High Gas Bills - Incorrect meter reading (decimal not in correct place)

[john_e_polsen]

Hi All

We live in an apartment complex with centralized hot water

Our gas bills have been around $400-500/quarter for several years (this is for 2 people!)

Our gas cooking doesn't costs us much. However, our gas hot water is the culprit of our high bills

Shower is in use around 20 minutes/day & no other hot water usage (for washing machine etc)

We have been looking into this for around 6 months

We have eliminated the possibility of a gas leak (we went away for 2 weeks & the meter did not change)

We have ended up believing that our meter is not being read correctly

According to AGL's guide to read a gas cyclonic dial-hot water (https://www.agl.com.au/help/meters-connections/how-to-read-your-gas-electricity-meter)

There are 8 dials (there are 4 black/white & another 4 white/red)

The instructions say the decimal should be placed after the first 4 dials (black/white)

However, AGL say that our meter is a 6 dial meter 

We believe this is incorrect!

Please see the attached photo & let me know what you think

....AGL reads our meter as 100009.21

FYI, our last bill the meter went up 2505 units (cubic metres/kiloliters)

These units are then multiplied by 10 (for decaliters) 

& then the conversion factor

Do you think they have it wrong? 

[Shervin]

One way to see if your usage is being measured correctly is to do the 10L water test.

1. Read your meter

2. Measure 10L of hot water. (it doesn't matter if the water is actually hot, just measure 10L from when your turn the tap on)

3. Read your meter after using 10L hot water.

You should see the the meter increase by 10L. If AGL is correctly measuring your meter, then a starting read of 100009.21 will go to 100010.21 because it's in decalitres. You can see on your meter in front of the black digits it's measuring in cubic metres (m^3). 1000m^3 is 100000 decalitres. The latter is the units that AGL uses when billing.

The reading is then multiplied by 10 to convert from decalitres to litres. Then multiplied by a conversion factor to convert from litres to megajoules.

[Nancy1998]

I think is wrong, they read my gas meter number in the same way as yours. and my gas bill is 3 times higher than our electricity bills. 

[Ellen1]

Hi Nancy1998! 

Welcome to AGL Community! 

As you can see here, we need the readings as they are on your bill. This is due to the calculations used for your billing. If you have concerns about your high billing, you can review your energy usage here. 

Alternatively if you would like further assistance I would recommend reaching out to our Messaging team on the AGL App. 

Thanks 

Ellen