Water meter and fitting a new kitchen

lindos90

We have just bought a house thats got a water meter fitted in the unit under the sink. its a fitted kitchen, and the meter was obviously fitted after the kitchen went in.

We want to plan a nd fit a new kitchen shortly, and we are looking at how we can work around the meter. With a lot of fiddling, we could probably remove the current unit by deconstructing it and sawing the base from around the meter, but how could we fit a new unit in?

There must be a way, but I just cant see how we could do it, without having almost no bottom in the unit at all?

Or am I being daft, and we can just remove the meter, fit the unit, then refit the meter (but im thinking that would be too simple, and in that case, what would stop people from removing their meter so they could obtain water free of charge!!)

Anyone had to fit a kitchen before with a water meter?

longtimelurker54

Hi

I can understand your predicament as we just refurbished our kitchen and asked for a water meter to (hopefully) reduce our water bills.

I'd recommend you get in touch with the water company as when we had our meter installed we were given paperwork to say the meter belongs to the water company and must not be moved/tampered with etc - I think there may be a fine for doing so.

We had to persuade the water company to put ours under the sink as they wanted to put it right next to the stopcock which would have meant we wouldnt have been able to fit our dishwasher in that space. We were told they normally put them right next to the stopcock to prevent anyone from being able to cut into the water piper and divert water around the meter!

Anyway they took a photo of the position of the meter and it is also sealed by something so I think you probably won't be able to just move it yourself but maybe the water company will oblige?

Steve_the_fitter

you will have to cut round it and box it in making the boxing in easily removable. Maybe the thing to do is cut the bottom out where needed hopefully leaving at least 50mm of MFC at the front then put a shelf in and a bit of carcass material at the front going vertical from the base of the unit to the underside of the shelf. ITs not something to worry about if a carcass is going there apart from you wont have as much room in there as a normal carcass

lindos90

Hi, and thank you for the replies, we will check with the water company to see if they could reposition it perhaps, but would not want that dictating the plan and layout of our kitchen, otherwise we will try what Steve says, I can picture that.

Ive checked the position and we could make a big hole on the base, but leave a 'lip' at the front of the unit, and then lift the unit over the meter.

A shelf just above the meter is a good idea, it will give much more area to put my cleaning bottles etc, as at the moment im trying to 'fit' them around the meter.

Thanks again!