Water meters - pros and cons?

Cardew

pinkteapot wrote: »

You need to look into this as it sounds very high for one person (unless you have a bath every day). My husband and I live in a four bed house and our water (on a meter) costs £21 a month...

Water charges vary tremedously across the UK.

Charges in some parts are three times more expensive than others.

outtawork

I switched to a water meter a few years ago when I was made redundant.I started out paying 1 water bill £6 a month and the other £12 a month total of £18, I am paying slightly more now but all my neighbours are paying £42 a month as they are not on a meter.I have 2 Hippos from the water board there are 2 of us here sometimes, I do washing about 3 times a week sometimes more, we only shower and as it takes 8 pints of water to get to the bathroom before it gets hot I use this water in a spare kettle to heat up and use for washing up.I use a travel kettle for drinks and only fill it up to what I need.I would welcome any more ideas for saving water.

meggsy

We pay £27 a month now up from £16 when we switched to a meter in 2007 in Wessex Water region. There was no fitting charge and the meter is located in the pavement and is read every 6 months by Wessex. Meter readings can also be given online.

meer53

I pay £17 per month on my meter. A device is attached to my meter which is under my sink so that it can be read remotely. 3 bed semi, me and 2 kids. Yorkshire water.

Feebs

I'm not sure if this has been posted and apologies if it has. There are two of us living in a four bedroom house and my water bill is £31.00 per month. Applying the 'more bedrooms than people' rule I applied to have a water meter fitted to try and save some money.

I have just had the meter fitted and have just had a letter from Yorkshire Water to say the based on my 'Estimated' usage my direct debit will now be £32.70 per month !! Why are they estimating the usage, the whole point of me getting a meter was to provide YW with online meter readings so I could be assured that I was only paying for what I was using.

Would anyone be able to advise me on this as I'm so miffed that after trying to save money I'm now expected to pay more !!..Even the chap who fitted the meter said "you'll definitely save money having this fitted"

Many thanks as always for much appreciated advice

Cardew

Feebs wrote: »

I'm not sure if this has been posted and apologies if it has. There are two of us living in a four bedroom house and my water bill is £31.00 per month. Applying the 'more bedrooms than people' rule I applied to have a water meter fitted to try and save some money.

I have just had the meter fitted and have just had a letter from Yorkshire Water to say the based on my 'Estimated' usage my direct debit will now be £32.70 per month !! Why are they estimating the usage, the whole point of me getting a meter was to provide YW with online meter readings so I could be assured that I was only paying for what I was using.

Would anyone be able to advise me on this as I'm so miffed that after trying to save money I'm now expected to pay more !!..Even the chap who fitted the meter said "you'll definitely save money having this fitted"

Many thanks as always for much appreciated advice

Just ring them and explain there are only two of you and you want the DD to be, say, £25 a month. Or revert to paying after 6 months when your consumption is known.

If they had set it too low, then they would be in trouble if you ran up a debit balance.

Incidentally was your £31 a month for 12 months each year? Some companies have 10 payments a year.

Feebs

dreem wrote: »

I switched to a water meter 12 months ago, our family of two adults and two young kids saw out monthly bill drop by almost 40% - Annoyingly, I instigated the swithc to the meter by calling Severn Trent to enquire... Initially they gave me a calculated usage estimate and told me i' be better off staying with the monthly unlimited usage payment! How wrong could they be!

Hi dreem, I have just switched to a water meter and my water company are also looking to estimate my usage which I don't want. How did you deal with this as I notice that you mention that your bills were also estimated initially. Many thanks for any advice.

Goldenhawk

I thought it best to update this topic, since my switching to a meter, saved me hundreds of pounds.

I am a single parent of 3 young children, but only get to see them most weekends and half of all school holidays. For the 1st 2 years at my current address, my water bills on 'RV' were approx £300 a year. I couldn't believe how high they were and on contacting STW and going through some questions, it was advised that a meter would probably, save me money.
2 and a half years later and I have had 5 more half year bills, each averaging around £60-70. This is a massive saving for me.
I cheekily asked, that based on my usage over the last 2 and a half years, could I now get a refund on the overpayments I made during the 1st 2 years payments, but sadly, due to RV, they can charge whatever they like, regardless of how many people live or don't live at the address.

So my advice to any 1 person or couple without children, is to give serious consideration to a meter. I saw from earlier posts, that you can switch back to RV within a year, so what have you got to lose?

I also pay for my water online via STW website and because my bills are so low, only pay £20 a month (2 x £10 fortnightly payments)
This is higher than I should be paying because I allowed my wounded pride to get the better off me and stopped paying STW because of their refusal to refund overpayments over the 1st 2 years.

So, once i've caught up with the unpaid part of my bills, that would probably halve again. I am not saying this is what you'll pay, but given the 'RV' value applies, if you are single or a couple without children, I would say go for it.

Cardew

Goldenhawk wrote: »

So my advice to any 1 person or couple without children, is to give serious consideration to a meter. I saw from earlier posts, that you can switch back to RV within a year, so what have you got to lose?

Welcome to the forum.

There is unfortunately no 'one size fits all' answer to the the question of getting a meter.

The RV of a property varies tremendously. Even with large properties it can be very low - £50 or so. This was because in most cases the RV was assessed in 1973 and certainly no later than 1990. The property could have been unmodernised in 1973 but now has all 'mod cons'.

The other point is that all the water companies have different charging structures. Your company(Severn Trent) have a very low standing charge for water and sewerage with their metered tariff.

You paid around £300pa with Severn Trent on an RV basis. A couple with average consumption(110 cubic meters) would pay £302 plus an additional payment of up to £90 for Surface Water Drainage

I read some time ago that it has been estimated that 60% of properties, not currently on a meter, would gain by getting a meter.

davehills

Cardew wrote: »

Water charges vary tremedously across the UK.

Charges in some parts are three times more expensive than others.

Do you have a link to a table showing comparative prices? How does Southern Water compare? (I have been told it works out about £3 a cubic metre)