Not sure if this water bill is correct? 4 May 2015 at 7:47PM in Water bills 4 replies 1K views

AirsyBaby

Hello all,

First and foremost this is my first post so I hope everything is all in check! Please let me know if not.

So today the household water bill came through for the past 6 months, from end of October to mid April. The water bill is £376.69 on a water meter with Welsh Water, there is three of us living here. We are all young adults and none of us can really afford this! I've looked up many other bills in 6 month periods and apparently this seems quite a lot.

If there is an issue with the bill, what can I do personally about it? I'm not the account holder, so I foresee a problem there. Is there any other ways to reduce the bill? Someone mentioned to me stopping paper statements, but I don't imagine this reduces the cost dramatically enough for it to be feasible.

If anyone has any idea how they could help, I would appreciate it so much as its pretty scary as I have no clue how the bill is this high.

Thanks in advance,

-Airs

Fifi_

I recommend that you get in contact with the water supplier

elsien

Are you querying the amount of water used? Have you tried turning everything off then checking the meter to see if it's still racking up charges?
You can phone the water company if you think there's a leak and they'll talk you through checking it. If there does appear to be a problem they can look at reducing the bill.
Otherwise it's down to all of you making an effort to use less water from here on in. Have the three of you had previous water bills or is this the first?

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.


There are two reasons why a bill is unexpectedly high that come to mind.


Firstly that your previous bill(s) were based on(under) estimated meter readings and this bill corrects that situation i.e. a catch-up bill. You can check previous bills and see if the meter readings have an (E) for estimated.


Secondly you have a leak either inside the property or if the meter is outside, on the mains water to the property.


The average consumption for 3 adults in 6 months is approx. 80 cubic metres and your bill equates to either 102 or 118 cubic metres(depending if you are charged for Surface Water Drainage or not)


The commonest reason for an internal leak is a faulty cistern with water leaking back into the bowl.


If the bill is not a catch-up bill, you need to investigate if there has been a leak. Obviously with all water in the house turned off, the meter reading shouldn't change - read the meter very accurately including the decimal places and again a few hours later if possible.


If the reading has changed, turn off the main stopcock in the property and check again. If it is still changing the leak is external.


I suggest you carry out the above - estimated bills & leak - and post again.

macman

So is this bill based on an estimated or actual closing reading, and does it correspond with the actual meter reading? Check that the serial numbers also match from meter to bill, as it's common enough to be billed on the wrong meter.