I need help as I think my usage is excessive

johndylan22

wowzers!! That’s a large bill. I’m surprised it’s for a year worth of usage/ or non use. Or is this an ongoing dispute,

You clearly have a gas meter, if there is an unused gas fire in property, even not using any gas appliances you get charged a daily fee, depending what tariff you’re on. I pay 28p each day adds up to £100, over the year, for the pleasure of having gas piped through a meter to the house. 

You mention a 40yr old fire that isn’t ever used. It really concerns me, as it could be leaking, pipe work might be compromised, leaking gas. I would get an engineer, urgently to check if you have a leak.

 Is the gas supply to the house switched off.
I have alarm bells ringing, you may not notice a small leak especially if room well ventilated, gas could be escaping up chimney/flue, under the house. Do you have a carbon monoxide alarm?

Please get someone to check, especially as your meter registering use.
Contact OVO customer support, I’m sure they have procedures/advise on who to contact to check you haven’t got a gas leak. 

Yrs ago I had an issue with a very old back boiler fire in lounge. We ended up having Gas turn off and our back boiler & fire condemned. We hadn’t long lived in house and previous family hadn’t had any servicing or maintenance done in over 10 yrs. I don’t want to scare you, but gas leaks can have serious consequences. 
Please keep us informed 

Once you check your not losing gas by leakage, sort out the phantom charges. Atm without checking meter and pipes you won’t know. 
Good Luck. 

It’s very odd, a bit worrying to say the least.  One good thing, though: you have a smart meter, but any meter would help clear up a few questions:  try to make sure you take at least a twice daily reading at more or less the same times each day, over the next week or so; at the very least it might help reassure you re the points ​@chrisablake is making, prior to your getting a gas engineer to inspect everything.

All the very best, Walt

EDIT:  ….and by “meter” of course I have in mind the actual meter in the cupboard or wherever your gas supply pipe enters, not just any in-home display (IHD) unit that you may have on a shelf or worktop, and you can always isolate the meter by turning the lever (usually) through 45 degrees so that it’s “across” the pipe rather than parallel to the gas pipe.  The engineer when eventually s/he comes will help resolve any doubts about the meter itself or possibly the supply to the meter being in any way suspect.  Could come quite soon in spite of the upcoming Bank Holiday weekend (and presumably at no charge to yourself) if you use this unpleasant bill as a way of reporting concern about a possible gas leak…good luck.

I guess just have to wait. Happy to let engineer poke around. But I will never forget how they have treated me over this. I only got sent this new bill 4 days ago and already with court action threats. The refusal to talk with me, and the presumption that I am lying is, just not OK. I’ve never even been a day late paying a bill. 

I will be leaving OVO  at the earliest opportunity. 

Cheers, honestly there is no gas leak and if I was only being charged such a small amount it would be OK. But they have gone back and changed every bill over 18 months, reducing electricity and increasing gas. There really no leak in the house. 

On the gas on every bill clearly says estimated.?? And look at the consumption. 

Hi ​@johndylan22, can imagine how you feel…I’ve amended my edit to my earlier post, hope it may help a little?  All the very best, and as ​@chrisablake says, do please keep us posted, Walt

Yep, that’s a lot of gas for no usage: £25 or so for one month?  Estimates are sometimes based on “similar” homes rather than on your own personal usage.

Hope you get it sorted soon….

Oh ​@johndylan22, just another quick thought: I suppose both the MPRN (meter point reference number, usually all numbers, unique for your incoming gas supply) and the meter Serial Number (alphanumeric) both shown on or near your gas meter match the MPRN and the meter’s Serial Number quoted on your bill? Being billed erroneously for your own house is bad enough, even worse if it’s for somebody else’s meter entirely!

All the best…