My kWh use at home has increased about 85% compared to the previous year.
My circumstances haven’t changed & neither have my appliances (gas combi boiler with a living room thermostat & gas hob on the cooker). I live alone and if anything, spend more time at my girlfriend’s.
The only change I can remember is the analogue display on the meter being changed/checked.
The little red cubic feet needle on the meter does a full 360° sweep in slightly over a minute if I run a hot tap or put the heating on.
Any ideas for the big increase? And no I can’t smell gas!

Any ideas for the big increase?

At the same time as the meter change, you switched to bottled LPG and have now found that burning unicorns would be cheaper?

(Not helpful, I know. Just bitter at you mains gas users…. 😉 )

This year is milder than last year (down South), so I’m expecting to use less gas…

I’d check they are converting the unit of measure (m3 or ft3) into kWh’s correctly. Also, check how many digits of the meter dial they were billing prior to the change against how many they are now.

You can do a sanity check yourself by using the formula below. You say it’s ft3 so that’s the formula provided below. for m3 just drop the 2.83 multiplication in step 1. Note the CV and the temp and pressure figure will vary slightly so it may be different on your bill.

For ft3 meters – multiply units used by 2.83.
Multiply by the temperature and pressure figure (1.02264).
Multiply by calorific value (39.25)
Divide by 3.6 to get the number of kilowatt hours (kWh)

Maybe the reason they changed your meter was because it was not recording your usage correctly. Now you might be paying for the correct amount. If so, you lucked out before the change. Ask a neighbour with similar lifestyle what their consumption is. If its close to yours you’ll have a good idea its on the money.

Balls up with readings following a meter swap sounds quite likely. Happened to a friend of mine a couple of years ago.

Sometime last year, I was visited by a nice man that recorded some random set of numbers against my meter which increased my monthly payments to…ready?….£800pcm.

You can probably guess my reaction when I opened that particular letter.

EDIT: Any excuse for a Bottom clip.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=v5p-YQkbe_s[/video]

My gas use has gone down this year. What are your actual values to see if we think they’re sane?

Sorry I had a brain fart. It was usage over the last month compared to last year & I gave an accurate reading compared to estimated 😳

We all get those from time to time. Hats off for owning up. 🙂

Europe 1 announced French gas consumption is 20% down due to the mild Winter.