back from Portugal in order to fix something that could be a risk to life!

Bboy

Hello all,

The gas supply to the house has been turned off, so there is no risk.

Yes, I realise that we have to sort out which meter serves which flat.

Thanks for the replies.

ThisIsWeird

Has the meter - which you'd assumed to be yours, and which doesn't have a leak - been turned back on? If not, why not? If it has, whose boiler is working again - upstairs or down?

loubel

When is the landlord due back and have you been able to contact him to inform him of the issue? 

Bboy

Hello all,

Progress has been made!
The landlord sent a gas engineer to check everything, which he did.
There was a leak from the gas meter downstairs and another from the gas boiler.
He also checked which gas meter was feeding to which flat.
Yes, we were paying to the wrong meters.
The downstairs tenants have accepted that we were paying each others bills and we are now going to compare bills and they have agreed to pay us the excess, we also will tell the gas companies which meter belongs to each flat.
So my problems are over.
The downstairs tenants are going to claim for gas lost from the leaking boiler (which they have no access to, and no control over) from the landlord.

So thanks to everyone for your responses, it was  greatly appreciated.

Stephen.

MultiFuelBurner

Great result👍