Has someone fiddled with my gas meter?

[DiaDeLluvia]

Hi all,

I live in a draughty old Victorian house which hasn’t had a lot of love in the last 40 years. It’s an insulation nightmare. Single glazed when we moved in a year ago. Damp. Wood floors. Draughty original doors.

it’s a big house. 3 floors, 2500sq feet.

we aren’t using our heating much differently than we usually would. It’s on a timer for 6 hours per day.

its not a combi boiler - we have a boiler plus hot water tank/immersion heater which I believe runs on electric, so in theory we’re using gas for heating plus the gas hob but not for hot water. I might be wrong there though.

So I’d expect our gas bill to be pretty huge, but we’re using about 250kwh per MONTH.

that’s incredibly low right?! We’re spending about £20-30 a month even at todays prices.

has someone fiddled with our meter (ie previous owners)? Or is it possible that our heating actually uses electricity not gas? We do pay a lot for electricity but I initially thought that was because it heats the hot water which is apparently ££££.

I know I sound clueless here. I really am.

thank you!!

@Fufumcgoo I’m with shell for gas.

heating is on for approx. 6hrs a day.

Meters do have a limited life span for accuracy. Most are suppose to be changed or have their calibration checked within 7-15 years.

There is a website - but I can't remember the link - where you can find the lifespan of your own meters by their make and model number.

I know both my meters should have been changed 5-7 years ago. Funny thing is at the time my then utility supplier refused to give me a smart meter, now they are trying to convince me but I don't want them in my house.

Ah shame, I'm not Shell. was hoping it was one of mine so I could take a look for you 😁

Ask them to check that they've set your meter up for billing on their system with the correct multiplication factor and unit type.

Do you know if you have a metric or imperial meter? It will say mc (meters cubled) or cf (cubic feet) on the front.

The age of your meter could also mean that it is recording very slowly now and is due to be replaced. I would have hoped shell would have noticed and recommended this though when they were registering your meter with them.

Not crazy, true.

Older gas meters (and electric) are just a piece of mechanical equipment and will eventually slow down and stop.

People don't tend to like their new meters (either smart or regular) because suddenly they're being billed accurately again!

It’s m3.

The previous owner of this house has left us in such a mess with utilities. We’ve had issues with both elec and gas and for some bizarre reason we’re not on dual fuel so I have to call 2 companies to sort these things out. It takes hours to get through each time. Oh and one of the providers she left us with was one of the ones that went bust at the start of the fuel crisis which has left us with a world of problems too… and of course I can’t change provider at the moment because of the fuel crisis - they just won’t let me.

If it's m³ then 250 units used on the meter (by "using 250 units a month ", I assume you mean the meter reading itself has gone up by 250) then your usage is definitely not £25.

^10m³ on my meter = 108kwh.

@NewBootsAndRanty what would you expect my usage to be then?

It sounds like it’s as @Fufumcgoo suspected - my meter is m3 but the gas company is taking my readings as imperial and charging me as if it’s feet3

Yes that makes a LOT more sense. According to your image I’d be using more like £250 a month (I think) - that sounds much more likely.

But also… ouch!!

Luckily I suspected there was an issue and I’ve been paying £300 a month this whole time and my account is massively in credit. That will all be absorbed when the company recalculates no doubt!!

thanks for your help all - I’ll update when the utility company confirms this is what’s happening!

More in the £270/2700kwh area.
Definitely sounds like a meter type mix up at their end.

Thank you so much everyone! You can always rely on mumsnet to solve a household mystery!!

I am sure that Rees Mogg will change it back to Imperial soon.

Gosh. That's a mistake.

I think it might be a big one.

Don't tell them!!!!

I think I have to tell them… I’ve only been here a year and we’re only a few months into extortionate energy prices so if I tell them now I should be able to afford to pay the adjustment (just!) but if I leave it another year I’m sure I’ll be bankrupted when they work out how much I owe them.

I have read that it’s the gas company’s responsibility to make sure your meter is working accurately. When I had it all registered 8ish months ago I had to send them photos of the meter and you can clearly see where it says m3. So it’s their mistake if they’ve set me up as cubic feet. I wonder if they’ll make me pay the whole bill… I bet they do. Do we think they’ll at least offer me a discount for all the aggro?? I’m thinking I’ll owe them approx. £3k 😭

They can only go back 12 months as it's their fault you were misbilled.

You would have thought there would be a 'check' to see if the bills made sense. For bills that seem really high or really low

@Reugny oh really? Is there somewhere I can verify that? Want to be armed with info before speaking to them!

Your bill says cubic metres are used for calculations though.

Sorry just read your update!

Look up back billing rules, keep submitting meter readings and keep quiet. You already owe a year's worth of top up payments so you can't be charged any more than that.

This is the Shell back billing rules

help.shellenergy.co.uk/hc/en-us/articles/360011313538-What-is-backbilling-

I suppose an argument is that you should have realised, given the current energy news - which you have.

And the counter argument is - so should they

It would be interesting to see where the mistake was made. Did the previous owners have the same issue?

No idea re. Previous owners. When we moved into the house we took ages to set up an account with shell because they kept insisting there was no gas meter at our address when I could see that there was, and the national gas people were telling me that shell was my provider. So I wonder if the previous owners did something dodgy like registering the meter to a business address to get preferential/tax free energy? But basically our meter has only been set up with shell against our address since we moved in and sorted it out, so it makes sense that this would be a new issue I guess when some shell employee received the photo I took of my meter and erroneously filled in the details regarding the type of meter to open the account.