Water meters - pros and cons?

glittermonster

So the water people came to visit and said a meter can't be fitted.

The engineer says he'll file his report and ill get a revised bill!

I pay £32 a month at the moment, any ideas what it's go to? 2 bed properly, just me.

abwsco

glittermonster wrote: »

So the water people came to visit and said a meter can't be fitted.

The engineer says he'll file his report and ill get a revised bill!

I pay £32 a month at the moment, any ideas what it's go to? 2 bed properly, just me.

Looks like it's £218 pa for 2013/14 for single occupancy. Previously £202 for 2012/13.

Found the prices on Thames Water site. Wondering if I've missed something as they are much higher on United Utilities who we are with although we are on a meter.

Indiewitch

Since we moved into our house in 2000 our water bills have always seemed high (its a rented house and we are on a water meter. However, our last 4 bills (we are billed every 6 months) have been ridiculous. Our 6 monthly usage is reading as an average of 135 cubic metres. Bills average £300 per 6 months. We are a family of 4, dont have a dishwasher, do one load of washing per day on an economy wash, when we run a bath we leave the water in and at least 2 or 3 of us use that same bath. We have no plants in the garden so do not use a hose pipe and between the hours of 8.30am and 4pm Monday to Friday there is no one in the house as we are at work/school. Our neighbours have shown me their bills and their 6 monthly usage is approx 60 cubic metres. We have done all the leak checks and these came back as normal, someone from Northumbrian water came out and said the meter is working correctly. However we have had a lot of problems with our boiler and each time the plumbers come out they say that there is high pressure on the taps? The last one ran a tap and said the meter was flying round, yet Northumbrian water say the meter is normal. Just had my latest bill and they are wanting to increase my direct debit payments to £86 a month! I'm sick of paying so much when we are very careful with the amount of water we use. Please can anyone advise me what I can do or any other checks I can do as Im at the end of my tether? Thank you

Cardew

Indiewitch wrote: »

Since we moved into our house in 2000 our water bills have always seemed high (its a rented house and we are on a water meter. However, our last 4 bills (we are billed every 6 months) have been ridiculous. Our 6 monthly usage is reading as an average of 135 cubic metres. Bills average £300 per 6 months. We are a family of 4, dont have a dishwasher, do one load of washing per day on an economy wash, when we run a bath we leave the water in and at least 2 or 3 of us use that same bath. We have no plants in the garden so do not use a hose pipe and between the hours of 8.30am and 4pm Monday to Friday there is no one in the house as we are at work/school. Our neighbours have shown me their bills and their 6 monthly usage is approx 60 cubic metres. We have done all the leak checks and these came back as normal, someone from Northumbrian water came out and said the meter is working correctly. However we have had a lot of problems with our boiler and each time the plumbers come out they say that there is high pressure on the taps? The last one ran a tap and said the meter was flying round, yet Northumbrian water say the meter is normal. Just had my latest bill and they are wanting to increase my direct debit payments to £86 a month! I'm sick of paying so much when we are very careful with the amount of water we use. Please can anyone advise me what I can do or any other checks I can do as Im at the end of my tether? Thank you

The average consumption for a family of 4 is approx 220 cubic metres a year; so your 135 in six months is above average, but not by that much.

A common fault causing high consumption is a toilet cistern leaking into the bowl; it can sometimes be difficult to notice.

You need to note accurately(including decimal points) the meter reading and use no water for as long as possible and see if the reading changes.

John_Pierpoint

Forbid the flushing of the loo overnight (tie up the ball !!!! if necessary) and put the plug in all the baths and basins. Make sure you have nothing else on overnight: washing machine, dishwasher, anything that self flushed (my son has a condensing boiler that flushes its condensate (in place of constantly dribbling) - so don't jump to conclusions.
If the meter does not move overnight, then you don't have a conventional leak. So you must have a rogue member of the family, a rogue piece of machinery or a faulty meter.
Your meter should be accurate enough to measure a bath full of water, so calibrate the bath; even if this means calibrating the dustbin and then counting the number of dustbins you pour into the bath, [Does the bath plug leak? Have you a suitable length of hose pipe?]

