Water bill too high?

rawker

Hi,

I live in a 2 bedroom new build house and wanted to see opinion on how much I should be spending a month on water....

No dishwasher
Rarely have baths
2 of us plus baby and dog living in house
No outdoor hose or tap

we pay nearly £50 a month - does that sound excessive?

macman

Water charges vary by up to 250% depending on the region, so there is no meaningful average-what region?
Since you are presumably metered in a new build, what is your actual billed consumption and have you verified the billing against the actual meter reading? Estimated or actual billing?
In a new build, I would also be checking the meter serial number against the billed serial number, as these are frequently allocated to the wrong property on new developments.
PS: a dishwater typically uses less water than washing up by hand.

RavingMad

Do water companies send out estimates? Our bills have always had actual reads and it's only in the last few months that we've been submitting our own readings online.

rawker

Live in South East - Anglia Water. It is metered yes but I cannot remember the last time I received an actual bill! Pay by direct debit so thought it would be easier. I do like to stay on top of these things typically but am a bit confused as to the lack of water bills through the door.

Did an online "account" with Anglia Water but that is less than useless imho

PasturesNew

How long are your showers/how often?
How many times do you put the washing machine on per week/month?

lindens

rawker wrote: »

Live in South East - Anglia Water. It is metered yes but I cannot remember the last time I received an actual bill! Pay by direct debit so thought it would be easier. I do like to stay on top of these things typically but am a bit confused as to the lack of water bills through the door.

Did an online "account" with Anglia Water but that is less than useless imho

better off giving the water company a ring then to see what they are billing you for. find out where your meter is and give them a reading. my household is similar to yours and ours is £20 per month

Robisere

PS: a dishwater typically uses less water than washing up by hand.

And how much energy does a dishwasher use?

My wife and I live in an Anglian Water area, in mid-Lincolnshire. Our home is a 2-bed Sheltered Home bungalow, for medical reasons I have to shower at least once daily. The dishwasher is usually me. We have Night storage heating and our bills have never been more than £25+.

Our bills are paid by DD via "MyBillsOnline" - http://www.mybillsonline.co.uk

This site is used to pay several of our Utility bills, grouping them together in one Firefox Bookmark (Favourites on IE).

There are a couple of ways you can reduce your bills, first take the excellent advice to contact AW direct and query your usage. I wish that Water Meters could be read by users, as I read my energy bills from EDF and then post the results to my account online, but AW will not do that.

Second, do you have any water butts? All the water from my roof, goes into 2 butts. In addition, our roof runoff does not go into the main Waste sewer discharge, but into a soakaway, which just means a hole filled & filtered with gravel, etc and the runoff then goes into the ground. Because this means that the water company does not handle this part of your Waste water, a discount is applied to your bill. But ALL of the water from roof runoff has to be included in this: if your runoff goes into the sewer drain and not soakaways, the water butt route is best. Connect all your downpipes to the butts, and check Anglian Water's website for the relevant Form to claim a discount. We originally received £32 a year, but this has risen slightly.

This Link will take you to the relevant Form:
http://www.anglianwater.co.uk/search/index.aspx?q=Soakaways

If you have neighbours in the same boat with Water supplies (no pun intended) passing on this advice may make you popular, I was!

macman

rawker wrote: »

Live in South East - Anglia Water. It is metered yes but I cannot remember the last time I received an actual bill! Pay by direct debit so thought it would be easier. I do like to stay on top of these things typically but am a bit confused as to the lack of water bills through the door.

Did an online "account" with Anglia Water but that is less than useless imho

Some water co's are moving to annual rather than 6m billing. That does not stop you from submitting actual readings-your online a/c should show the last agent reading. If necessary then ask them to review your DD level.
Since you've given no info about your actual metered consumption, it's hard to offer any more advice.

matelodave

You can read your own meter and work out how much you are using and therefore how much it should be costing you. Knowing what you use and when should help you minimise your consumption.

We are AW customers, two of us in a three bed bungalow at home all day so the loo gets used quite a bit as we both drink lots of coffee.

The washing machine is used for about 3 loads a week, likewise the dishwasher (both only used when full up). We've got flow restrictors on the taps and shower (five minute showers each, each day) and both the toilets have low volume cisterns (which means they quite often have to be flushed twice as they are useless).

The garden has an automatic timer controlled watering system which is used when it's dry and both our cars and caravan get at least four washes a year each.

Our annual consumption is about 65-70cu.m and we pay £26 per month DD which includes the surface water drainage charge. In fact we are now on AW's SoLo tariff as it works out cheaper for us (the cutover point is about 75cu.m a year)

Cardew

Robisere wrote: »

Second, do you have any water butts? All the water from my roof, goes into 2 butts. In addition, our roof runoff does not go into the main Waste sewer discharge, but into a soakaway, which just means a hole filled & filtered with gravel, etc and the runoff then goes into the ground. Because this means that the water company does not handle this part of your Waste water, a discount is applied to your bill. But ALL of the water from roof runoff has to be included in this: if your runoff goes into the sewer drain and not soakaways, the water butt route is best. Connect all your downpipes to the butts, and check Anglian Water's website for the relevant Form to claim a discount. We originally received £32 a year, but this has risen slightly.

This Link will take you to the relevant Form:
http://www.anglianwater.co.uk/search/index.aspx?q=Soakaways

Unless things have changed recently, water butts are specifically excluded for the purpose of claiming relief from the Surface Water Drainage(SWD) charge.


1. They are temporary, you could remove them - especially when you move.


2. They could block/overflow/split.


3. It is not just water from gutters that must be considered.


4. The regulations state relief can only be given if the property is not connected to sewers for SWD. Water butts don't stop the connection.

freshstart11

Just to add to all the great advice, Anglian is a more expensive area sadly but I am not 100% on the charges. but I wouldn't be surprised with £40+ for 2 occs