Imperial Gas meters ?

(I am sick to the back teeth that in the 21st century I still have to fiddle about with imperial shit. I am of an age where my entire journey through education and life has been metric.)

Just submitted my meter readings, and looking at an old bill, I notice that my energy supplier has been applying a /3.6 "metric conversion" to my usage. They appear to have the meter serial numbers correct. But looking at the meter, it reads in m3.

Am I looking at a c*ck up where they're going to want 3.6 times more money backdated ?

Reply to
Jethro_uk
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And many of us are not that young. We got here first, and grew up with Imperial units.

Reply to
Davey

Have a guess how old I am ? No-one any younger than me has any excuse for using imperial.

Anyway, has anyone known the utilities mess up metric/imperial meters ? My meter was changed in 2009 btw.

Reply to
Jethro_uk

In message , Davey writes

Too right!

Reply to
Bill

Haven't the Dibnah brigade died off yet? Still, won't be long.

FFS, my 35yo Land Rover has metric fasteners on it. Not everywhere, granted. Not even necessarily at both ends of the same brake pipe. But even Solihull were starting to metricate back then, most of an entire working lifetime ago.

Reply to
Adrian

Well just think of it as an opportunity to learn some new old stuff.

3.6 sounds like a kW to MJ/h conversion...

To convert 100s Cu Ft to m^3 your would need to multiply by 2.83

Doubt it...

Reply to
John Rumm

I can use either, but prefer imperial for some things...

Yup happens fairly frequently AIUI.

Reply to
John Rumm

MY BBC Metric Pocket Book is dated 1977 which, at 37 years, is slightly older.

Reply to
charles

Too young to remember Imperial, but too old in the tooth for Google

"gas meter metric conversion"

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michael adams

...

Reply to
michael adams

Yes, or rather MJ to kWh. The "calorific value" is given in MJ/m^3. The calculation is

volume (m^3) x calorific value (MJ/m^3) / 3.6 = energy (kWh).

The volume is at a specified temperature and pressure so a correction factor is applied which always seems to be 1.02264.

-- Richard

Reply to
Richard Tobin

Well, quite. Mind you, some people are still moaning about decimalisation.

There's probably some round here who reckon the rot set in when those bloody Italians rocked up here, and how everything was so much better before. What did they ever do for us?

Reply to
Adrian

I wouldn't know about such a new Land Rover but I'd guess at least one of the brake components has been changed. I can't see even Rover making brake pipes with Imperial on one end and metric on the other.

Edgar

Reply to
Edgar Iredale

Oi! I'm not dead yet - though I feel like it....

I use metric for "science and engineering" and imperial for cooking and health matters.

Anyway, I thought your 35 year old Landrover had metric, AF and Whitworth? Or is that the 55 year old version?

Reply to
Tim Watts

Gardening and clothing too? But for cooking doesn't everyone use cups and spoons?

I seem to have managed quite well on all the Series 1s I've had using BSF/BSW & BA spanners. I do keep a set of AF spanners in the toolbox of my new 1957 88" - just in case.

Edgar

Reply to
Edgar Iredale

Would I be prosecuted if I refrigerated my meter cupboard?

If my meter was outside in the cold, would I be paying less for my gas, than say a meter in my home?

Reply to
Fredxxx

tsp and tbsp yes. "cups"? A pox and a plague unto your american system of volume units!

:)

Anyway, don't metric spanners fit BSW if you "help" them on with a hammer?

Reply to
Tim Watts

My Irish friend Patrick has a French helper called Metric.

Bill

Reply to
Bill Wright

In other words 5 ml, 15ml, and 240 ml.

The problem with cups is the things they measure with them (rice, chopped onion, etc). The invention of digital scales has made that volume-based method look even sillier than it was before.

Reply to
Mike Barnes

But what nothing there seems to explain is how a single number can correct for the variations in temperature and pressure that take place by the second!

I suspect, and this is only a guess, that the T&P defined for measuring cubic feet were chosen to be different to those used for cubic metres.

BG's take on these issues includes this statement:

Conversion formula

Used to convert gas units into kilowatt-hours (kWh). The formula is as follows: gas units used x correction factor (1.02264) x imperial to metric conversion factor (2.83) x calorific value (38.9) divided by kilowatt-hour conversion factor (3.6) = kWh in cubic feet To calculate a bill, multiply kWh in cubic feet by the unit price in your agreed contract.

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I simply cannot make sense of the phrase "multiply kWh in cubic feet".

Reply to
polygonum

I was brought up in an Imperial age, but studied Physics which was metric - albeit c-g-s rather than M-K-S - and am thus comfortable with either.

I tend to use them on a mix and match basis - whatever is convenient - and often measure (say) a hole position on a wall using inches for the horizontal position and mm for the vertical if that produces 'rounder' numbers.

Reply to
Roger Mills

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