Huge, Massive Gas Meter Reading Help ???

turnbulltj

mute_posting wrote: »

prices went up on 18th jan possibly?

If you are going to comment, make it sensible. What part of "my gas bill is £674 for one quarter" do you not get. I hardly think prices have gone up that much Do you?

mute_posting

erm don't spit the dummy - it WAS a sensible comment, unless you havn't noticed, prices have changed recently, thus everytime they DO your bill will be split up. I have no knowledge when yours did change, but a change in January isn't out of the question.

You asked

On my latest bill it states an actual meter reading from Jan 10th of 5883. An estimation was taken some 8 days later of 5959,

so if you get a quarterly bill in March and the prices changed on January 18th, they will split the bill at Jan 18th.

I was only answering you last question!

Apology will be welcomed - just press reply ;-)

mute_posting

BTW, if you're with British Gas or EDF, prices did change 18/01/2008

http://www.theenergyshop.com/getTariffUpdates.do;jsessionid=3FF5DDE3AF2882F2836336D7307FAA36

turnbulltj

Listen carefully, I will try and use words of one syllable. Gas Bill 3 Months £102 - Good / Gas Bill 3 months £674 Bad. Has your gas bill gone up over 6 times since the 'price increase!'
Read my lips - It is not because of a price increase.

mute_posting

You ASKED why they had estimated a reading 8 days after a meter reading on 10th Jan (go and look at post #10 if you can't think back that far)

I ANSWERED that "possibly" prices went up on the 18th January, I then (despite your tantrum) went further and foud out that indeed, 2 companies applied prices rises from the 18th January, confirming my suspicion that the price rise probably was the reason for the estimate youe were querying.

Look at it another way, your meter has shown 737 units over "about" 90 days, that is an average of 8-9 units per day. If the prices change on 18th Jan, they need to know how many to charge at the old rate and how many at the new, so the 18th Jan estimate is basically their estimation of how many of your total metered units were used between the last reading and the Jan 18th estimate.

If you're not "big" enough to apologise in public forum, your welcome to send a private message.

MP

turnbulltj

Just to confirm how meters work, because you are obviously having difficulty with this one.
If a company applies a price increase to a unit of gas, that does not affect the amount of gas units it estimates you using in a given period of time.
To explain - Johnny eats 6 lollipops in 6 days at 10p a lollipop.
The shopkeeper then applies a price increase of 5p per lollipop.
How many lollipops will Johnny next week ?
Answer - Probably the same as he ate last week, as the price increase has no bearing on the amount of lollipops Johnny eats compared to how much they cost.
In other words, if you insist on taking me on in a verbal slanging match, make sure you are big enough and ugly enough to get your facts right, because believe me I am very big and very ugly !!!!!!!
Leave it now we've had our fun. Good night.

mute_posting

turnbulltj wrote: »

Just to confirm how meters work, because you are obviously having difficulty with this one.
If a company applies a price increase to a unit of gas, that does not affect the amount of gas units it estimates you using in a given period of time.

I think it is you that is having the problems m8

I have just had my Gas bill for the quarter Jan 9th to April 9th 2008 at £674.00. (These are from actual readings on both dates) It is stating I have used 737 units which equates to 23,188kWh.

You see those words you used (the ones I've highlighted)? Does that answer your question?

Let ME spell it out simply,
If your meter shows (from actual readings) that you have consumed 737 units in 90 days, the company can only estimate that during that billing period you used those units at a steady rate over those days.

In your case (from the figures in-front of their eyes) they worked out that for every day SINCE January 9th 2008 you have used 737/90 units of gas (~8.2 units per day)

Now, they KNOW what your reading was on 9th Jan, they DON'T KNOW what the reading was when they applied the new prices on 18th Jan..

BUT, because they know between January 9th and April 9th you used an AVERAGE (according to your meter) of 8.2 units per day, they can ESTIMATE that on 18th Jan you had used in the region of 9 x 8.2 units (adjusted for any seasonal weighting they "may" wish to add). If you take the time to read other threads you will see some suppliers aren't this "generous", however this method of spliting bills when a price change is introduced is VERY common.

Your past 3 posts would have been perfectly valid IF they didn't have a meter reading AFTER 9th Jan and thus your consumption had been estimated since January. However, they do have a later reading (9th April) which has allowed them to work out your average usage per day since the last reading.

Clearly you have a usage issue on which I gave my opinion earlier (that, in my opinion, the advice "to run your water constantly at a lower temp wouldn't cost you much" was wrong advice).

I'll say it again, IF YOU HADN'T HAD A READING RINCE 9TH JANUARY, AND ALL THIS WAS BASED ON AN "ESTIMATE" YOU WOULD BE RIGHT TO HAVE A RANT AT ME FOR MY ADVICE, HOWEVER, YOU HAVE PROVIDED THE FACTS IN POSTS #1 (ACTUAL USAGE) #9 (METER IN CU FT. AND NOT RECENTLY CHANGED) AND #10 (ESTIMATED USAGE FIGURE FOR 18TH JAN)
people can only answer your queries or suspicions based on the information you provide!

These forums tend to work better when people learn to eat a bit of humble pie when all their "rants" have been shot down with cold hard facts.:rolleyes:

Enjoy your weekend

MP

epsilondraconis

It seems to me that the people on this thread were only trying to help you turnbulltj.

Talk about ungrateful.

Instead of being agressive on this thread, if I were you, I would have words with the person that told you to leave the hot water on constantly.

Who knows, maybe they deliberately gave you dud advice because they didn't perceive you to be a particularly nice person.

Have a nice life - I trust you will find happiness one day.

lil_me

Watch the meter for one day with the water heater on constant, you'll soon see where the gas is going. Go on average since the last ACTUAL reading, estimates I have never known to be correct. In the last few years my DD has more than doubled for gas/electric. No a faulty meter is not likely but they will test if required.

Cardew

turnbulltj,

You really did mis-understand mute_posting's post #11.

Clearly there is something wrong for you to have used so much gas in a quarter - that is without dispute.

However the 18th Jan estimate is simply a computer generated pro-rata apportionment of 8 days use based on that quarterly consumption.

Despite what some posts have said, leaving your water on 24/7 will certainly not add more than a few pounds to your quarterly bill. Many people do leave their HW on 24/7 anyway, and I have tried it, and whilst not the most controlled experiment, the difference was remarkably small.

Getting back to your problem - the high consumption - there are several points to consider.

Firstly, was the start reading an actual reading? I know you said it was, but BG in particular are always giving a meter reading annotated "we read your meter" and they didn't!! A meter reader will often not bother to read a meter but 'guess and enter it as an actual reading.

Secondly, simply check your readings every and see what daily consumption you are getting. If the meter is faulty it will still be faulty. However there is virtually no way a gas meter can 'run fast'(over-read) as it is simply a vane which the gas spins.

Have you a leak after the meter? you should of course be able to smell the gas; and the leak would cause to meter to register even with all gas in the house off.

Could you have a plumbing fault where somehow the HW tank was permanantly having HW siphoned out to a drain? For instance if the water thermostat was faulty, the boiler would keep heating the water and it has to go somewhere. Although with electricity there was the tragic case of an immersion heater that would not cut out(faulty thermostat) and this hot water went into a plastic expansion tank in the roof. The tank melted and the boiling water came through the ceiling and killed a baby in a cot.

The above are all very long shots.

If I had to gamble, I would gamble on the 10th Jan reading being an underestimate/false reading(despite what the bill states.)