How to check a gas meter?

There has been a news story this weekend about EON overcharging a number of customers because their gas meters measured cubic metres when they should have measured cubic feet, or maybe vice-versa. These stories are all confused and hard to believe, especially because the ratio of these units is around 35.3:1, and anyone who had a bill to small or too large by a factor of 35 would surely notice. Does anyone understand what actually went on here - the newspaper and website reports don't help at all, and no reporter seems clued up enough to investigate or explain.

I can check easily enough whether my gas meter is recording cubic feet or metres and corresponds to what is on the bill, but is there any easy way for the consumer to check that a gas meter is actually recording roughly the right number of cubit feet/metres? With an electricity meter it's not too hard: turn everything off but one appliance such as a

1kW heater, then run it for a set length of time. But checking a gas meter seems very difficult for the end user.
Reply to
Clive Page
Loading thread data ...

I think the old meters recorded 100s of cubic feet and modern ones use Cubic metres so the ratio is nearer to 3:1 but still ought to flag up a problem with alert consumers if they bother to read the bill. Cost changes could be obfuscated by annual budget plans and energy price hikes though.

Almost impossible to check a gas meter calibration other than rig the boiler to be on full blast with no modulation and run it for so many minutes and compare the gas volume measured with the rated heat output of the boiler. lots of scope for error in the measurements and calculations so would only pick up gross errors. The only fault mechanisms in mechanical gas meters that I can think of would give errors in favour of the consumer. Modern electronic ones would have been tested to death in development and likely to either just stop working or run for ever. I believe so called smart meters (and maybe earlier electronic ones) have batteries that need changing every few years. They are possibly clever enough to send back battery data to the energy provider though.

Mechanical meters are changed every 10 years or so - mine was done a couple of years ago as was the leccy meter. Both non smart types.

Reply to
Bob Minchin

You are missing a bit of information. Meters which use cubic feet display consumption in units of 100 cu ft. So a mistake between metric and imperial is a ratio of 2.83.

Well, for a rough value of roughly, the rating of your boiler or gas cooker in kW lets you do much the same with gas as you can do with electricity.

Reply to
Robin

But imperial gas meter readings don't actually represent cubic feet - they represent *hundreds* of cubic feet because the last two smaller digits are always ignored. So a reading of 1 on an imperial meter actually corresponds to about 2.83 M^3. A large enough error - but nowhere near your factor of 35.

Reply to
Roger Mills

Gas meters read in 100s of Cubic Feet, so the bill is only out by a factor of 2.83

formatting link

Ofgem estimates approx 10,000 households may be affected.

Owain

Reply to
spuorgelgoog

It is but I'd hope it was metres against yards or something or a wrong equation used somewhere to bring it to the needed measurement, something that you could not really judge without seeing the program in use. I'd imagine the new folk who used to be called Weights and measures should be involved if this was amajor c*ck up, or the watchdog. Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

Well I had a bloke a couple of years ago wanting to change mine but since there is no gas supply here that would indeed be a difficult task. I wonder from reading all the misleading wibbles about his if its as simple as that the wrong conversion method was used for a meter in one premises as it was recorded as type a and was type be or whatever, with people changing suppliers all the time it would be easy for such errors to occur. Besides I'd imagine that gas meters need checking more often than Electric ones. Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

Here's my gas meter complete with explanations. As I can measure to fractions of a cu ft I have (with the help of this group) confirmed that the shower usage is in the right order.

Reply to
AnthonyL

Not really. The problem was the supplier didn't convert correctly - according to the type of meter.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

I would love it if somebody came to change our gas meter, as we also have no gas supply. It's in the next village, and we have a British Gas employee living down the street, but no mains gas supply here.

There used to be a local gas factory, but that closed several decades ago. We still have the pipe out the back of the house.

Reply to
Davey

The imperial meters measure in "units" of 100 cu.ft, so the difference is a factor of about 2.8

You could look at a high gas user like a boiler, check its input power in kW and convert to an expected gas rate in m^3/hr or 100cu.ft/hr.

See:

formatting link

Reply to
John Rumm

There is a Gasworks museum in Biggar, a place we often stop on the way to Edinburgh.

Reply to
Graham.

never stopped there, always in too much of a hurry. But, come the end of next month.....

Reply to
charles

Is there, now? We have only every stopped there for fuel (although I hear the public loos are of a very high standard).

The A697 is much nicer than the A1...

Reply to
Bob Eager

My drive is on the way to Edinburgh. I always stop there, and turn round..

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Gasworks still exist. They make coke for smelting iron ore. The surplus gas is often used to generate electricity. I visited one a few years back. On top of the retorts it was like a scene from hell. Amazed they could get anyone to work there.

Reply to
harry

..and then head back southwards?

- Davey.

Reply to
Davey

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.