Faulty gas meter?

[Buzzark]

I've recently been researching a new boiler etc and part of the drive is because we got the annual review from our first year in the house recently. The gas bill was massive!
I complained the first time we had a bill but they kept fobbing me off with "it all balances itself out over a year" - I was expecting a big fat cheque back but instead the direct debit went up a bit!

3 bed semi, insulated loft, double glazed, room stat @ 15-16, bedroom rads off (we like it cool) and the heating's been off since February. The house seems to require very little heat input and maintains a pretty stable temperature.

According to the meter we used 29,500kW last year, about £1100 worth!
The meter readings used were actual readings and that averages out @ 2.64 ft/3 per day pretty much for each quarter's bill last year.
I've been monitoring it for the last month taking daily readings and we've never used more than 1.5 units in a day and some days as little as 1 unit.
Average is about 1.4 over the last month.

Our last house was the same size, older and less well insulated and cost us about £450 a year in gas, dropping to about £400 with a new boiler.

Next door have the same heating, boiler and DHW system - they were done at the same time. Until recently they had no loft insulation and older single glazed windows, have the heating on all day and only spend £450 a year on gas!

The only thing I can see that can possibly explain it is if the meter jumps up only once in a while but jumps up a large amount - otherwise it's not adding up?
Anybody come across anything as bizarre? I've had to pay for a meter check but if it misses it jumping up, I'm not sure they'll find anything.

 

[ChrisR]

Can't add much but I'm confused over your figures.
29,500, er, what ? Do you mean kW Hours? That's 81kWHr per day , = unlikely.

What's the calorific value of your gas - it's on the bill.

To be pedantic, what are you calling 1 unit?

LCD screen meters DO jump up.

What boiler do you have?
You should be able to make it go at full chat for a couple of minutes and measure the usage, to see if it's doing its thing properly.

I know another guy moaning about his bill, 7k pa. Serves him right for having 7 bedrooms, I say.

 

[big-all]

ok questions to ask

assuming you have only been in the house 1 year

did you take an opening reading when you moved!!!!

has the meter been read at all or are all the readings esimates

 

[Buzzark]

Answers to those questions:

It's actually 29,825 kWh in a year. 81.71 kWh per day and yes, it does seem a lot.

Calorific value is 39.0

It's an analogue meter, imperial measurment ft/3 - they are billing us against ft/3, checked that already.

1 unit is 1 cubic ft.

The boiler is a Glow Worm hideaway 70B, originally rated at 65% efficiency, obviously not the greenest thing to have but it's been checked and it's burning cleanly and is in "remarkably good condition". It's going anyway, but next door have the identical boiler, identical install in fact have the heating on all day and baths etc and seem to be using about 40% of what we're "using".

There's no leak, turning off the appliances stops the meter - tested for most of a day.

I've even checked all teh pipes off the meter under the floor to make sure we weren't feeding both houses.

We took an opening reading when we moved into the house, this is the reading on the start of our bills. I've checked each reading when it's been done, they've all matched up to the meter and it's been read every quarter.

Yes, only been in house 1 year (just over now) and was expecting money back like British Gas did to us every year until we left them...
I'm confused, checking the meter everyday the readings say we're not using much, the readings when we get to each quarter say otherwise.

 

[Bambergaspipe]

Take it up with your provider

 

[ChrisR]

that averages out @ 2.64 ft/3 per day

That isn't right..


39 is MJ/cu m
that's 1047 btus/cu ft

Your boiler should burn about 80,000/1047 = 76 cubic ft/hr it's actually on. YOu can check that over say 1 minute.
47 seconds per revolution.

That's about 24kW.
It would have to be on about 81.71/24 = 3.4 hrs/day. That is possible?

 

[Bambergaspipe]

Take it up with your provider

 

[ChrisR]

Yes you wrote that before. It will of course cost him money, to have the meter tested. That's why he's asking us.

