Help reading my gas meter

[SLC97SR5]

Holy smokes.
We received our Dominion Energy gas bill for 9/1-10/1 and our usage has gone up nearly 7 times and our bill was $70 MORE than normal.

I have a pic of the meter and I was hoping for verification/education that I'm reading it correctly.



I read the meter as 2131.

It looks like the meter transmits remotely?
The billing fellow I spoke with wasn't a whole lot of help but said he'd someone out to verify.

We have not smelled gas nor have we used the furnace or fireplace all of September. The only other gas fueled appliances are a cooktop and water heater.

Our previous DTH usage was 1.7 and now it is 11.9
The previous meter reading was 2089.

 

[BCGPER]

2131 is correct. You can always turn off all the gas appliances and any pilot lights, then check for movement on the lower two dials

 

[The_Lobbster]

Bottom left, when I worked at the gas company in Nebraska for my internship, we'd do a shut in test. Shut off all pilots and appliances as BCGPER said, and watch that dial for about 15 minutes to see if it moves at all. With everything off, it shouldn't, if it does, you could have a leak somewhere.

Do you have a natural gas BBQ connection? If so, is it still on? Just one more thing worth checking.

 

[notajeep]

Having worked at a utility billing company, specifically in charge of getting meter reads (mostly water meters, but gas and electric also) there are several explanations of what *could have happened. Note that usage is calculated of the difference from month to month, or more accurately billing cycle to billing cycle, so what ever the actual readout of the meter, it's useless with out last months read.

1. Mis read - erroneous read of the number could cause a spike in billed usage this month, assuming a correct read next month it would self correct. - This is less likely because these anomalies are easy to identify and sort out.
2. Estimated usage - This happens a lot - and depending on the state is 100% legal. They can guess your usage based on any number of factors. # of occupants, square footage. Or a combination of factors. (Very common for apartment communities) This would only apply if more than 1 residence is running off the same meter, or if they had missing meter reads. This is possible, but normally wouldn't account for such a large spike.
3. Missing/broken meter. This type of meter transmits a RF signal that is read with special equipment that needs to be with in a certain proximity. If you see a utility car/van driving slowly down the street, odds are they're collecting meter reads. Meters do break (although gas meters are pretty reliable) and, or stop transmitting all the time. Or they just didn't get read in a certain month...or several months. When this happens, they will estimate usage (see above) until they begin getting meter reads again. Regardless of whatever might have been previously estimated, they will correct your billing. So if they were under estimating for the last 8 months, but now have reads again, they're going to bill you for all of that usage that wasn't previously billed for. This is a much more common scenario.
4. Or you have a leak.