Gas Meter Still Increasing Whilst Gas Isolated (Siemens/Landis+Gyr E6S)

Zandoni

MeteredOut said:

Zandoni said:

The B flag does mean low battery and the meter was designed to have a battery replacement at 10 year intervals. Practically all the meters in the factory that incremented without passing gas were found to be poor solder joints on one the speed of sound sensors. I assume that as the battery as got older it has caused more poor joints to come to light. This is a fact I was there.

Do you if this is documented publicly, as I could find no record of it anywhere?

What do the C, E and d flags mean?

The manufacturer kept the other codes secret, I never saw any of them in the manufacturing process.

Stuart_

MeteredOut said:

samn9 said:

Just tried that - 

So I shut the gas off with the lever, while recording on my phone. Moments later, the reading crept up. 

In case this was a fluke, or caused by moving the lever, I carried on recording for another 20 minutes until I saw another increase.

Hopefully this is sufficient evidence!

You'll need to record it for a while. EDF engineers claimed the boiler would still "draw through" gas even when the meter was isolated from the mains gas (which I believe is technically true, for a small amount of gas).

But, I pointed out to them that with volume of gas recorded as used by the meter, there would have to be a run of 750 meters of pipe between the isolator/meter and my boiler for that to be the case. I didn't get a response to that, but was continually still told thereafter by the complaints handler that it was the boiler pulling through the gas sitting in the pipes. Afterall, their engineer had said it, so it must be true. Very frustrating.

So, I'd definitely have it recorded as incrementing for at least 30 minutes - which is why I went for a time-lapse rather than a video, as EDF could not accept large files. I ended up uploading them to YouTube and sending them the link, which is how I know whether they looked at them, via the YouTube analytics viewing figures.

How did you calculate the length of pipe needed? I've had this argument used against me too both by EDF and the Ombudsman.

MeteredOut

Stuart_ said:

MeteredOut said:

samn9 said:

Just tried that - 

So I shut the gas off with the lever, while recording on my phone. Moments later, the reading crept up. 

In case this was a fluke, or caused by moving the lever, I carried on recording for another 20 minutes until I saw another increase.

Hopefully this is sufficient evidence!

You'll need to record it for a while. EDF engineers claimed the boiler would still "draw through" gas even when the meter was isolated from the mains gas (which I believe is technically true, for a small amount of gas).

But, I pointed out to them that with volume of gas recorded as used by the meter, there would have to be a run of 750 meters of pipe between the isolator/meter and my boiler for that to be the case. I didn't get a response to that, but was continually still told thereafter by the complaints handler that it was the boiler pulling through the gas sitting in the pipes. Afterall, their engineer had said it, so it must be true. Very frustrating.

So, I'd definitely have it recorded as incrementing for at least 30 minutes - which is why I went for a time-lapse rather than a video, as EDF could not accept large files. I ended up uploading them to YouTube and sending them the link, which is how I know whether they looked at them, via the YouTube analytics viewing figures.

How did you calculate the length of pipe needed? I've had this argument used against me too both by EDF and the Ombudsman.

I can't find it now, but I found something online that calculated how long a standard UK copper gas pipe would have to be to store 1m3 of gas. I then multiplied that by the number of m3 of gas incremented by the meter whilst it was isolated from the gas.

Gerry1

It's absurd to claim that gas can flow through a meter when the shut off valve is closed.  The volume of gas between the valve and the measuring device is probably about the size of a Pepsi can (330ml).

Let's be generous and assume it's a big bottle instead (3.0l).  Let's also assume there's no external air pressure and all the gas escapes.  The meter would increment by only 3.0l, i.e. just 0.003 m³.

MeteredOut

It is indeed ludicrous. Here is an exact quote from what EDF told me after viewing the video I shared of my meter incrementing whilst isolated from the gas:

"I can see on the first video the meter read shows as 30117.502 and changes to 30117.507 within approximately 5 minutes. The second video shows the read has advanced to 30117.674 and this was taken approximately 15 minutes later. As we have advised previously, this would just be the gas flowing through the pipes from the meter to appliances as pressure in the internal system will still draw gas through until all gas in the pipes have been used. This can continue to flow for around 30 minutes."

So, 0.172 m3 (172 litres) was apparently drawn through from the meter to the boiler in 20 minutes. The pipe run between the meter and boiler is less than 1 meter.

The boiler was off (so nothing was burning the gas) and the pipe does not have an excessive diameter

I pointed this out multiple times, but they just kept repeating the same line.

MeteredOut

I've found the email I sent them regarding their "draw through" hypothesis:

"I’ve had some discussions with some knowledgeable people about this “draw through” hypothesis and it has been pointed out that a reading change from 30117.502 to 30117.507 equates to around 5 litres of gas (see http://convertwizard.com/0_005-cubic_meters-to-liters), and 30117.502 to 30117.674 is around 172 litres of gas (see http://convertwizard.com/0_172-cubic_meters-to-liters) . 

One meter of 22mm copper gas piping can hold approximately 0.38 litres of gas (see https://www.omnicalculator.com/construction/pipe-volume). So, it is physically impossible for the gas appliances to draw through 177 litres of gas in the length pipework I have between the metre and my appliances. It would have to be over 450 meters in length.

I hope you can accept the issue is not due to appliances drawing through gas after the gas meter has been isolated from the gas."

I got no response to this.

@Stuart_ you can probably use the same sites to put your argument forward.

FreeBear

MeteredOut said: One meter of 22mm copper gas piping can hold approximately 0.38 litres of gas (see https://www.omnicalculator.com/construction/pipe-volume). So, it is physically impossible for the gas appliances to draw through 177 litres of gas in the length pipework I have between the metre and my appliances. It would have to be over 450 meters in length.

You're mixing metres (units of measure) with meters (measuring device) - Irksome at best

 One metre of 22mm copper gas piping can hold approximately 0.38 litres of gas (see https://www.omnicalculator.com/construction/pipe-volume). So, it is physically impossible for the gas appliances to draw through 177 litres of gas in the length pipework I have between the meter and my appliances. It would have to be over 450 metres in length.

MeteredOut

FreeBear said:

MeteredOut said: One meter of 22mm copper gas piping can hold approximately 0.38 litres of gas (see https://www.omnicalculator.com/construction/pipe-volume). So, it is physically impossible for the gas appliances to draw through 177 litres of gas in the length pipework I have between the metre and my appliances. It would have to be over 450 meters in length.

You're mixing metres (units of measure) with meters (measuring device) - Irksome at best

 One metre of 22mm copper gas piping can hold approximately 0.38 litres of gas (see https://www.omnicalculator.com/construction/pipe-volume). So, it is physically impossible for the gas appliances to draw through 177 litres of gas in the length pipework I have between the meter and my appliances. It would have to be over 450 metres in length.

I'm so used to typing meter on this thread

In my defence, when I wrote that email to them, i was probably at my wits end with frustration.

chris_n

You can draw as much as you want through the length of pipe but the only bit that should be measured is the tiny bit between the valve and the meter, about 10cm in my installation. 

BobT36

chris_n said:

You can draw as much as you want through the length of pipe but the only bit that should be measured is the tiny bit between the valve and the meter, about 10cm in my installation. 

Exactly, what a stupid argument they have. If the valve is off so there's nothing INCOMING then the max amount of flow that would be measured is JUST the bit that may be "hanging around" (if that's a thing) in-between the isolation valve and the measuring device of the meter, surely. 
Everything AFTER the meter (between that and the boiler or whatever) is irrelevant as that would have already been measured since it's already passed the sensor..
Unless I'm being completely daft.