Of all the exciting and interesting and jobs that you can do around the home then surely the reading of the gas meter is right up there. You get an enormous sense of achievement once it is done and the results emailed to your energy supplier. It’s almost as good as radiator bleeding or cleaning the PVC window sills, or painting them if there wood, that’s a ladder job and a half. It’s made even more fun if the gas meter is stuck outside or in a tricky part of the house to get to. What of those that do not have your level of skills though? This is a quick look at how to read the gas meter so you don’t send some nonsense to the provider giving them an excuse to up your direct debt. Let the quest begin.
First off you must find the oddly shaped key, it’s usually got a triangle in it, so that you can open the gas meter box and learn its dark arcane secrets. You’ll usually find it stuffed in a draw somewhere. You know the one; the one where you keep stuff that you know might be really useful at some point but you can’t be sure when. This is the moment and that keys time has come. When you get to the box it might be an idea to actually look at the state of the thing before you procced to open it. If you need another one never fear as Gas Meter Box at https://www.meterbox.co.uk/gas-meter-boxes can provide you with one. Holding the key firmly you insert it around the triangle and turn.
What do the innards reveal! Depending on how old it is you might be looking at some kind of dialled up Steampunk arrangement or something out of the international Space station requiring a PhD in gas tectonics (if there is such a thing). It’s not as hard as it first appears. If you have a digital meter you just need the five digits reading from the left to the right. Don’t worry about the numbers after the decimal point the providers don’t really need them as they are only a part therm of something. If you have a non-digital meter two things apply. One, you should look to getting a digital one and two to read it you just need the numbers form left to right. Again, forget the red numbers. If you have a dial meter you really have an old one and these needs to be updated. It looks a bit complicated but you need to go from the left to the right again and right down the number the pointer is closets to. If it’s in the middle then go with the lower number. The only exception to that is if it’s between zero and nine. If it’s that one go with nine.