Wrong readings

knightstyle

So a relative is in hospital and we are house/pet sitting. They asked me to do a meter reading and submit it to BG. I can see that the readings for many years are the wrong way round! Day is recorded as night and night as day! What are the consequences and should I do something about this?

Swipe

Follow what they have been doing or you could land them in a world of hurt and you'll get the blame if you transpose them and they did happen to be accepted. Normally, any readings submitted the opposite way around to what they have been would probably get rejected. You might want to work out if correcting them would be in their favour or not, but do bring it to their attention and let them decide as they are the ones who are responsible.

Brie

and ensure you have signed authority to talk to BG (& anyone else) as otherwise it's unlikely you can do anything including giving them a reading.

A simple letter signed and dated could say "I (relative) give (knightstyle) full authority to discuss my account and act on my behalf." Include their address but not any account numbers so that you can use the same letter for all the accounts you are helping with. Most companies will accept a scanned copy emailed to them. Banks are more difficult and may want their own forms completely, signed and submitted.

Swipe

and ensure you have signed authority to talk to BG (& anyone else) as otherwise it's unlikely you can do anything including giving them a reading.

It sounds like they may be just using the relative's login. Best left alone for the relative to sort out when they are out of hospital.

Scot_39

The Issue - you are ware of - the answers, scope and costs - needs more information

Meter itself

As we talking about an old twin register analogue meter here - where day and night clearly identified ?

Or are we talking about a smart meter and your presuming the order for day / night - but maybe havent actually checked.

Because not all smart meters follow the same convention - my register 1 reading is day, 2 is night - but it hasn't been for some other meter configurations by certain suppliers ?

Such a common issue in past - that suppliers often get it wrong - and you have to check after a switch of meter or of supplier - and they have ways of flipping the order on their billing systems.

Potential Cost

Without knowing two sets of readings - or rather estimated annual consumptions on both day and night - can you find any old bills - with some suppliers they give you the data in the tariff info for comparison section - and the rates - difficult to say what the potential costs could be.

And this could be a very old problem - unless there have been past corrections - like a rare these days (unless the relative on BG's Priority Service Register and getting say 12m meter reader vistis - and BG have actually accepted and corrected past bills )

You could do a rough calc - and then maybe think about how far back that sort of error might go.

If say a multirate meter but was always on SR - obviously order wont matter - if on E7 type tariffs it could be large - but the error could be either way - depending on usage.

Hypothetical E7 cost error

Taking say an example hypothetical rate split for a moderate big 6 balanced E7 tariff - say c15p/c32p

It depends whether relative underpaying by overestimating the 15p units (if wrong - your relative a heavier day user) - or been overpaying by over estimating the 32p units (if order wrong - your relative a heavier night user)

Cost as is to date for electricity units if your right and order wrong

current billed costs = day units used x 15p night rate + night units used x day rate 32p

True cost = day units used x 32p day rate + night units used x night rate 15p

(Standing charges the same)

Time over which false Costs Accumulated

It might be that the meter has been read professionally in the last few years - is your relative on their priority services register (for age, difficulty reading meter etc) - and if so when - as those readings submitted - might if used - set a backstop to any billing error costs.

Legally

Unless your legally authorised - e.g. by Power of Attorney - I personally dont think you should submit the readings.

you need to discuss this with relative I suspect when they are upto it - if they are - without negatively impacting / stressing them.

But assuming your not their attorney (granted permission by activated - if need be - registered Power of Attorney agreement) there is very little you can do.

(*) Some do accept informal letters for close relatives to act on minor issues - some do not - Ive still had to have mum or dad in past on for the start of calls in past - and then taken over for detailed / long conversations though - until registered my POA.

And in that case not sure it is up to you to open that particular can of worms.

Are they mentally and physically up for a conversation if its bad news - and been underpaying ?

It will have to be resolved - it's likely going to be found it - on a meter swap or meter reader visit - but a small delay hopefully whilst the relative recovers ?

Spoonie_Turtle

I know they asked you to submit readings but are they in a position to do so themselves with you giving them the readings? You could say you weren't sure which way round to put them and didn't want to cause problems, or just that you weren't comfortable using their account (also true, because clearly you were not comfortable just going ahead and doing something in their account - submitting the readings - otherwise you wouldn't have asked here).

knightstyle

Thanks all, I am using her login on her computer.

