More than double average gas usage - help!

[amandap]

Hi there,

I live in an apartment block (consisting of roughly 50 units) and since moving in a year ago I've been having incredibly high gas bills. I've done a little bit of research on this and have come to the conclusion that my building must have a communal hot water system which is contributing to my high gas bills.

We are a 2 bedroom unit with 3 people living here, (soon to be only 2). The only appliances in our home using gas other than apparently the hot water is our stove and oven. Over the last 12 months we've had the following actual gas readings:

Start reading 22/12/17: 65949.03

End reading 26/12/18: 75136.05

I have been charged by AGL at a multiplication factor of 10 x & a conversion factor of 0.481496 leaving me with a usage of 44,215.13 MJ for the year.

This appears to be incredibly high compared to the average household and I'm wondering if AGL is calculating my bill correctly. (I used the website energymadeeasy.gov.au to calculate the average usage for my household which is 18542 MJ according to this website - less than half of what I've apparently used (44,215.13 MJ).

I would appreciated any help as I'm at a loss of how to figure this out on my own!

Here is a picture of my meter also! 

Thanks,

Amanda 🙂

[jaydeny]

Hi amandap,

Thank you for getting in touch!

Based on your usage I can appreciate where you concerns are coming from. Can I asked if you've carried out any tests within your household to test the accuracy of your meter?

The '10L test' or 'bucket test' is a good place to start. Your hot water meter records decilitres, so it should be increasing by a factor of 1 for every 10 litres of water that pass through the meter. You can run this test by taking a reading of your meter, filling a bucket up with 10 litres of water, and then taking another reading of your meter. If the meter has increased by a factor of 1, then your meter is working correctly. If the meter has increased by a factor of more than 1, then your meter may be recording your consumption incorrectly.

If your meter is recording your consumption correctly, then it is likely a case of the hot water system having some form of fault/leak.

Cheers,

Jayden

[john_e_polsen]

Jayden / Jaydeny

Do you know the difference between decAlitre & decIlitre?