Gas Leak

Dafaai

We moved into our house in 2004 and have been paying - on average - approx €220 every 2 month for gas. My understanding is that this is more than the average advertised, however we use gas for both heating and cooking - so I was not too worried about it. We pay our gas bill by standing order, however we have not been able to provide a meter reading for past number of years as meter door was broken and we did not have a key - however things were working fine.
Last November we received an invoice for €3,756.93! Upon receipt I was asked if had a gas leak. When I got the door open to have a proper look, we did have a gas leak. Gas Networks Ireland fixed it within the hour - however it seems that when we had the meter changed (guessing 2016), the new meter was not installed correctly and apparently gas has been leaking since then.
Bord Gais have sent us a disconnection letter that unless the €3,607.05 is not paid they will disconnect!!
Apparently I am responsible as the gas leak was on my side of the meter - is there anything I can do???

Ray Palmer

Sorry to hear that but yes you owe the money. You won't want to hear it but you could have read the meter by going to any hardware store and buy a new key. I don't understand why the supplier never read the meter but they don't have to. They would have suggested reading the meter several times in the bills.

They will let you set up a payment plan. Again that must be a shock and sorry to hear it.

Browney7

Ray Palmer wrote: »

Sorry to hear that but yes you owe the money. You won't want to hear it but you could have read the meter by going to any hardware store and buy a new key. I don't understand why the supplier never read the meter but they don't have to. They would have suggested reading the meter several times in the bills.

They will let you set up a payment plan. Again that must be a shock and sorry to hear it.

Who installed the meter? It's probably too late to do anything now as there is no way to prove from when the leak occurred but you'd think the installer would have installed it correctly in the first place!

Graces7

I had a similar broken door experience with an ESB meter way back. If the door was broken whose responsibility is it to fix it?

ESB finally replaced the door. Took a while but!

OP. may I suggest something? Call Citizens Info. This cannot be the first time this has happened and they may be able to advise in more detail. Certainly odd that they did not read the meter for years? And yes re the firm who installed the meter are at fault. They are all trying to put all the responsibility/blame on you.

Meeoow

They would have taken a final reading of the old meter in 2016 when they were replacing it. So the leak would not explain the high bills pre 2016. Is the meter inside your property? Because gas networks Ireland generally read them a couple of times a year.

iwillhtfu

Graces7 wrote: »

I had a similar broken door experience with an ESB meter way back. If the door was broken whose responsibility is it to fix it?

ESB finally replaced the door. Took a while but!

It certainly isn't the ESB responsibility to replace the meter cabinet door which would have been installed by whomever built your house. I'm surprised they entertained you or haven't charged you for replacing it.

iwillhtfu

OP I assume gas networks installed the replacement meter. Did they charge for the leak repair? I'd assume if the issue was due to work they carried out you have some kind of arguement. I assume the meter is inside your property and the gas meter reader has no access to it, there's no good excuse for not providing a meter reading for 3-4 years though and you seeing the repercussions of this first hand unfortunately.

the_syco

Dafaai wrote: »

however we have not been able to provide a meter reading for past number of years as meter door was broken and we did not have a key
...
Last November we received an invoice for €3,756.93

Is the door accessible from the street? Could the company have gained access and done a reading, and found out that they had undercharged you, and were now looking for the difference?

iwillhtfu

the_syco wrote: »

Is the door accessible from the street? Could the company have gained access and done a reading, and found out that they had undercharged you, and were now looking for the difference?

It's more likely he's been receiving estimated bills for the last number of years and recieved and actual bill once they gained access to the meter or submitted a meter reading to gas networks. The usage would've been passed the metering point otherwise it wouldn't have been recorded at least not at a domestic level and €3k is a drop in the ocean at a production level.

It's quite common for this to happen but more typically with electricity meters.

awec

Surely you could smell a leak?