No water meter in compulsary water meter area.

silvercar

I moved home in a compulsary metering area in July. I got a letter from three valleys water saying they would shortly be fitting a water meter. no water bills have arrived.

Today I get a letter saying they have not been able to fit a water meter and are therefore going to bill me according to rateable value. They thought they would need access to survey for the meter so have decided not to fit one. The letter goes on to say I can ask for a water meter if I want and then they will try and fit one.

Now I'm unsure what to do. Our house was built in the 1930s and has been extended in recent years. the rateable value is quite low, because older houses tended to have lower values and because the RV system was abandoned before the extensions were built. In fact the RV is lower than the (smaller) house I moved from.

So on the one hand I should stick with RV.

Added to this I now have 3 bathrooms (think of the cleaning!) One is fed from the main hot water tank - this bathroom is used the least. The other two are fed from a separate combi boiler so water is called as required, these 2 bathrooms are used frequently. So in practice we call a lot of water through the combi and have a tank of hot water avail from the main boiler. This probably means we are heavy water users.

So should I definitely stick with RV rather than ask for a meter? full year's water bill will be around £400 based on RV.

Cardew

Largely depends on how many people are in your house and if you use the water for the garden.

The average consumption is one sixth of a cubic metre/per person/per day.(160 litres) i.e. approx 60 cu metres p.a.

silvercar

would love to use the water for the garden, unfortunately we have a hose pipe ban.

oldwiring

There is also an assessed charge system for cases like yours

http://www.ofwat.gov.uk/aptrix/ofwat/publish.nsf/Content/WaterResMetering_FAQ09
they may or amy not be beneficial according to circumstances.

ctm_2

You need to sit down with a calculator and work out at what point you would break even. I.e in my case if on a water meter I would have to use 118 cubic metres a year on a water meter to pay the same as I pay based on the rateable value. Obviously as a single person in a flat with no garden, who never washes his car, I would be much better off on a meter.

If i estimated my usage to be more than 118 cubic metres per year I would be better off without a meter.

Also remember, if you ask for a meter to be fitted, you have 12 months in which to decide if you want it or not. If yafter 12 months it has cost you more than using the rateable value, you can ask to be charged based ont he rateable value, rather than the meter.

Cardew

ctm wrote:

Also remember, if you ask for a meter to be fitted, you have 12 months in which to decide if you want it or not. If yafter 12 months it has cost you more than using the rateable value, you can ask to be charged based ont he rateable value, rather than the meter.

That only applies if you haven't moved house.

When you move into a property, you don't have that option.

I also understand that there are some areas of UK where meters are going to be fitted regardless of the wishes of the existing owner.

Kisk_2

You could look at the following site where near the bottom is a link to a calculator to estimate if you should or should not fit a water meter.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/core/Content/displayPrintable.jhtml?xml=/money/2006/10/21/cmwater21.xml&site=1&page=0

Kisk

silvercar

I can ask for a meter to be fitted but I can't then go back to unmetered usage. This is because I've moved house and they should have fitted me with a meter. As they didn't and have given up on the idea I now have unmetered bills based on RV. If I choose to have a meter, they will then say it should have been complusarily fitted so I'm stuck with it.