Anomalously high gas bill - from British Gas

CazeryBird

MeteredOut said:

CazeryBird said:

My brother used to work in their complaints department and said its very clearly an error and he saw similar corrected regularly without this amount of fuss. Again my plumber has confirmed that it isn't possible for our house to have used that amount of gas: 50,000kWh a year..

The Ombudsman isn't going to accept "my brother said its clearly and error and he worked in their complaints department". My experience is that those that deal in suppliers' complaints departments (unless he is L2/L3 escalations) know little more than the scripts they work from about meters.

Is your plumber willing to write a signed statement, as an expert witness, stating your house could not have used that energy?

I'd change your spreadsheet to add a column that shows the time difference between those readings (will probably be easier if you change column B to a DD/MM/YYYY HH:MM format and then your new column can subtract the two), and then another column showing the usage during that time (usage divided by the new time difference column). At the moment, its impossible to tell if those readings are askew.

Oh absolutely. The brother thing is just an anecdote but he was high enough to deal with escalations so gives me some hope that I can fight the claim.

I think our plumber would sign something to support us. He installed our new boiler and all our rads and services the boiler annually.

I will be updating the spreadsheet as well. The photo is just a quick one I whipped up a few minutes ago from the photos on my phone. Thank you for the suggestions though, I'll use them

CazeryBird

MeteredOut said:

Why haven't you turned it off during the day, so you can watch/record it?

Use an app like LensBuddy (its free) to create a time-lapse video (it can take a picture every minute and creates a video from it).

Mostly because I've been at work through the day and then dealing with poorly children most nights then poorly myself. I'm off work for the holidays from Thursday so will bank up the fire and turn off the supply for a day.

MeteredOut

CazeryBird said:

MeteredOut said:

Why haven't you turned it off during the day, so you can watch/record it?

Use an app like LensBuddy (its free) to create a time-lapse video (it can take a picture every minute and creates a video from it).

Mostly because I've been at work through the day and then dealing with poorly children most nights then poorly myself. I'm off work for the holidays from Thursday so will bank up the fire and turn off the supply for a day.

Sounds like a plan - hopefully you won't need a day. If the meter is clearly incrementing whilst isolated, a video showing that (ensure you have the level turned off in the video, along with the visible meter readings) for even less than an hour should be enough

Gerry1

You need to specify the 'Reading' units.  Are they m3, ft3 or kWh? The reader should be able to see at a glance, they shouldn't have to look elsewhere or guess (perhaps wrongly).

QrizB

Gerry1 said:

You need to specify the 'Reading' units.  Are they m3, ft3 or kWh? The reader should be able to see at a glance, they shouldn't have to look elsewhere or guess (perhaps wrongly).

OP has a Secure Liberty meter, reading in cubic metres (see photo on first page of this thread).

Sadly the speadsheet so far only shows the expected daily use. Whatever glitch happened to the meter, it occurred some time between December 2023 and November 2024.

MeteredOut

QrizB said:

Gerry1 said:

You need to specify the 'Reading' units.  Are they m3, ft3 or kWh? The reader should be able to see at a glance, they shouldn't have to look elsewhere or guess (perhaps wrongly).

OP has a Secure Liberty meter, reading in cubic metres (see photo on first page of this thread).

Sadly the speadsheet so far only shows the expected daily use. Whatever glitch happened to the meter, it occurred some time between December 2023 and November 2024.

I'd agree with this - i stuck the numbers above into a spreadsheet and there's nothing unusual here. OP, I'd caution raising a case at a time when the meter is seemingly working ok.

Date	Period (days)	Reading	Units Used (m3)	Units/day	kWh/day
28/11/2024 20:49		9672
29/11/2024 09:42	0.54	9676	4	7.451	45.451
29/11/2024 21:12	0.48	9679	3	6.261	71.140
30/11/2024 06:41	0.40	9684	5	12.654	143.781
01/12/2024 07:41	1.04	9690	6	5.760	65.449
02/12/2024 12:09	1.19	9697	7	5.902	67.058
03/12/2024 08:59	0.87	9706	9	10.368	117.808
03/12/2024 22:21	0.56	9711	5	8.978	102.009
04/12/2024 08:41	0.43	9716	5	11.613	131.954
04/12/2024 22:51	0.59	9722	6	10.165	115.498
05/12/2024 07:59	0.38	9725	3	7.883	89.574
05/12/2024 21:39	0.57	9730	5	8.780	99.770
06/12/2024 14:21	0.70	9737	7	10.060	114.307
06/12/2024 22:51	0.35	9741	4	11.294	128.331
07/12/2024 22:24	0.98	9747	6	6.115	69.479
09/12/2024 22:30	2.00	9768	21	10.478	119.060

CazeryBird

What does this mean then. Am I going to have to pay money I don't have for a bill that is incorrect? They also say they are doing the direct debit for an estimated 4k bill over the next year. I can't afford that monthly outgoing.

CazeryBird

Gas was so much simpler when I was on bottles! Hugely regretting moving into a house with mains.

CazeryBird

I've responded to then again and asked for the detailed breakdown of my usage since I joined them in Sept 2022. The full details vanished from my end of the account when they erroneously transfered my account to another supplier at around the time the blips happened (I still wonder whether this could be linked...). I've also asked them how I get a new smart meter as this one is near the end of it's battery lifespan.
All I can do is show how my previous and recent usage is average apart from the three blips... I'll start collating evidence for the Ombudsman too. Boiler details and a letter from the plumber/installer, details of our general use patterns. House size and details along with number of rads. I'll note that we heating the downstairs with a log stove and have no gas appliances.
Is there anything else useful I could collate?

CazeryBird

And I'll still try to do a 12 hour stint with the supply off, just to eliminate this as a current issue...