So is the meter roughly agreeing with your bath full of water?

Now for the more-difficult-to-identify problems:
How much does it take to flush your loo(s) and how often per day ?
Washing machine ? (a cycle on mine is a dustbin full)
Dish washer ? (half a dustbin full - I know these measurements because the waste water goes into a dustbin in the summer and is used to water the garden).

Now we get onto the human possibilities:

Using a hose pipe, especially with a high power mains could be 2 tonnes (2,000 litres = 2 cubic meter = 2 tonnes) per hour.

Car washing ?

Power washing ?

Do you have a power shower and teenage daughters? (That is more likely to show out on the summertime heating bill)

Could someone else be using your water (Our local church found next door's gardener using the graveyard tap)

Finally do you actually understand your bill - are any of these readings estimates - do they agree with the meter. Have you checked each bill against the meter ? Perhaps you are paying off the debts of previous estimated bills. Are you being charged the wrong meter - happened to me when the electricity meter was changed.
Water has gone up very quickly in the last few years and you don't have a choice of supplier, perhaps you are noticing the price (in fiat currency printed by the government) and not your actual consumption of real "drinking" water.

If your price per tonne includes sewerage (I am assuming it must) it seems to be a bit high,
In my area the charge is about £2 a tonne for both in S.Essex and my son tells me he pays a similar amount in Sussex.

For what it is worth, we a family of two pensioners. use less than 140 cubic meters per year for the both of us.

Cardew wrote: »

A common fault causing high consumption is a toilet cistern leaking into the bowl; it can sometimes be difficult to notice.

The rubbish continental system that simply pulls a plug out of the bottom of the tank in place of syphoning out the contents.

When you have a dripping valve you know about it when a syphon tank overflows - even if you choose to ignore it and end up with a disfiguring white mark down the brick work.

macman

glittermonster wrote: »

So the water people came to visit and said a meter can't be fitted.

The engineer says he'll file his report and ill get a revised bill!

I pay £32 a month at the moment, any ideas what it's go to? 2 bed properly, just me.

You must now request a switched to assessed billing if a meter cannot be fitted, it's not automatic. Impossible to say what it will be, but it should be less than RV billing. Check the website for your supplier.

Indiewitch

Thanks for your tips, I am going to do a few tests tomorrow. Spoken to another 2 neighbours who have young kids and their yearly usage is averaging out at 130 (almost same as our 6 monthly usage)
I've checked all the bills against the meter and have been on to our housing association for the last year and a half, as well as Northumbrian Water. Hopefully this will be sorted soon.

robin58

analyst wrote: »

I think most people get lower meter costs in the first 12 months because at that stage its a novelty and they have become very conscious of the need to 'go careful' with the water.

As time goes on, and sensitivity diminishes, the meter charges tend to rise.
By that time your 12 months have passed. :sad:

I am not, by any means, stating this as a case for not having a meter.
If anything, I'm stating the bleedin' obvious.

I have never had a total water bill over the £80 a year I now pay. My last water bill on a rateable rate was £240!. And the lower rate is based on a period of about 10 years on a water meter.

chubster

I am waiting for a survey for a water meter, we are with SWW and have always had a bill based on rateable value (band E council tax) but our bill this year is £1477 with the £50 rebate. My wife isn't keen on the idea of a meter but we have got to give it a try, £1477 a year for water is just crazy isn't it?

Cardew

chubster wrote: »

I am waiting for a survey for a water meter, we are with SWW and have always had a bill based on rateable value (band E council tax) but our bill this year is £1477 with the £50 rebate. My wife isn't keen on the idea of a meter but we have got to give it a try, £1477 a year for water is just crazy isn't it?

It is crazy, and in almost all of the rest of England the same RV rating would produce a bill between a third and a half of that imposed on SWW customers.

P.S. the Rateable Value is nothing to do with Council Tax.