Shared Water Supply Pressure Petition

Axomamma

Hi All,

I have seen a lot of posts on here about the woes of water pressure on a shared supply. Ofwat have been less than helpful as the same rules apply for minimum pressure on both individual and shared supplies despite the vast difference in the number of people using the supply.

My supply is shared between 6 houses (1 at least being a 2 flat conversion), so you can imagine the fun we all have with water pressure. A Berkshire-based water company has sent out an engineer and confirmed that our standard pressure is their minimum, so it can only go down.

I was wondering if there would be any possibility that we could petition to get the rules changed to enforce a minimum pressure for each property regardless of the state of the supply (shared or individual). It's common sense that a minimum pressure is what you would receive at any given time, rather than what you would get as long as no-one else is using their water.

Apologies if this isn't the place for this, but I'm at my wits end! My shower flips between boiling and freezing as there isn't enough pressure to keep the heater at a constant temperature!

System

Have a read of this:

https://www.affinitywater.co.uk/water-pressure-low-pressure.aspx

My understanding is that water companies are obliged to provide you with a separate supply; however, as many people have found with self build, the cost of piping might be cheap but trenching isn’t. Provided that the water company is meeting its statutory obligations, then I doubt that they are going to take much notice of letters of complaint or a Petition.

wakeupalarm

Maybe a mod can move to the water section rather than energy.

EachPenny

Hengus wrote: »

My understanding is that water companies are obliged to provide you with a separate supply; however, as many people have found with self build, the cost of piping might be cheap but trenching isn’t. Provided that the water company is meeting its statutory obligations, then I doubt that they are going to take much notice of letters of complaint or a Petition.

I agree. My water company's contractor made an absolute bodge of fitting my water meter (out in the street). I used to have good pressure, but with the meter it is terrible. The flow rate is dire.

The company representative came out and measured the flow rate, and looked at the pictures of the bodge, and declared that although he agreed the method of meter fitting has caused the problem there is nothing they are going to do as the pressure/flow rate meets the minimum standard.

The problem is the minimum standard is not really fit for purpose, especially as people now have more mains-fed appliances rather than using stored water.