Using gas whilst away, how is this possible?

We also had a leaking gas hob in our last house, the engineer said it does happen sometimes. Got picked up by the engineer when he was servicing our gas boiler in the kitchen. 

Thanks

I decided that at most it will cost me about £7 over the course of a year and add about 13kg to my CO2 emissions so I’m going to take the hit and ask him to check it out next time he comes to service the boiler.

cheers

J

Good afternoon

I have had the smart meter for just over one month.

Unfortunately I have been quite ill. On discharge from hospital, I noticed I am being charged between 31 and 35p each night for gas. My gas hasn’t been used.

I emailed OVO I received this reply

Hi C, Thanks for getting in touch with us. My name is W…... I'm a account management team member here at OVO, and I'm happy to help you with this.

The 30p charge is standing charge. I have added a explanation of standing charge below.

I thought that was odd, as I remember reading the standing charge is added.

I went to my daughters for five days after discharge. I arrived home this week and queried again the monies taken overnight because it was bothering me. It’s only 30 odd pence but it mounts up over the year.

I received another response stating:

With regard to billing, unfortunately, standing charge is not included with your consumption. We bill you for your month's worth of consumption, add the charge and VAT

This amount is not billing you on the amount of units you use in a month. This means, even though you are not using gas, you will still be billed 31p a day. We will continue to bill you standing charge as long as OVO Energy is your supplier. The reason we require this is due to us servicing your meter. For example, if your meter breaks or is faulty, we will complete a free meter exchange.

Does this mean we are being charged nearly £115 a year to service the smart meter???

Money Saving Expert has a good general  article on Standing Charges. It is not just the cost of the actual meter as you will see

https://blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2023/07/martin-lewis--why-are-energy-standing-charges-so-high--what-can-/

If you feel strongly you could lobby your MP for changes in the way Ofgem manage they price cap. 

Hi @C Bates , it’s worth noting that it’s not a charge for the smart meter as such but it’s levied for any meter. Virtually all energy companies have standing charges (actually maybe all these days)

Thank you for your replies, I appreciate you taking the time. It is this statement from OVO that is confusing me:

With regard to billing, unfortunately, standing charge is not included with your consumption. We bill you for your month's worth of consumption, add the charge and VAT. By that I think they mean the standing charge will be added at the end of the month

My meter reading is showing the 30 odd p as consumption. Reporting usage as 0.49kwh

I haven’t used any gas at all. I’m hoping you are all correct and this is the standing charge, but it isn’t clear to me from their email

Thanks again

I will wait for OVO to clarify

Hi @C Bates , yes that’s the IHD (in home display) rather than the meter itself and that does show the standing charge and vat along with any power usage. 
When I first saw that, early one morning, I was surprised but it is because the standing charge is added, usually early, each day

Thank you. Yes, it appears around 2am each day.

I thought is was a charge for gas. I’ll stop stressing now 😉

This reply from OVO is still confusing me: I am obviously missing something.

Their response is

As you have mentioned you are seeing you have been billed 32p per day for your usage, this is incorrect - the 32P that has been charged is showing as a monthly running total, what you have used from the start of the month. I can see your usage is very minimal for your Gas.

Please find below your meter read from the beginning of the month up to date:

02/07/23 - 1.040

29/07/23 - 6.134

As you can see you are not a big user, I do understand at the moment we are in the Summer months, so our usage will be less.

Your Daily Standing charge is: £0.2772 per day (excluding VAT) plus the usage you may have used. I know you have mentioned you were in hospital (I do hope you are feeling better), and that the property was empty for a week.

Your Gas meter will still clock around as there is still Gas being sent to your property. The only way to stop this from charging/clocking is by having your Gas meter capped - this stops gas being transported to you.

I am charged the 32p each day on top of my usage, it doesn’t appear to be one 32p as a running total because it is 32p plus my usage. I am only washing up once a day...heating is off. Charge is currently at £2 50 for this week 

I do appreciate your responses.  think it is best to call them

Chris

It might be worth discussing with customer support as no one here has access to your account. The IHD simply shows you your daily usage including the standing charge. It is not a bill. 
It sounds like they are explaining the usage so far which can also be seen via your account. 
https://account.ovoenergy.com/billing-details

They have a system which counts up each day towards you bill for the month

Some years ago, with an earlier Pipit IHD and associated smart meters we could see a regular use of very small amounts of gas at night and whilst on holiday etc.. We contacted Wales & West utilities who sent out an engineer to check the meter, our pipes and the boiler. He found a very small gas leak on the boiler associated with a valve - we hadn’t smelt anything as the gas was being taken up the flue pipe and out. We would have remained blissfully unaware if it hadn’t been for the IHD showing the flow of gas.

It’s always worth getting this checked if you think you can see an unexplained flow of gas, even if you can’t smell anything - your gas transporter won’t charge for a safety check.

Hey @Brizzles55,

That’s really helpful advice! 

For anyone that does believe they have a gas leak there is lots of advice on our website. 

Gas emergency

If you can smell gas or think you have a gas leak: 

• Do open doors and windows to let the gas escape
• Do check your gas appliances are switched off
• Do call the 24 hour National Gas Emergency hotline on 0800 111 999
• Do turn your gas off at the isolation switch (if you know where it is), then wait outside, and let your neighbours know.
• Don't switch lights on or off, use doorbells, mobile phones or use any electrical switches.
• Don't smoke, light a match or use any other kind of naked flame.
• Don't go back into your home until you’ve got the all-clear.

