Crazy high gas bills

Soldato
Joined
25 May 2011
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3,299
Just got a high gas bill in, we pay quarterly. Says we owe them £2000.

They also increased our rate by 6p per unit, without even informing us... They have also said looking at the account they can't see a record of informing us.

After doing 7 days of taking the readings they have said the meter seems fine.

The issue is, where using £145 of gas per week in a 3 bedroom house.... We have one shower and a bath per day and the heating is on a timer from 7-9am... 5-7pm

The lady my wife spoke to said there must be a fault somewhere or a leak, as if we left the boiler on for 24 hours a day it wouldn't cost as much..

We got fobbed off on our last call to phone the national grid which we did and they where shocked EDF told us to phone them as its an EDF issue as they would only act if contacted by them.

We our a one person family income and just not got the funds....

Can anyone advise what "might" be the problem?.. Faulty boiler?. . .. I remember our whole street road getting dugged up 7 months a go when it seemed to happen, although maybe just a coincidence

Any help appreciated

:)
 
Soldato
Joined
17 Jun 2012
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11,259
Had the same thing a few years ago with BG. Got a bill for £2.5k after I was paying recomended amounts each quarter. Turns out was a fault with meter so get them to double check it.
 

Deleted member 66701

D

Deleted member 66701

Make sure they haven't got thier units mixed up, i.e. 100xft3 instead of m3. They did it to us a few years back when the meter reader wrote our reading down as imperial. It trippled our bill.
 
Soldato
Joined
19 Oct 2002
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Bath
Get on to your provider and ask for check meters to be installed they have to oblige, it's basically a meter that's installed in series with your current meter to double check the readings. I work for EDF doing this on a daily basis, any more questions then please drop me a PM.
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
25 May 2011
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Get on to your provider and ask for check meters to be installed they have to oblige, it's basically a meter that's installed in series with your current meter to double check the readings. I work for EDF doing this on a daily basis, any more questions then please drop me a PM.

Thank you... I will ask them to do this tomorrow :)
 
Associate
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11 Dec 2012
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Bangor - Northern Ireland
Would be worth checking with neighbours especially if your house is part of a development. Could be identical boilers in very similar if not identical houses.
Could try run a test over say 1-2 hours. both pump the heating up to very max and say run warm water for 30mins over that time as well and compare meter usage. Might not be 100% accurate but if meter is faulty it could give a good indication. Especially if its reading potentially 5+ times higher than it should be
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
25 May 2011
Posts
3,299
I will look into this more and report back...

One thing I have noticed is that water from hot tap has always been hot, but not boiling hot as it should... Guessing that's nothing to go off?
 
Associate
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31 Jan 2008
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Location
S Wales
Make sure they haven't got thier units mixed up, i.e. 100xft3 instead of m3. They did it to us a few years back when the meter reader wrote our reading down as imperial. It trippled our bill.

This would be the simplest and most obvious one. You can check what your meter says it measures in as it'll be written on the front and also check what calculation they are using on the tariff label of the bill.

The fact that something was dug up outside your house wouldn't be a factor as it would be 'before' your meter. If a bit of crap or something had somehow got to your meter I can't see how it would cause it to over read, would more likely force it the other way.

As mentioned above, turn your boiler off for a bit and check the readings and see if it moves.
 
Joined
4 Aug 2007
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Wilds of suffolk
Well a cubic foot is less than 3% of a cubic meter (1x CUM = approx 35 CUFT) so if its that problem solved!

If you can do without any gas and you know how to restart everything, tomorrow once the house is warmed up in the morning turn it off completely at the meter. It should not move at all, over say an hour.

How long ago was it last actually read?

Oh and this one is an actual reading i assume, you don't actually say specifically as far as i can see...?

I had a massive bill once, it was an issue where due to readings they had assumed it had gone round the whole clock more than once. I had deliberately overstated the meter reading prior to a price rise, which would have been fine had a meter reader not turned up soon after and recorded a lower number than I had. System automatically decided I must have used like 10,000 units of gas. I had to ring up and say I think I must have misread a 3 as an 8 or something like that. They recalculated the bill and mu cunning ploy failed to get me some "old price" units.
 
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