Mystery gas use while away - smart meter error?

[Gasnamechanger]

While we were away we've been charged roughly £3 a day in gas - looking at the breakdown online, roughly 30-40kwh has been used daily.

Obviously hot water/heating was switched off. We have no other gas use apart from the boiler. Can't smell a leak. What could it be apart from faulty meter?

Some of it will be the standing charge I assume? We had similar while on holiday

That's really worrying. I would get it checked for a leak.

Standing charge is 27p a day I should add...

Something here is really odd!

Anyone else starting to wonder exactly how much energy we're all being charged for but not actually using? No trust in the energy companies whatsoever anymore.

Yes it's only by being away on holiday that we've spotted this. Currently adds up to £50 but who knows how long it's been going on for.

Have you got a Nest controller? Ours has been turning the heating on randomly (whilst fully switched off on the app and on the controller) whilst we were away. Once it was on, I couldn't turn it off at the boiler without turning the boiler off at the wall!

Just having a new controller installed now....

Is it possible to do your own meter test? Turn the gas off at the mains, take a meter reading then leave for several hours and take another meter reading. Easier to do at this time of year - especially if you're going out for the day.

If the meter doesn't move then you might have a problem in house that having a professional help identify would be a good idea - like a PP mentioned, any 'intelligent' system might be automating things for you if you haven't killed all electricity/gas to them.

If the meter moves it's faulty and you need to report it.

do you have a combi boiler? If the boiler itself is not turned off it will continue to kick in to maintain the hot water primer temperature although this seems high

It's possible to have a leak without realising. When we had our boiler replaced the engineer checked the pressure in all the pipework coming off the meter. It should have remained at the same pressure but in fact the level fell, which indicated we had a leak. He replaced the pipework to the cooker and gas fires as well as doing the boiler. All our gas appliances are on the ground floor so the pipes are under the floorboards and probably well ventilated, which is probably why we couldn't smell leaking gas.

Thanks for all your suggestions. We don't have a nest in fact we're a very un-'intelligent' house in that regard😁

Switching off gas supply is a good idea, will try that

@Plumpciousness that's interesting. We have now booked an engineer to come and take a look.

You say the water / heating was switched off but was that just the controls or was the actual boiler itself switched off at the main switch and / or isolator?

Your boiler was probably on pre heat setting. Thats what happened to me. I only found out when i had a gas and safety check as i rent the house i live in. I told the guy that did the check that i was charged for heating even though i was abroad for 3 months and he checked the boiler and found that it was set to pre heat. He then turned the preheat setting off and told me that was probably the reason as to why i was being charged because it was literally pre heating the water throughout the day even though i wasnt at home. He also put the boiler on Economy setting.
He also told me it is best to switch the boiler off from the main switch when i go abroad next time.