Why am I having to top-up my Pay-As-You-Go meter more often at the moment?

hello guys,

moved into a property on the 1st of december, the meter had a phisical cap on it so i had to top it up first and then call the engineer to “release” the gas. upon calling i was told there was a negative balance of £52 but telling them i just rented this property they said they will waive it and let me top up. so they sent me those number for gas and electricity to be able to top up which i did. 

i’ve put £10 for gas and there was about £14 credit left on the electricity. started the heating and in about 5 hours i heard a click on the meter and the credit has been eaten entirely. 

so i kept toping up and realised the heating is “eating” about £1.5/h to heat the house and about £1/h to mantain 19-20 degrees. 

tried to call ovo and boost several times, played footbal with me passing me to webchat and from webchat to phone calls and so on, never got an answer.

my friend who’s with british is burning around £4-6 gas over 24h heating.

im on the 8th day and ive been runing the heating for a total of around 25 hours and the cost is £40. 

i tried to switch to british gas, they said all cool, then they said there’s an error and i should call them. upon calling them they said they can’t do the switch because im on a payg meter and they first need to take over the payg meter and then switch to credit. i told them i have a smart meter but they said no, if has to be taken over first as a payg meter on british and then switched. it was planned to take place on the 21st of this month, but they confirmed the direct debit on the 12th, which i cancelled.

yesterday i started the switching with ovo, a £30 extra per month compared to british but at least they said they will be able to do it on the 14th of this month. 

still, i can’t stay at the property because i can’t pay around £25 per day for heating and i can’t keep staying at my friend in the meantime. 

its driving me nuts, is there anything to be done to decrease this cost? i know payg are a bit more expensive, but £1.5/h is crezy with all the gas crisis. 

anyone can help with some advice?

What is your heating system @kodeina  ? 

£25 a day for heating suggests an awfully inefficient system...

its a boiler “ideal logic combi c30” on 2bed house.

i doubt is an awfully inefficient system, as the cooker running 2 burners will burn £0.95 per hour. how inefficinet can the cooker be?

Does the meter show how much gas you're actually using? Can you take some readings at the same time on consecutive days? That will show if you're using loads of gas or if there's a problem with the amount you're being charged.

Used £15 emergency credit, topped up £20 on card, inserted card into meter, thus giving me £4 in credit, Yet meter stating " Emcr Used".. Used the £4 up AND now thinking wheres £15 gone, This isn't the first time this has happened

It sounds like there might be a debt on the meter for which you need to catch up on payments before you can restore supply/credit without deductions. A £20 top-up giving you £4 credit is roughly the 30% buffer allowance for a gas meter in that state.

Please also remember that you must replenish ALL emergency credit back to full before you can use it again - the same applies to top-up deductions after using emergency credit as the meter will continue to make deductions until the reserves have been fully replenished.

Try topping up again and see what happens.

If you think the debt should NOT be there, please let Support know and ask them to take a look.