What's the equation to convert gas meter readings into kWh?

Hi @MaryH,

Welcome to the OVO Online Community. 

This is a really interesting discussion and great to see our community members giving some tip top advice. 

You can book in a free smart meter exchange here. There is also lots of helpful information and resources available on the benefits of smart meters and how they work on the forum:

What is the formula to convert units to Kwh?

If your usage does appear high there are a few different factors that may be responsible from a faulty appliance, an old boiler or a meter clocking to much consumption. 

We have a really helpful guide here:

Hope this helps. 

Hi all, thanks for taking the time to respond

Blastoise I appreciate your response and I will certainly look to replace the meters once I get all of this resolved. I’m not sure what you mean when you did the calculation that came out at 1500kwh did you use a different calculation from x 2.83?

it is really high and we jus5 can’t understand it, I have jus5 haD a response from my supplier and they insist the meter is measuring in 100 cubit feet and the calculation is correct their answer is I must be using it more 😡 on what I have no idea as i said no heating heating and don’t cook with gas so 2 showers per  day for 56 days is nearly £90.

They are stating the 0.0283 calculation is only used if I submit 5 numbers on the meter readings which I don’t understand, I just feel it’s too much of a coincidence that my gas usage is “average” when I use the lower calculation. They have confirmed they won’t be investigating fur5be4 so at least I can now lodge a complaint to ombudsman.

I have attached a pic of the bill if anyone can think of any reason behind this I would really appreciate it thanks

 Mary

Thanks for the info @MaryH 

I have to say, the calculation looks correct. The readings are only using the ‘white’ numbers and not the red numbers and so if in 100s of cubic feet.

Since the day of your reading on the bill and when you took the photo you’ve used 3 units which equates to 95kWh or £2.60. If that’s in around a week then if we pro-rata it it’s only 30 units over 70 days, so much less than what your billed usage is.

In Sherlock Holmes style here are a few possibilities (some less likely than others)

• The meter is faulty
• There was a gas leak (but latest reading appears to show reduced usage now)
• The boiler used more gas for some reason (possibly when you were away?)
• Your previous reading was wrong and should have been higher than entered (meaning more gas used up until June but less from June onwards)

I’d keep regular readings to see how it increases over the next week or so and if there are any sudden jumps.

Sorry I should have said that pic of the meter was taken on Monday 11th Sep to send to the supplier it’s now at 5345 so from 8/9 when I submitted the 5338 we have used 7 units in 8 days do you think that would be average with only a shower each per day?

I can see that would be slightly lower than the 103 units in 70 days or 56 days when we were using gas.

can you advise who is responsible for checking if the meter is faulty is that us or the supplier?

I appreciate you taking the time to look at this for me I can’t see how any gas would be used when we were away as nothing was switched on and nobody in the house, it’s becoming a real mystery 😲

Mary

That’ll be the supplier. However, there’s things you can do first juuuuuuust to be safe. :)

I’ve an old gas meter too.  For ease of calculation, I adopt 1 unit = 32kWh as a reasonable and simple approximation.  I’m in the eastern area - but the only thing that would make any difference would be the calorific value of the gas in another region, which is likely to be small.

To add to the possibilities:

If the boiler is a combi, is it cycling to maintain a high heat exchanger temperature for when the hot water is demanded?  Test by turning off the power to the boiler except when you want to use the hot water.  A day or two should give you an answer.

If the boiler heats a hot water tank, is that tank properly insulated?  If its leaking heat 24/7 then the boiler will fire to keep the water temperature up whether you use any hot water or not.

If it's a very old boiler and it has a pilot light, then its burning gas 24/7, probably didn’t matter too much when gas was cheap but now……….

Hi meldrewreborn I wonder if that’s a possibility we will test it over the weekend.

we don’t have a water tank since the combi boiler was installed

thanks Mary 

Hi could you advise how many gas units you are using per day in summer

thanks

I can but it will not help you that much!!!

I use 8400 cu ft or about 2988 kWh, including for cooking, from April to September inclusive - 6 months..  But I’ve got a boiler with no pilot light, a very well insulated hot water tank (no combi!) and I’ve got a solar thermal panel which delivers copious supplies of hot water when the sun shines enough.

But, as an estimate, It might be 6,000 kWh if I didn’t have the panel.