Water Meter location

Markramsgate12

Good morning,

I have just had a letter come through the door stating Southern Water would like to install a water meter at my property. I do not have a problem with this and have known for a few months that it would be happening.

My question, if anyone can help, is this. As I live on a private estate there are no footpaths outside my property. Southern Water have visited and stated on the letter that the water meter will have to be installed in my garden and have marked the site, asking me to sign and agree to this location on the letter.

Can I ask Southern Water for a 'nominal fee' to position the water meter in my garden ? I just wondered if any other member had been successful in gaining some sort of payment for a meter in their property boundaries ?

Thanks in advance,
Mark

Southend1

I doubt it. They don't pay you for pipes crossing your garden to supply you with water, you pay them! I imagine it's the same for meters

antenna

If you have a mains stopcock inside your house and no other water outlet before this stopcock a remotely read meter can be fitted just after the mains stopcock that can be read from the street outside your front door....ask for this.

matelodave

As said there are remote reading meters available. My Mum had one which saved digging up the garden. The transmitter was located under her kitchen sink next to the stopcock and the display unit was mounted on an outside wall.
Tell them that's what you want, not a manhole in your flower bed.
In this day and age there should be better solutions than digging holes and then send a bloke round to squint down it once or twice a year

pooch

Markramsgate12 wrote: »

Good morning,

I have just had a letter come through the door stating Southern Water would like to install a water meter at my property. I do not have a problem with this and have known for a few months that it would be happening.

My question, if anyone can help, is this. As I live on a private estate there are no footpaths outside my property. Southern Water have visited and stated on the letter that the water meter will have to be installed in my garden and have marked the site, asking me to sign and agree to this location on the letter.

Can I ask Southern Water for a 'nominal fee' to position the water meter in my garden ? I just wondered if any other member had been successful in gaining some sort of payment for a meter in their property boundaries ?

Thanks in advance,
Mark

There should be an isolation valve outside of your property somewhere (if may be in your garden). You should identify where this is in case of emergency.

Whilst you are not supposed to touch it yourself (because if you do and damage it, you will be liable for the repair cost), knowing where it is may be useful to the water board who should turn off the supply on request. It may also need a special tool to turn it (but a socket works equally well )

What would you do if the stopcock inside your property started leaking, or the pipe before the stopcock burst? That is one reason there is an external isolation valve.

Usually (if they want the meter outside) they will fit the meter at this isolation valve location.

Or as others have said, perhaps they will consider fitting a meter inside the property by the stopcock. Links to external meter reading points are old skool nowadays - modern meters can be read electronically from the street with no link to an outside wall. Saves the meter reader even having to get out of his van.

You cannot charge the water company for locating your meter in or on your property, just like you can't charge the gas or electric company for their meters.

antenna

Some isolation valves in the street or just outside your property turn off the supply to more than one property,so a meter cannot be fitted on them..