So, your gas bill for the quarter is.... £520! WTF?

growse

growse

growse

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I live in a rented two-bed basement / ground floor flat. I moved in 3 months ago, in September. When I moved in, I gave the nice gas people (scottish power) my meter reading and I've just put the new reading into the nice website bit which calculates my usage.

They claim I now owe them £520!

In the 3 months I've been here, I've hardly had the heating on at all. The strange thing I noticed when I moved in was that there was a strip of the floor that had been hot pretty much all the time, which did a nice job of warming the place, so there was no need to have the heating on. The landlord eventually got round to getting a plumber out to figure out what was going on: he replaced the boiler in the beginning of December, and since then, I've used the heating lightly (been away for a bit). The floor is no longer hot. However, water is now coming up out of that part of the floor. Heating and hot water are the only gas things in the flat, hobs / ovens etc are all electric.

So how on earth did I use £520 worth of gas in the last 3 months? More importantly, if this is a mistake, how do I find out and do I have to pay it? I think there may have been a leak in the hot water pipe for the last 3 months making the boiler think that there was always a tap on, thus using lots of gas, but have no way of really knowing or finding out.

So, great people of these forums, what should I do?
 
growse said:
I live in a rented two-bed basement / ground floor flat. I moved in 3 months ago, in September. When I moved in, I gave the nice gas people (scottish power) my meter reading and I've just put the new reading into the nice website bit which calculates my usage.

They claim I now owe them £520!

In the 3 months I've been here, I've hardly had the heating on at all. The strange thing I noticed when I moved in was that there was a strip of the floor that had been hot pretty much all the time, which did a nice job of warming the place, so there was no need to have the heating on. The landlord eventually got round to getting a plumber out to figure out what was going on: he replaced the boiler in the beginning of December, and since then, I've used the heating lightly (been away for a bit). The floor is no longer hot. However, water is now coming up out of that part of the floor. Heating and hot water are the only gas things in the flat, hobs / ovens etc are all electric.

So how on earth did I use £520 worth of gas in the last 3 months? More importantly, if this is a mistake, how do I find out and do I have to pay it? I think there may have been a leak in the hot water pipe for the last 3 months making the boiler think that there was always a tap on, thus using lots of gas, but have no way of really knowing or finding out.

So, great people of these forums, what should I do?
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get on the phone ASAP an tell them somehow they've made a wrong reading somewhere, when we first moved into our flat we had our first water bill at £2200... got on the phone and after a week or two it was put down to the reading being written wrong when we first moved in.
 
My initial gas meter reading was 6803, and now it's 7217. Does this seem normal?

*edit* working it out with a CV of 39.7, I get:

7217 - 6803 = 414 net hundred cubic feet
414 * 2.83 = 1171.62 net hundred cubic meters
1171.62 * 1.022 = 1197 (conversion factor)
1197 * 39.7 (calorific value) = 47536
47536 / 3.6 = ~13200 kW/h

At 2p per kW/h, this is about £265. Which is different to what the gas company says. But still a lot. A lot a lot. WHy?
 
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heh! My gas bill is about £200 for the period between the end of August and now. Duffing gas wholesale prices are stupid, just stupid. Much like car insurance. Stupid, just stupid!
 
growse said:
My initial gas meter reading was 6803, and now it's 7217. Does this seem normal?

*edit* working it out with a CV of 39.7, I get:

7217 - 6803 = 414 net hundred cubic feet
414 * 2.83 = 1171.62 net hundred cubic meters
1171.62 * 1.022 = 1197 (conversion factor)
1197 * 39.7 (calorific value) = 47536
47536 / 3.6 = ~13200 kW/h

At 2p per kW/h, this is about £265. Which is different to what the gas company says. But still a lot. A lot a lot. WHy?
Click to expand...

did they base that bill on estimated usage? mine gas usage estimate was well above what im actually using.
 
Nope, I took both readings. They did do an estimate on 30th December though. There seem to be two issues.

1) They've charged me both the September - December estimate (~£200) and the September - 2nd Jan actual (~£270). Surely I should only be paying the actual?

2) I didn't use £270 worth of gas in that time, because I barely used the boiler. If the boiler is broken in a house you're renting and runs up a big bill, is the tenant, or the landlord, or the gas company liable for it?
 
growse said:
My initial gas meter reading was 6803, and now it's 7217. Does this seem normal?

*edit* working it out with a CV of 39.7, I get:

7217 - 6803 = 414 net hundred cubic feet
414 * 2.83 = 1171.62 net hundred cubic meters
1171.62 * 1.022 = 1197 (conversion factor)
1197 * 39.7 (calorific value) = 47536
47536 / 3.6 = ~13200 kW/h

At 2p per kW/h, this is about £265. Which is different to what the gas company says. But still a lot. A lot a lot. WHy?
Click to expand...

Not ALL your usage is at 2p per kW/h though, is it?
 
growse said:
1) They've charged me both the September - December estimate (~£200) and the September - 2nd Jan actual (~£270). Surely I should only be paying the actual?
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You should only be charged for the actual. They need to send you out a revised bill. What's probably happened is a **** up because your actual is lower than the previous estimate. Ring them up and they will sort it out.
 
Check the meter reading...I thought bills gave you an estimated amount, trying to get you to pay more than you would actually use !!
 
Hxc said:
You'll be totally owned when they read your meter :P
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yep prepare to get bent over when they read your meter, I used to pay about that 2 years ago and now im paying £110 per month for gas and electric, its a proper rape at the moment and we hardly ever have the heating on, bunch of robbing *****
 
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