Gas meter readings not sending automatically

Hey @Pete528

Welcome to the OVO Online Community,

I’d advise doing a smart meter health check, so our team can investigate this. 

Hi, having submitted meter readings for electricity and gas on the 21st April I noticed that my gas meter reading history is not showing for the last five years, the last reading is showing as the 26th July 2019, even though I have been submitting every month. I've seen on this forum that this problem has occured with other users, is this a known issue again and if so, when will it be fixed?

Hi @MCBrowncoat,

I’m sorry to hear that you’re experiencing this. 

I’d advise contacting Support so they can look into this further for you, it sounds like your account may have a tech issue.

Keep us updated with how you get on. 

I had smart meters fitted back in April 2024. I've had no issues until I received an email (February 2025)  from OVO saying my gas meter hasn't been sending readings since December. I have tried numerous times by email and online chat to organise an engineer to come out and look at my meter.

The last reading gas meter sent was around the same time as I got a new boiler fitted. 

Today (13th February), I had a phone call from an OVO advisor who was trying to book an appointment for me for an engineer, but was struggling for some reason. I informed the advisor I am only off work on a Wednesday, so ideally this is the best day. 

Advisor informed me that I could call later in the week, but I find it easier to do the online chat when I'm at work as I can't accept phone calls.

Annoyed it has taken OVO over a month to inform me that my gas meter isn't sending readings, so sno doubt I'll end up with estimated bills.

You shouldn’t get estimated bills if you submit readings yourself, especially on the first day of the billing period. If you can’t enter readings on the account website, you should be able to on the app.

Hey ​@PurpleArmy72 

I’m sorry to hear this it sounds like a very frustrating experience. 

Firedog is correct here, you can submit manual meter readings for the time being if you’re concerned about estimated readings.
 

Please provide your current reading

How to take a manual smart meter reading?

To find out your current reading press the menu button or A on your electricity smart meter and the reading will appear after the words IMP KWH. 

Aclara (Flonidan for gas)

• Electricity: There’s 2 buttons on an electricity meter. Pressing B will cycle through all the menus on the meter screen and pressing A will cycle through all the sub menus. To take an electricity reading, you will need to press A - TOU rate 1 will be the electricity reading. For Economy 7 members, TOU rate 2 will show the rate 2 reading.

• Gas: Gas meters have A, B and C. Pressing C will give you the menu and A & B will allow you to scroll through the options. The balance section is where you can check the reading (when you wake up the meter it should automatically default to the reading screen). Screen 1 - readings, active tariff price, standing charge, export reads, meter mode.

Honeywell

• Electricity: Press the top button once or twice to access the reading. 

• Gas: Press the middle button once or twice to access the reading. 

If you have a Landis+Gyr smart meter, see this topic guide here to confirm how to read it:
 

My gas meter works and communicates with the app. However it does not communicate with OVO accounts ( neither does the Electric). 

I send in monthly readings 

However, I believe I have proven that the app only takes readings every few days and then averages them out for the gas meter.

We have been away on holiday a number of times, where we do have continued electric consumption but zero gas consumption ( not even a pilot light). 

Most recently 5 days away and according to the app we have had almost identical readings for the days before and after our return. No days with zero consumption.

So really, I think OVO basically gets a reading event two weeks or so and the roughly averages it out 

Next time I will take the gas reading immediately before leaving and immediately on returning.

There was however one time we went away and shut off the gas. Still got app reading for those couple of days.

OVO - appreciate comments.

Yes that’s what happens if/when you are sending manual readings in.
(It also happens if your smart meter is only being read weekly/monthly).

To be able to show a pretty bar chart in the app or online portal the useage is averaged out over how many days it was for.
Otherwise it would just be a mainly blank chart with big spikes where a reading was received.

I believe that there may be a bit of adjustment for the daily weather/temperature, but generally it’s just averaged out from the new reading back to the previous reading.

The app/portal can only show accurate daily (or half-hourly if you set that option) readings if you have a smart meter that is communicating daily. - or if you send a manual reading daily of course.

As you say that your meter is not communicating and you are sending readings in monthly then what you see on the usage charts/tables are averages worked out from those monthly readings.

To get things a bit more accurate you could send readings more often, say once a week. That way if you go away and send a reading just before and just after then the chart should reflect those readings.

PS Have you looked into why your meters are not communicating with the network?
eg. For a couple of years here I had SMETS1 meters that no longer communicated so I had to send manual readings, I now have SMETS2 meters and they communicate my half-hourly readings daily.

https://www.ovoenergy.com/help/article/what-to-do-if-your-smart-meter-isnt-sending-readings

Thanks for confirming my thoughts, it's appreciated.

They were going to visit to look at the Comms but we had a load of issues after a previous visit so we have decided to live with it .

The only thing is occasionally I look to see what certain devices are consuming in certain conditions ( Gas fires, gas boiler) but for the reasons you've confirmed the only real way to do it is take a snapshot of the meter reading before and after any " test" 

I'll just live with it ...  

Thanks again 

Hey ​@Ron Sandy 

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