Water Meters - How Much To Water The Garden?

mr_fishbulb

Looking for advice please. Long story short:

My girlfriend and I rent a ground floor maisonette. An older couple rent the upstairs. We both have the same landlord as they own the whole property.

The upstairs couple have the garden included in their rent and they like to keep it looked after. It's a small-ish garden.

The landlord installed a hosepipe on the side of the house which comes off our (mine and my girlfriend's) mains. As we currently do not have a water meter, it isn't a problem.

But Thames Water want to install a water meter, which means me and my girlfriend would be paying every time the upstairs couple water the garden.

Obviously we don't want to pay for what we aren't using, but we want to keep it friendly between all parties. So my idea is to get an estimate of how much extra we would be paying, and ask the landlord to reduce our rent by that much per year. It's going to be easier, and will cost less for the landlord that having to re-plumb the house.

So I've got 2 questions:

1 - House much should I ask for the rent to be reduced by (I was thinking £10 a month).

2 - Is this an OK way to go about it, or does anyone have any suggestions?

Cheers people

billymadbiker

I think £10 p/m (or £120 a year) is a s**t load of water.
On our water bill (apart from the standing charge which you will be paying anyway) it's 7 pence for a cubic meter of water. Thats 1000 liters or 1 ton.
On full blast it takes our tap 10 seconds to fill a 1 liter jug.
thats 360 liters an hour. (2.52p)
For the £10 to be fair they will have to water the garden for 400 hours a month. How many of these old people are there and how many hoses do they have?

I would be more worried about the fact that you will probally only have one supply to the house so you will only get one meter fitted between both flats by the water company.

If the landloard is having a second meter fitted for the upstairs flat just get him to fit one to the outside tap and you can deduct it from your water bill then he can either pass it on to them or pay it himself (watering a garden is the landlords cost unless the rent aggrement states otherwise)

linlin_3

Lots of areas have water meters and you learn not to water the garden. Buy water butts and use up dish washing water. The couple upstairs could buy a siphon to use up their bath water!

silvercar

I would be more worried about the fact that you will probally only have one supply to the house so you will only get one meter fitted between both flats by the water company.

If you only have one supply the water company won't fit a meter.

watering a garden is the landlords cost unless the rent aggrement states otherwise

Not generally true, upkeep of the garden is genenrally included in the tenancy agreement as the tenants responsibility.

Having a meter doesn't exempt you from hosepipe bans.

billymadbiker

"If you only have one supply the water company won't fit a meter."

Then why can't your landlord fit the outside tap to the supply for the 1st floor flat rather than your flat?

Unless the pipe network has changed theire supply must come from the ground floor..

mr_fishbulb

billymadbiker wrote: »

Then why can't your landlord fit the outside tap to the supply for the 1st floor flat rather than your flat?

Unless the pipe network has changed theire supply must come from the ground floor..

That's a good point. Not sure why they decided to do it this way

Biggles

Soon after I started growing vegetables, we had a dry summer. I had to use the hose a lot.

When the water bill came, I remember telling my wife at the time that the vegetable garden had cost us an extra £100 that summer, so I'd reckon your £10 a month would be about right.

Daisies

I'd suggest that the upstairs couple/landlord gets a water butt (you can get them from the council at a discount in many areas), then nobody has to pay for the water!