? change to meter?

Cardew

mech wrote: »

Actually most households in the UK do discharge rainwater into the sewers. That's why it is charged for by default. Rule of thumb: If your house is more than 20 years old, you're likely to need to pay the charge. If it's newer than that you probably don't.

Can you point to the source of that information please.

mech_2

*points at his head*

I don't have a convenient reference to hand. I thought it was common knowledge. All this panic about overloaded sewers only started this past decade.

Most dwellings in the UK are pre-1960s. Most old properties would still have combined drainage. I can't imagine many have been changed.

Houses from the 70s onwards are likely to have rainwater goods connected to a separate storm drain system, but even then it doesn't necessarily mean it isn't maintained by the water company.

I don't even think it's disallowed across the whole of the country for new properties to discharge surface water into an already existing combined sewer. It's down to the local authorities or the water company to object, probably. The information is out there somewhere.

birchscrub

The panic about overloaded sewers occurred about the same time everyone paved their drives to put cars on them - the rain runs off, into the surface water drains, ends up getting mixed with the sewerage (though it shouldn't) and the people at the bottom of the hill get covered in poo.