British Gas statements incomprehensible to a newbie

oldgreywhistler

I'm trying to make sense of what seems to be an erroneous gas bill on the BG gas dashboard. BG's claimed consumption is much greater than my normal usage. 

The numbers on the statement do not line up with the actual meter readings, some of which I photographed. 

So to get me started, does anyone know how an actual  gas meter reading of 44979m3 can appear on a British Gas statement as 18262?

Ectophile

All energy bills - gas or electricity - are measured in kWh (kilowatt hours).  Electricity meters always read in KWh.  Gas meters measure cubic metres.  So the gas company has to apply a conversion factor.

That's roughly 11.3 kWh per 1 m³.  But it varies a bit throughout the year.

Robin9

What  was the reading on the previous bill?  Take that away from 44979  and ,multiply by 11.2 =  do get 18262 ?

PS if the 18262 is just one quarter you are a very high user.

tim_p

If the reading is 44979m3 then what is the previous reading. Presumably the 18262 figure is gas consumed in kWh. For that to be the case the previous reading would be around 43350. What is that reading on the bill. Maybe post a picture of the bill (redact personal details and meter number)

oldgreywhistler

Thanks Ectophile, Robin9 and tim_p  for getting back to me so quickly. By the way the gas meter was an old metric Schlumberger U6, replaced by a smart one on 19 Nov.

I cannot post screen shots as a newbie so I quote

14 Jun – 17 Sep                 13,945 kWh at 6.337 per kWh                                                                          £868 41

                                             Calculated for 1249.2 gas units at 39.3 calorific value

                                             18262 actual read 14 jun 24

                                             19511.2 estimated 17 Sep 24

sorry, I put the wrong value for 14 Jun in my post,  it was 44929  which appears as 18262. I mixed up my photos.

But you can see that the estimate is grossly high for summer hot water only, in fact I photographed the actual meter reading on 1 October at 44979 meaning usage of 50 cubic metres from June 14 to Oct 1st.

You can see that they took their own value of 1249.2 and then multiplied by the 11.3 to get the kWh.

My problem is understanding how BG convert the meter figures to their own so I can work out what is happening.

Much head scratching continues

molerat

Have you got previous bills to see the meter read history ?  If you photographed "44929" then something has gone wrong to get their read of "18262"

Does the card / label on the new meter have the reading for the old meter at swap date ?

For future reference every time you get a bill you need to download and store it safely as energy companies have a track record of deleting old bills when something goes wrong.

QrizB

Also, do the meter serial numbers quoted on the bill match the numbers on your meters?

oldgreywhistler

molerat said:

Have you got previous bills to see the meter read history ?  If you photographed "44929" then something has gone wrong to get their read of "18262"

Does the card / label on the new meter have the reading for the old meter at swap date ?

For future reference every time you get a bill you need to download and store it safely as energy companies have a track record of deleting old bills when something goes wrong.

Thanks for that good advice molerat; I cannot now access old statements from the BG dashboard, surprise surprise!  I have some older pdf statements. The new meter has a note of the last old meter reading of 45104.

I started a complaint process with BG customer services, but they blandly stated that the bill is consistent with their meter readings. In fact, looking back over the older statements, almost all readings were estimates, I guess I should have picked up on that earlier.

Another question if I may; the old Schlumberger meter serial number was G4 A03747**, but the statements including back to 2022 all show meter serial number as E6512557** 24 62. I have queried this with BG, but no response so far.

QrizB

oldgreywhistler said:

Another question if I may; the old Schlumberger meter serial number was G4 A03747**, but the statements including back to 2022 all show meter serial number as E6512557** 24 62. I have queried this with BG, but no response so far.

That's deeply suspicious.

Is your property a detached house, a semi/terrace, or a flat? Is there any chance that the E61xxx meter is actually connected to a neighbouring property?

matt_drummer

Maybe

The E is the electricity meter

and the G is the gas meter


?

oldgreywhistler

Hi, QrizB, I have wondered about that possibility; we are a detached property. I suppose that BG customer services are even slower over the holidays and I have so far had only a bland fob-off reassurance. As I said, I have asked about the meter serials, if no response in the next few days, I'll raise some more complaints - or would it be better to fake a fault and get an engineer visit under my Home Services contract?