British Gas Smart Meter and now massive hike in bills

Mooshoo_3

We were more or less forced into a British Gas Smart Meter a while back and since then I feel our bills have jumped a lot. We inherited a pre payment meter on Electric but I'm not so worried about that one (could really do with asking to swap out of this). 

But the Gas bills seem way off suddenly. In May I received a bill showing usage of 9041.95kwh from November 2024 to April 2025. This seemed enormous so I checked my equivalent from last year - 1099.54 for the same period 2023-2024. Just to add we only have gas central heating, everything else is electric. 

I contacted BG by chat and email and was told they would check and come back to me. The only thing they did was suddenly sent an updated bill which now shows  8162. 44 instead. 

I cannot fathom how usage can have gone up so much. Ok prices fluctuate but surely usage wouldn't fluctuate by this much. It wasn't even a particularly cold winter!

Any advice please?

On-the-coast

How sure are you that the previous winter was accurate?  1100 KWh for a whole winter seems extraordinary to me (I used about 15 x as much in a large and fairly inefficient home). 

How big is your house?

Ayr_Rage

Are they billing on actual readings?

Was the old meter a mechanical version showing 100s of cubic feet?

Check your old bills.

Does you latest bill show usage in cubic metres, once again check your latest bill.

1100 kWh is very low for a 6 month period over winter, 8 to 9000 is much more believable.

I am a single householder, heating and water by gas and easily use 1200 kWh per month in the winter months in a well insulated home.

QrizB

Mooshoo_3 said:

We were more or less forced into a . In May I received a bill showing usage of 9041.95kwh from November 2024 to April 2025. This seemed enormous so I checked my equivalent from last year - 1099.54 for the same period 2023-2024. 
...
Any advice please?

What meter readings were used for the 2024/25 bill? And what readings were used for 2023/24?

Are they Actual readings, or Estimates?

Keep_pedalling

Have to agree the previous usage is impossibly low if you have gas central heating. We live in a very efficient bungalow with underfloor heating and last winter used around 1500kWh per month. 

heroic

I’d agree with the others – that 1,100kWh figure for last winter does look unusually low if you’re running gas central heating, so it might have been based on an estimated reading or a mix-up with units (cubic feet vs cubic metres).

It’s definitely worth checking:

• What meter readings are listed on both bills (actual vs estimated).

• Whether your old meter and the new smart meter were recording in different units.

• If the changeover to the smart meter included a correct closing/opening reading.

Gas bills can spike if there was an underestimation in the past and the smart meter has suddenly corrected it, so the new figure may be catching up.

If it still doesn’t add up after comparing the readings, I’d keep pushing BG to investigate – especially to confirm they used the right opening reading when the smart meter was installed.

FreeBear

heroic said:

I’d agree with the others – that 1,100kWh figure for last winter does look unusually low if you’re running gas central heating, so it might have been based on an estimated reading or a mix-up with units (cubic feet vs cubic metres).

1100kWh is just possible depending on the size of the property and lifestyle. I used ~2400kWh for the same period for heating and DHW. But this last winter was pretty mild (also benefit from solar gain and have a wood stove to supplement heating).

Certainly worth checking what units are being used for billing. Smart meters will always be cubic metres (m³), although it is not unknown for a supplier to use (100s) cubic feet - Toto the Clowns tried pulling that stunt on me and I've still not had a proper bill for the period they were running the {redacted] show.