 

[big-all]

heeellloo buzzark

still dont think you have answerd my question

if you have only been in a year
if the opening reading was the previous owners and they under read the closing reading and eastimates in the meantime could mean you over paying now

go back through the bills and and if they mention E[esimate] or C{customers estimate} or any other letter let us know

 

[Bambergaspipe]

Yes you wrote that before. It will of course cost him money, to have the meter tested. That's why he's asking us.

It`s not down to you nor I to calculate the volume of gas he has used & then advise. We are not qualified to advise on tariffs. As far as I can recollect the only thing we are qualified to do is fit meters. (Met1). or am I missing something?

What you gonna do , fix it

 

[Buzzark]

still dont think you have answerd my question

if you have only been in a year
if the opening reading was the previous owners and they under read the closing reading and eastimates in the meantime could mean you over paying now

go back through the bills and and if they mention E[esimate] or C{customers estimate} or any other letter let us know

Answers to those questions:
We took an opening reading when we moved into the house, this is the reading on the start of our bills. I've checked each reading when it's been done, they've all matched up to the meter and it's been read every quarter.

Sorry, I thought that covered it. All the reading have been A Actual readings by the meter reading peeps. We record this at the same time and it matches up with the bills.

@ Bambergaspipe
Hi Bamber, I've reported it to the supplier and paid for a meter test. I'm really just interested to see if anybody has experienced this sort of thing before.

 

[Agile]

I think you said you have a Glow worm standard boiler, perhaps about 18 kW.

If so it would have to be fully on for about 4 hours a day which is quite possible as you have a shower which takes 20 li/min and the others all have to bath and wash and heat the house during the winter.

This is what energy efficiency is all about. Ensuring the bills are kept to a minimum and equipment is more efficient.

Tony

 

[Buzzark]

that averages out @ 2.64 ft/3 per day

That isn't right..


39 is MJ/cu m
that's 1047 btus/cu ft

Your boiler should burn about 80,000/1047 = 76 cubic ft/hr it's actually on. YOu can check that over say 1 minute.
47 seconds per revolution.

That's about 24kW.
It would have to be on about 81.71/24 = 3.4 hrs/day. That is possible?

ChrisR, you've kinda lost me there!
I was assuming 1 unit is 1 cubic foot because that's what the meter appeared to say. The meter has 4 white and 2 red odometer style numbers and these tally with the numbers quoted as units on the bill - the white ones at least with the red being fractions of that unit and not read for billing purposes. There is also a dial as you say as well and that's calibrated into segments with 0.5 at the bottom and 1.0 at the top.

I've noticed though that the dial hand doesn't correspond to the white figures so is one dial revolution 1 cubic foot and the red figures must be cubic feet 0-99. That must make one unit 100 cubic feet?

OK, I don't think I'm as lost now!

The hand takes 40 seconds for a revolution = 1 cubic foot and the boiler is rated at 20.51kWh from the specs on SEDBUK.
So is that 1cu/ft x 1.5 (to equal a minute) then x 60mins to equal 90cu/ft and hour?
That seems to be spinning faster than it should for the rating of the boiler?

Using your figures for the lower boiler sizing it should then be 68333/1047 = 65 cubic ft/hr roughly and the meter's reading about 90?!?! That sounds like a 38% over read on the meter without any "jumping" occuring.

Have I got that right or at least near enough?

 

[Dan Robinson]

Your boiler is burning 27.43kW which is 33.75% over what it is rated.

Which about tallies with your gas bill.

You need the bolier serviced and the gas rate brough back down to the standard.

 

[Buzzark]

as you have a shower which takes 20 li/min and the others all have to bath and wash and heat the house during the winter.

Just a minor correction Tony, I'd like to have a shower capable of putting the out on full whack. Currently it'll pump out 16l/m max, but normal usage is 10-12l/m. I just wanted extra power available for quick, blast clean showers so the option is there. I'm normally out of the shower in about 5-6 minutes for what it's worth and I'm very interested in keeping things as efficient as possible.

Every bulb in the house is energy saving, appliances are A rated and the Miele washing machine uses less water than normal. The room thermostat is set pretty low at 15-16c. We do try!

We're not heavy users and it doesn't explain why we'd be using more than double the gas of next door, who by their own admission ARE heavy users.