Yorkshire Water meter Charges question please

bsod

£242.70

have you put a plastic bottle of water in the cistern etc?

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

bsod wrote: »

£242.70

have you put a plastic bottle of water in the cistern etc?

Do not put a bottle in dual flush toilets, as it will not save you any water, these use about 3.5 to 6 litres, dependent on type, so the bottle just sits in the bottom, in the 2 litres that is not used during a normal flush!

[Deleted User]

I have got a bottle of water in the cistern, but it's a standard flush / handle on the side jobby so should hopefully save some more.

Submitted readings to Yorkshire Water on the 11th Jan, they didn't require the red numbers so I put down 4 m3 and the bill has now come in - £15.99.
I realise I was closer to 5 so perhaps should have put that but it will catch up next month and average out.
So far so good, thanks for all your help! :-)

Cardew

purpleposting4 wrote: »

Hi Cardew, just double-checked, and no I don't think we could claim relief from SWD charges. Our property slopes towards the road which has a public drain, has 2 surface water drains around the house and we have no soakaway.
Thanks anyway though :-)

Worth trying - they sometimes grant the claim without checking!

matelodave

I bet they'll come and break your legs though if they do come and check;)

smallbiznewbie

We're also with Yorkshire water and tried the meter. Just two of us (two adults, kids grown up) but I have a bath every day. We DIDN'T save and now have a big lump sum that we have to pay back having come off the meter - PIA,. I negotiated from paying it back in two instalments to two small instalments and pay the rest back over (hopefully) two years.
Two things you need to know: your children will grow up and become teenagers and use LOTS more water AND your meter will remain in place and the next owner will have to pay by the meter. I would have thought that might make the house less desirable when it comes to selling it. I find YW's lack of transparency in this regard pretty despicable - nowhere do I remember reading that this was a backdoor way to introduce water meters.
Also, they won't go out of their way to give you up to date readings in the first year even though the meter's outside and it apparently just requires someone to walk by and read it with an instrument. So you'll get one reading after three months, then a guesstimate after six months, then one reading after nine months, then your year's up and you're on the meter i.e. if you forget about the one year trial period it's easy to let slip the ONE time you can get a really accurate reading and work out your figures (after nine months the figures are probably accurate). Also you won't find any direct comparison between what you're paying now on the meter and what you were paying on the rateable value when you read your bills AND when you ring up to get off the meter they will go out of their way to try and persuade you to stay on it. Which leads me to think that they want as many people on water meters as possible because that way they make more money.
So: water meters - no.
YW and presumably other water companies: pretty despicable in the surreptitiously underhand way they've loaded this game.

Cardew

smallbiznewbie wrote: »

We're also with Yorkshire water and tried the meter. Just two of us (two adults, kids grown up) but I have a bath every day. We DIDN'T save and now have a big lump sum that we have to pay back having come off the meter - PIA,. I negotiated from paying it back in two instalments to two small instalments and pay the rest back over (hopefully) two years.
Two things you need to know: your children will grow up and become teenagers and use LOTS more water AND your meter will remain in place and the next owner will have to pay by the meter. I would have thought that might make the house less desirable when it comes to selling it. I find YW's lack of transparency in this regard pretty despicable - nowhere do I remember reading that this was a backdoor way to introduce water meters.
Also, they won't go out of their way to give you up to date readings in the first year even though the meter's outside and it apparently just requires someone to walk by and read it with an instrument. So you'll get one reading after three months, then a guesstimate after six months, then one reading after nine months, then your year's up and you're on the meter i.e. if you forget about the one year trial period it's easy to let slip the ONE time you can get a really accurate reading and work out your figures (after nine months the figures are probably accurate). Also you won't find any direct comparison between what you're paying now on the meter and what you were paying on the rateable value when you read your bills AND when you ring up to get off the meter they will go out of their way to try and persuade you to stay on it. Which leads me to think that they want as many people on water meters as possible because that way they make more money.
So: water meters - no.
YW and presumably other water companies: pretty despicable in the surreptitiously underhand way they've loaded this game.

Your post in criticising Yorkshire Water is incorrect in a number of ways.

Firstly, on selling the house Yorkshire Water along with every other water company have the power to compulsorily fit a meter for the new account holder. It is probable that in future that provision will be enforced.

So they don't need a 'backdoor way to introduce meters' !In fact they have had that power since April 1990 under The Water Act(of Parliament). However along with some other companies they didn't bother to enforce that provision of the Act. The reason being there is and was no financial incentive for the water companies to fit meters.

they want as many people on water meters as possible because that way they make more money.

Before making such an allegation, you would do well to understand how all water companies are financed. The Water Regulator Ofwat sets targets for all water companies and stipulates how much revenue that they can raise, and hence profit.

So it doesn't matter if they get more money by fitting a meter to your property(and a million others). In that case their other charges must be reduced such that they raise exactly the same revenue.

The majority of people actually save by having a meter fitted(not my opinion, see Ofwat) and hundreds of posts on MSE) So conversely if Yorkshire Water lost, say, £1 million in revenue from these customers, they are allowed to raise other charges by the same £1 million.

So meter, or no meter, it is cost neutral for the water companies - they can't lose or gain either way.

My criticism of the water companies is that they haven't religiously enforced their powers to compulsorily fit water meters, on change of occupant, since April 1990. That together with the fact that all properties build since 1990 must have a meter would have meant the majority of properties would now have a meter and actually pay for what they use - you know like gas and electricity!

bsod

You could have got on your hands and knees, taken a reading, and plugged it into the formula, and compared it yourself, all of 5 minutes work, if the 2 readings and bills weren't enough of a warning.