If you're worried fumes containing carbon monoxide are escaping from a gas appliance, call the 24 hour National Gas Emergency hotline on 0800 111 999. For further information about gas safety in the home check out our guide here. 

I didn’t use gas as boiler is broken since Friday. 
The meter says I used gas despite this. 
Saturday: the data is missing because no gas was used.  Has the system decided to default to charging an amount on assumption?

I had neither heating nor hot water but this meter is still charging me. 
 

Hey ​@GFP 

Welcome to the OVO Online Community,

If the smart meter isn’t sending meter readings or is set to monthly meter readings the usage in between may be estimated until a meter reading is received. 

These topics might be helpful:
 

Please keep us posted.

Despite not using gas at all, you are still paying a standing charge. 

A good point from ​@costeek. 
 

My smart meter is showing £0.21/hr usage when everything is turned off, I even shut the boiler off since yesterday. 

Didn’t use the hob, no hot water and with the boiler off it doesn’t fire up randomly. 

£0.21/hr is £5.04 a day, surely standing charge isn’t that much. 

That’s like £151 a month without using anything. 

I called the emergency gas line but they said if you don’t smell anything or any hissing noise there isn’t a leakage and could be that the meter needs recalibrating. What if the leakage is outside or underground somewhere? 

Also who compensates me for this non-usage, I wonder how long this went on for…

Just fyi, all appliances turned off electricity is £0.1/hr. That seems a bit more reasonable but still high as daily standing charge for electricity is like 61p and 31p for gas I believe. 

Are these credit meters or are they PAYG?
(Just to check if you might be paying off a debit on a PAYG meter at so much per day).

Assuming that it’s not a PAYG meter and there is no debit charge;

When you say “smart meter” do you actually mean the meter, or do you instead mean your In Home Display Device (IHD)?

Your IHD is meant as an indication of what you are using, it is not what you are billed to.
You are billed to what the actual meter says not what the IHD says.

If you are meaning the IHD then press the button and change it from showing £’s to showing kWh.
If you are not using anything then it should show 0 kWh.
It gets that kWh usage straight from the meter, and then uses the kWh to calculate £’s.

The £’s that an IHD calculates and shows you may not be using your actual current tariff.
The IHD stores the tariff it is using internally, and sometimes that stored tariff doesn’t get updated as it should.

Which means that your IHD may have the wrong tariff programmed into it, and so show you the wrong £s.
(eg. it might not have updated itself from a couple of years ago when prices were sky high).
If it does have the wrong tariff stored then that can usually be fixed by getting customer support to send it an update command.

As you say that the electricity also appears to be showing you a wrong £’s figure then it does sound as if it may be using the wrong tariff.

If you can tell us what type you IHD is, post a photo of it here, then someone can tell you how to check the tariff it’s is using etc.

PS. What does your actual ‘live’ billing say, either online or in the app?
Those will use your current tariff, so will be more accurate than the IHD.
Either one will also tell you what your actual tariff rates and standing charges are.

Hey ​@weso 

I’m glad to see one of our helpful users Nukecad has already stopped by with some helpful advice and questions here in order to also try and help further.

If you could clarify where it is you’re seeing these figures, we’ll be able to better assist if there’s a problem. The following topics may be of use to you here:

If you could answer some of the questions Nukecad asked above, we’ll try our best to point you in the best direction of what to do next.

I don’t know what’s going on but I’ve gone from an average daily gas use of around 2.5kWh each day for the past three months to suddenly the past week my account is showing a daily usage of 30kWh, even on days when I’m not home. 
My flat uses gas only for heating and hot water so I’m at a complete loss as to how I can be using such insane quantities of gas on days when I’m not even in the property. How have I gone through 23.5kWh of gas when I’ve spent the past two days at my partners house?!
Has anyone else noticed their readings have skyrocketed recently? 
I tried reaching out to customer service about in and after spending almost an hour trying to get in touch with an actual human I was left waiting for another 20 minutes while they “looked into it” then randomly the conversation was terminated and I was booted from the chat.

Where are you seeing these numbers?

Could you post a screenshot, (without any account numbers or personal details).

Some of the charts that you see on your account online will show Esitimates at times and depending on circumstances they can be wildly out.

They get corrected later.

You would not be the first to have a WTF? moment until you realise it's just a transitory estimate and not real.

OR

To put it another way I have suffered from an over inflated Gas Anual Quantity giving me excessive ‘estimated’ usage for a few years now. it is now sorting itself out for me now, but it can take 12 months.

​@Jambles good morning and a warm welcome to the Forum community.

As ​@Nukecad says, this could be due to estimates. Have you got a smart meter or a traditional meter? 

We’ll await your answers, and screenshots as requested by Nukecad.

Mine has increased but that’s due to a)testing boiler ok for approaching winter.

2. Boiler been on boost a few times during Oct for colder morning/evening. 
   It had only increased for the usage. 
   your bill could be estimated. 
   Contact Customer Support if you don’t get to bottom of this large increase on Forum. 
   I’ve always found Customer Support excellent when I’ve made contact. 
   Please keep us UPDATED on progress

Thanks for the positive feedback ​@chrisablake!

I'd always found the estimated readings to be pretty close to my actual usage, so when I saw it had increased tenfold out of nowhere that definitely set up alarm bells.

After many conversations with many customer service people, some very helpful and some obstinate to the point of pedantry, the meter was reset remotely and the readings on the account now match the actual usage again. I've also noticed since the meter was reset that there are now daily readings instead of monthly/every two months.