Gas meter/usage question

Hades

Hades

Hades

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I'm hoping we have some gas experts on the forum :) We recently had a massive gas bill in (around £800 for the quarter). Although it's winter and it is a big draughty house, this surprised us quite a bit. We recently had an engineer fix the boiler and it seems to have been since that time. So we have someone coming to recheck the boiler tomorrow.

We've been watching the gas meter reading for the last few days and it in about 30 mins we're using 3 or 4 units. This seems very high to me so until we get everything checked we're only using the heating sparingly.

I also noticed the following odd behaviour on the meter... while watching it, it occasionally changes so all the digits are 8 for about 2 seconds. Then it goes back to the previous reading and continues climbing. I'm trying to arrange for the meter to be tested (I know there is a charge for it) but that department is closed today.

So a couple of questions:

1) What is the average gas unit usage of a large house? I've been told it should be around 5 to 10 units per day. Is this correct?

2) Is the 88888 behaviour on the meter normal? I've never noticed that before.

Thanks.
 
Well , we live in a 3 bed house

Its got a 7 - 10 year old heating system (Combi) and our bill for this quarter was £200 which i nearly choked upon reading it

Thats just for two of us in the house

I dont really know if thats good or bad with the prices at the moment, but it doesnt sound good to me
 
We normally have our bill on a PAYG meter, but since we moved last august we had a normal credit meter.

Our last bill which we got in january was for £168. The house were in had a brand new heating system fitted as well before we moved in. But having said that we have had the heating on full blast all through the winter
 
Not sure about the all 8's behaviour but if you get the meter tested by ofgem and its found to be faulty you will get all costs plus usage refunded by your supplier. Worth a try at least. 800 is ridiculous for one quarter.
 
Our bill for this quarter came in at nearly £600 for gas and electricity. I nearly dropped dead when I opened the letter.

I've never seen a bill like that in my life, only just moved to powergen from EDF as they proclaimed they were cheaper. Are they heck.
 
1) You shouldn't be using 3 or 4 units in 30 minutes unless there is an issue somewhere.
2) The flashing 8s indicates that your meter is performing a self-diagnostic, it's perfectly normal.

edit: sorry, I wasn't very thorough there!

Keep the thought of a meter test as a final backup. The majority of meters which go for testing come back accurate. If you have the time and patience, try turning everything off, then checking your readings. Try using one appliance at a time, see how that affects the usage. Also bear in mind that a sudden huge bill might be due to issues with your account and estimated readings (although 3 or 4 units in 30 minutes, no matter whether your meter is imperial or metric, is very high).

If you want advice on energy efficiency, your supplier is obliged to offer free advice. You may find it more useful to approach the real energy efficiency folk - go check out the Energy Savings Trust website. They have an 0800 number as well.

I'm sure there's more advice I could offer, but I turned my brain off at around 5pm yesterday in anticipation of four days off :D



And ste_bla, hate to correct you, but gas meters record in cubic meters or cubic feet, not kWh, that's electricity territory.
 
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My direct debit for gas and electric is £140 per month although this has been like this for some time so I'm expecting it to rise soon.
Just changed over to Eon, £55 Quidco cashback and 1 Tesco point for every pound spent, should be cheaper too, but with all the recent increases in price probably not.
 
I would ring up the company your with mate and get them to check it out.

It will cost you if they dont find anything wrong but its best to make sure.
 
If someone is coming out to check your boiler then they should be doin a couple of things:

1/ Checking to make sure the size of the flame is correct. (burner pressure)
2/ Gas rating the boiler. Timing the meter with the boiler on max to calculate how much gas the boiler is using and then comparing that figure to what the boiler manufacturer says it should be.

On another note, make sure the billing company knows whether you have a metric or imperial meter. Otherwise you will not be billed correctly.

Mick
 
We just had our last combined elec & gas bill in for £1446 and a few pennies.

Nearly died opening the letter, especially when it was not an estimated bill - it had been read.

Checked the meters ourselves and they were well out - in fact we'd used less gas than was on January's estimated bill.

Turns out the meter reader had entered the reading incorrectly into his computer and we're actually in credit!

Makes you think how many peope don't double check their meter readings for themselves.
 
I have been taking weekly readings for our gas usage for the last 2 months and we have been using an average of 22 units per week. Our direct debit is currently estimated at £60 per month, but when the last bill came we were in debit so I guess it should me more like £75 a month. This is for a 3 storey, 5 bed 1930's semi.

We had gas our meter changed on Monday, and since then we have used 44 units. The new meter reads CuM, so I assume the old meter must have been kWh - otherwise something has gone badly wrong!

Either way this means you are using up way too much gas! On this new meter we have consumed 44 units in 5 days, so an average of around 9 a day. You said you did 3 or 4 in 30 minutes :eek:

Edit: Just read this gas meter page and if you have an old meter, you need to multiply the units used by 2.83 to get the newer CuM measures. So the increased units we have seen since the new meter was installed are as expected.
 
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FlyingFish said:
On another note, make sure the billing company knows whether you have a metric or imperial meter. Otherwise you will not be billed correctly.

Mick
Click to expand...

Thats quite simple if you have a 4 digit reading you have an imperial meter if its a 5 digit its a metric meter.
 
Thanks for the replies so far. We've had the boiler checked now and British Gas say everything is ok and we've also had Transco check the meter for leaks. What they won't do yet is actually check it for accuracy (but at least we've ruled out the boiler and leaks).

The metric/imperial meter issue does explain why our figures are so different to friends and neighbours. But we are still seeing some odd behaviour - when using only the heating for a period of time we have been seeing different usage. For example, yesterday we were seeing 1 metric unit every 10 mins. Today we are seeing 1 unit every 20 mins. That's for the same usage pattern and in roughly the same weather.

I would not expect to see that?
 
Most modern heating boilers, be it system or combi, will modulate the size of the flame depending on load. That load could vary quite a lot during any period.
Things to take into account:

Flow/Return temp
Heating cycle delay
TRV & room temp
Hot water usage
Roomstat position and accuracy

In all honesty if your boiler has been checked and given a clean bill of health, then I would'nt worry about the boiler.
It may be that your heating system/house is not very efficient or isnt being used/controlled efficiently.

Mick
 
I pay £15 a month on dd for my gas in a 3 bed semi ,heating and hot water on 24 hours ,I walk around in shorts and tee-shirt .
They should not charge you to test the meter I had my electric tested for free and if its over you get a rebate.
 
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