Does my gas annual consumption seem unusually high?

Yes, that is unusually high usage. Where are you seeing this figure? A screenshot showing it would be very helpful.

Ofgem classes households as low, medium or high users, with the thresholds for gas being: low: 7,500 kWh, medium 11,500 kWh and high 17,000 kWh. At 27,000 kWh/year, you’re really off the scale and you’re right to question the figure.

Do you have a smart gas meter? Photos of both meters would be welcome along with the screenshot.

Thanks. You didn’t say whether you have a smart meter … 

Could we see the meter readings too, please? When you get to the Meters page, tap View reading history and take a screenshot of the page that comes up for gas.

OK. That’s not inspiring: you can’t expect to be billed correctly if you rarely provide meter readings. At the very least, you should submit readings once a month* if your meter’s not doing it automatically. If you do in fact have a smart electricity meter, it’s clearly not providing readings to OVO; the gas meter readings are passed on by the electricity meter when things are working properly.

Now we really do need to see photos of both meters to be able to work out what’s going wrong. In the meantime, be sure to submit readings from both meters today if not sooner!

Your usage has been estimated, which is why the figures are so alarming. I’m surprised you haven’t questioned this before: your bills must have been astronomical.

Incidentally, your electricity readings suggest that your consumption is a bit below average. In three years (April 2021 - April 2024), you’ve used 6638 kWh of electricity, i.e. about 2200 kWh/year.  Ofgem reckons that an average household with gas heating uses 2700 kWh of electricity each year.  

*   Check the dates that your latest bill refers to. It will say something like 10th Apr - 9th May. Note the first date: next month, submit readings early in the morning on the same day of the month, e.g. 10th June. This should ensure that your bill isn’t using an estimate for its closing reading. 

The readings page has the gas tab highlighted?

It’s also no wonder the gas won’t connect - that’s an S1 Gas Meter but your Electric is S2. They’re not compatible with each other.

Did you have another Smart Meter before perhaps?

I did wonder as often before, but I came to the conclusion that with Gas  shown in blue and underlined, it was more probably a link to another page. The readings shown bear no relation to the usage figures, so I deduced that they must be for electricity. It’s even more confusing now: squinting at the screenshot of the electricity meter, I make the reading 19543. That doesn’t fit with anything else …

 @Rachael3 There is something very strange going on here. There is no correlation between the usage figures you showed originally, the few meter readings you shared with us and the figure we can just make out on the display of your electricity meter. The smart meter check tool is telling you that readings are being received, but the readings page shows only very sporadic manual readings, although I can’t tell whether these are for gas or electricity. And to cap it all, our resident meter expert @Blastoise186 tells us that the old gas meter won’t communicate with the newer electricity meter, so no gas readings will be getting through to anybody.

I think you need an engineer visit to sort this out, but I’m at a loss to find a reason to order one that won’t cost you. While we think about that (and I’m hoping @Abby_OVO will come up with one), I’d ask you to venture out to the meter cupboard again, this time to take clear photos of the meters themselves so we can see what it says on their screens and what state the other indicators on them are showing. It might be slightly less unpleasant to do this if you took a hoover along with you ...

Hey @Rachael3 

Just wanted to check in to see if you’ve made any progress or been in touch with the Support Team?

I did hear back from our specialist who recommends having the gas meter upgraded so that it’s compatible with the electric smart meter, which will allow the gas meter to then communicate with us.

If you’ve not already reached out to the Support Team, we’d definitely recommend asking if they can schedule an upgrade for the gas meter, and that you continue to submit meter readings as often as possible in the meantime.

@Rachael3  One other possibility. When you are asked to enter a gas meter reading does the website expect cubic metres of (100s) cubic feet? Your meter appears to be metric.

Hello,

I logged in today to pay my bills and noticed a high debit due to my gas usage over the last year. My gas usage has been extremely high, especially in winter, with bills over £1,000 a month, most of which is gas. It's also higher than usual in other months. Even though our habits haven't changed. Could there be an issue with my appliances or the meter? Any advice on what to check or what might be causing this?

Hey @useruser,

Glad to see one of our volunteers has stopped by and given some really useful advice and similar topics. I would only add that you can also speak to our Support Team if you want to ask any account specific questions and they’re more than happy to look at this with you. 

Let us know if you get things resolved!