Your advice needed

Good point about not being able to use all that gas even if you wanted to.
I take it you only use gas for hot water and central heating, what make and size (btu) is your boiler ? I have a mate in the trade and we could probably find out what the maximum gas consumption rate is. That might be another bit of ammo for you.

I am so glad you didn’t have a leak, I heard a loud rumble earlier on from the south west but now I’ll put that down to Shoeburyness !!

Phil.

4000 cubic meters !!!!!!!!!

That’s enough to blow away a county !!!
I had a similar issue with the gas company here.
Once the guy showed up to read the meter. He said , “you’re stuff is too old I will change it”. He did and , when I received the next bill it was about 7000€ !!
After investigation it came out that the f@#@{[@king computer , since the NEW meter started from 0 charged me the diefference between the old meter and the new one!!!!

I had hard time to get my money back (that they took automatically from my bank account) and nobody apologized.

You see wys you’re not alone …….

Thanks Phil. The Transco man came very quickly and ascertained there was no leak. In fact he said that to usee 4000 cubic meters would involve such a huge leak it would have gone bang long ago. He also said that as I don’t have a gas fire or use gas for cooking I probably couldn’t consume 4000 cubic meters in 6 months if I wanted to!

Npower want me to take a meter reading every day for a week. I can’t see what this will prove other than the fact the dials go round but it is a hoop I seem to have to jump through before they will get an OFMAT accuracy check done. I need to prove this meter is faulty rather than just having it replaced or I won’t be entitled for any refund.

If you had a leak that used that much gas I would imagine you would be able to smell it.
The new electronic meters are very accurate but when they do play up they can go wrong big time, the older mechanical types are pretty sensitive but are more likely to under rather than over meter.
If it is a leak causing the problem it won’t be a small seepage it will be venting at a pretty fast rate of knots, in water terms we are talking a half running rather than a dripping tap so you should be able to see it on what ever type of meter you have over a short time period.

Shut everything off and take a meter reading, wait 2 hours and then take another. If there is a change call Transco gas leak emergency number immediately on 0800 111 999.
If there has been no change contact your supplier and then go to http://www.energywatch.org.uk/ for advice.

The above is the new combined body of the old gas and electricity users councils.

Good advice to have your old bills handy and also any appliance service records/bills. If your meter is tested and found to be ok they will charge you for the test. Let us all know how you get on.
regards,
Phil. A.

edit) Ah well I see that you have taken the plunge, shut everthing off and do you meter check while you are waiting for Transco.

Transco are on their way (well supposedly in the next 4 hours!) but I have chased the lines from the meter and cannot find anything anywhere.

Npower customer service department seem determined to try and get me stuck in a loop. They are saying do you suspect a leak, so I say maybe because I can’t see how else there is a problem so they say call Transco. They then say can you smell gas to which I respond no so they say don’t call Transco. They want me to do a check day by day on my meter but I don’t think the meter is the problem.

Re: Your advice needed

Wys.

Firstly I would read the meter again myself and see what that shows. I’d take copies of all previous bills so that you have ‘evidence’ that something is amiss.

“Now it seems obvious to me that somewhere we have a leak. The gas meter was read by the gas supplier on the 18th of June and then someone came round to read it again about a week later which I thought strange. It looks like the gas supplier knew something was incorrect NEARLY 2 MONTHS AGO but never told me about the risk to my family.”

I doubt if there is a leak. The easiest way to find out is to call Transco and explain the situation to them and ask them to check for a leak. My understanding is that they do this for all gas suppliers. Check the date on the bill and then find out from your suppliers why it took two months to produce a bill (it takes my supplier 2 to 3 days.)

“I would imagine that the bill liability lay with me (imagine getting several years bills in one go!) but have I got a case against them for not informing me of either the dramatic change in consumption or the safety?”

Yes, I would imagine liability lay with you unless you can show that whatever has gone wrong is the fault of the supplier. The dramatic apparent rise in consumptionshould have rung alarm bells with them I would have thought. I’d take all the bills etc., and go see Citizen’s Advice, they may be able to help you out with this.

Hope this helps.
Regards,

kev35

Hey, look on the bright side…least u actually have gas! I live in an all electric flat via a private housing association. Imagine MY surprise when I got a threatening letter from British Gas saying unless I paid my £182 bill they would brake into my home and disconnect my gas supply….you know, the gas supply which didn’t exist in the first place!!! 🙂
Two months after the letter and my stuborn refusal to pay I got a knock on the door from two of BGs henchmen and a police officer who told me I had to let them in to disconnect me. NOW IMAGINE THE SURPRISE ON THEIR FACES when they discovered I had no gas supply to disconnect. Red faces all around I can tell u!!! 😀
No offical apology though, but the henchmen where quite nice.