Broken Gas Meter

EmilyG_

We noticed out gas meter had stopped working at the beginning of January. We have tried pressing buttons, etc and it is definitely broken. 

We advised EDF immediately who advised us that the engineering team would be in contact within 15 working days. I keep contacting them and they tel me that they are no further with an appointment to fix the gas meter and I get no further. I have put in a complaint but still have not had any correspondence in the last 2 weeks. 

My concerns are the following;

- they advise me that they would use estimates to charge us but they are only charging us the standing charge so we are concerned we are going to get a huge bill at some point. 

- they won’t get accurate estimates as we are coming out of winter and we are now hardly using the heating so we don’t want to pay for what we are not using. We moved into the house during the winter months so there is no usage history for us. How are they going to charge us and how can we ensure it is accurate?

- Our tariff ends in the summer and I am concerned the meter will not be fixed by then, how will we be able to change energy companies if someone else is offering a better rate when we cannot do a meter reading?

any advice would be much appreciated. 

MeteredOut

They will use industry standard profiles to estimate what your usage will be, perhaps using what the previous occupants used in the equivalent coming months compared to their winter months. I'm afraid there is little else they (or you) can do. You should ensure you're setting aside funds to pay for this.

If you have not already done so, get a complaint open, and then escalate it to the energy ombudsman after 8 weeks, to force them to get a working meter installed.

Leave the issue about switching until nearer the time - it should be fixed by the summer if you go via the ombudsman.