Outfox want to charge me to check my meter

brianposter

Check the battery voltage ?

QrizB

brianposter said:

Check the battery voltage ?

And how would you do that, dear Henry, dear Henry?

Hint - it's inside the gas meter and isn't user-serviceable.

brianposter

As I said, in principle I agree with you, but if I wanted the meter battery to be checked I would never describe that as checking the meter.

QrizB

brianposter said:

As I said, in principle I agree with you, but if I wanted the meter battery to be checked I would never describe that as checking the meter.

The battery is (for all practical purposes) part of the meter and the battery is never replaced in the field. To check the battery, you need to check the meter; to replace the battery, you need to replace the meter.

brianposter

And in principle all that is the suppliers problem.

t0rt0ise

IOWJJBTM2025 said:

Just to try and help here is an extract from my bill with Home Energy - My gas meter readings are in 100x Cu.ft
22 units used = 689.75 kWh
Calc is
Units used 22
x Volume Correction Factor (2.83)
x Volume Correction (1.022640)
x Calorific Value (39.0000)
Convert to kWh - divide by 3.6

If your meter is a smart meter it doesn't read in 100 cu.ft so proof that that is the problem. Get them to recalculate the bill.

WiserMiser

Ectophile said:

brianposter said:

You never ask a supplier to check your meter because they usually go about checking in a way that is nonsense. You tell them that the meter readings are incorrect and why you believe them to be incorrect.

As people have said, it is probably a clerical error and your meter is working perfectly.

There have been a few cases on this forum when smart gas meters have gone rogue.  This tends to be meters with failing batteries.

Those meters will start clocking up units of gas that haven't even been used.  It's the meter glitching as the battery fails.  In those rare cases, it needs an actual meter check to prove the fault.  Checking that the meter readings on the meter match the ones on the bills doesn't help, and checking the calculations on the bills doesn't help either.

Seems the battery may be failing if it shows a little b on the screen.  Probably more likely to first show up when it's cold (think of starting a car on a freezing winter morning).

Long thread here, supplier prevaticated for many months.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6452074/gas-meter-still-increasing-whilst-gas-isolated-siemens-landis-gyr-e6s

Bendo

QrizB said:

but you dont check the meter to find a failing battery

OK, I'll bite.

How else would you find a failing battery?

Technically the supplier should know, given the meter generates alerts for it. Shame most suppliers appear to do nothing with them...

EssexHebridean

brianposter said:

You never ask a supplier to check your meter because they usually go about checking in a way that is nonsense. You tell them that the meter readings are incorrect and why you believe them to be incorrect.

As people have said, it is probably a clerical error and your meter is working perfectly.

@MeteredOut tried that approach, it didn't get them far... (And, spoiler alert, it wasn't a clerical error and the meter wasn't working fine!) 

Generally speaking, the point that the meter will be working perfectly well is a solid one, however, as always, there are exceptions to that. The possibility shouldn't be dismissed if all other eventualities have been checked. 

brianposter

"I then spent the next 3 months corresponding with EDF to try get the meter tested, with no luck.".

From the first post in Meteredout"s thread. It suggests that he tried the approach which you would like to recommend.