The meter is an old smart meter and I press a blue button to get readings, the readings are not very clear and just have a 1 or 2 in front of them to denote night/day.

The BG site tells you what the last reading was so that is how I suspected the problem and going back several years readings it seems to have always been like that.

I realised something was wrong as the night reading had gone up a lot and the day one very little during our stay.

I thought BG should have done a reading themselves sometime in the last 8 years?

Scot_39

If the smart meter is communicating - they trust the smart meter. And it should be correct (but as above it could - not common - but not rare enough to ignore the risk - be flipped especially if installed by another supplier).

Also BG reportedly had a lot of trouble with E7 multirate smart metering in early days - there were loads of posts / threads here - and iirc they may even have frozen their E7 smart role out - to deal with problems.

And again if reporting - its the suppliers responsibility to know the order - not the customers.

So potentially if underbilled - its their mistake and I wouldnt pay them a penny - possibly maybe the last 12m at a push - but not sure how backbilling works for twin rate billing - as the kWh will have been billed - just not at the correct rates.

But if mum overbilled - they should pay out since day 1.

If its really old - it could be a smets1 - and they arguably were even more prone to night / day order anomalies - as for a while many could lose comms on a supplier switch - so people would then have to read and report order.

And there should be no need to add manual readings if they are getting smart ones in any case.

Did you see any indication of estimate or smart on the bills or online readings quoted (maybe just S, E etc)

Re reading visits - In theory "safety inspections" still have to occur at an unspecified interval - but I'd be more worried about that for gas than electric - after they scrapped the 2 year hard rule for meter readings/inspections.

RE your observed use on temporary ? visits - how is the property het - and the hot water - and did you have to switch it on on arrival.

A small 100-120 litre HW tank with a night time immersion would for instance take around 7-8kWh to heat from cold - and about 4-5kWh that to keep warm with light daytime use - if it also fed say 1→2 hot tank fed showers a day. A larger one like 200l scaling by volume maybe 12+kWh to warm from cold - a very large one even more.

And without my heating on - the immersion tank and its 1kWh+ losses - represents about half my daily use - around 2.5-3kWh - and that excludes my cold fed electric shower - adding another 1.5kWh say.

My normal tv / lights / FF etc and computer(s) etc averaging another 2.5-3kWh.

knightstyle

OK, yes I think it is an old non communicating smart meter. Pressing the blue button gave several readings, I think they were total, tariff 1, tariff 2, then two which didn't make any sense.

She seems to give readings every 3-4 months and there seem to be no estimated or BG readings over the 8 years she has been in the house.

Heating and hot water are gas combi boiler which is serviced every year.

One thing I did notice was that the carbon monoxide detector was bleeping and as it was 12 years old I changed it as it had an expirey date in 2024.

victor2

Photograph the readings, show them to the relative, saying you're having trouble lining them up and cannot enter them. Then allow her to do it, by logging into the website or App on your phone if necessary, in the hospital and let her enter them. If it is obvious to you that she is reversing them, you might like to mention that, or just leave it for a later date.

Many years ago, my father mentioned he always had problems reading his E7 electricity meter. He swore that E7 was saving him money, but I couldn't see how, as he had gas central heating and just ran the dishwasher at night, and even that wasn't every night. It turned out he had been reversing the readings for years. I helped him switch to a new supplier on a single rate tariff. The new supplier figured out immediately that his readings were reversed, even though they were billing him the same rate for "day" and "night" usage. The losing supplier was informed via the switching process, but decided not to pursue it, even though he owed them hundreds!

Scot_39

If gas is used for heating - are you sure she hasn't changed to single rate billing - so pays c26p for both registers ?

E7 for many homes wouldn't make much sense with gas heating and hot water - as you have to use about 35-40% - the exact figure changes from supplier to supplier and region to region - to make the savings on night - overcome the premiums on day.

However many folk missed it and stayed on e7 for years - there were several folk only twigging when the rates went sky high and decided to do the maths c4 years ago having gone to gas probably in some cases decades before.