THAMES WATER HAVE TRIPLED MY BILL

SOX13

Just wondering if anyone can answer this. Received my bill today and despite ending the year in Credit by £75 with my current Direct debits of £29m. Thames Water have decided to 'Estimate' my bill for next year as being 3 times what it was this year, and have upped my Direct Debit by £30pm to £59pm!! How can they do this? for a start what grounds is there for them to estimate I will use 3 times the amount of water over the coming year and how can they justify an uplift in payments of £30pm? i can feed my family for a week for £30pm, this is a ridiculous increase based on an event that hasn't even happened! Has anyone else had this?

Hasbeen

SOX13 said:

Just wondering if anyone can answer this. Received my bill today and despite ending the year in Credit by £75 with my current Direct debits of £29m. Thames Water have decided to 'Estimate' my bill for next year as being 3 times what it was this year, and have upped my Direct Debit by £30pm to £59pm!! How can they do this? for a start what grounds is there for them to estimate I will use 3 times the amount of water over the coming year and how can they justify an uplift in payments of £30pm? i can feed my family for a week for £30pm, this is a ridiculous increase based on an event that hasn't even happened! Has anyone else had this?

Its an estimate! Why do you not read your meter and submit regular readings?

https://www.thameswater.co.uk/help/water-meters/how-to-read-your-water-meter

SOX13

I haven't needed to previously as I've always been in Credit, this is an Estimate of my usage for the entire year, so it's not really relevant if I submit a reading now is it?

SOX13

Just checked with my husband and we have a Water Meter so i do i still need to submit a reading? i thought the whole point was that it reads the meter like a smart meter No?

Hasbeen

SOX13 said:

Just checked with my husband and we have a Water Meter so i do i still need to submit a reading? i thought the whole point was that it reads the meter like a smart meter No?

Where is the meter outside or inside. Some info here: https://www.thameswater.co.uk/help/water-meters/getting-a-water-meter

Robin9

It may of course be quite accurate -  and the meter is recording a leak in your house - perhaps a toilet cistern that's continually running .  

Look back on your bills and note the consumption readings given - is there a pattern.?

Gerry1

If your meter has an asterisk that's always rotating, you have a leak or a dripping tap or valve.

matelodave

The beauty of having a water meter is that you can read it yourself, check your bills and if you do it regularly you determine what your normal consumption is. Not only can you ensure that your bills are correct you can also see if something has gone awry and get it sorted before you get a ginormous bill or the drive starts to subside.

I read mine once a month and our average is around 6cu.m, however  when I read it in July I found that we'd used nearly 20cu.m and the meter didn't stop rotating even though everything in the house was off which indicated a leak, which it was and which we've now had fixed by replacing the pipe between the meter and internal stopcock.

However if you don't read the meter yourself and either wait for the man to come round once a year you can end up losing an awful lot of water and cause quite a lot of damage. Likewise if the man doesn't come round then the water company will make a wild random guess which is usually quite a lot more than your average consumption. 

wild666

I read my meter every week, for the first month I read the meter every day, last year I used less than 20 Cm, my monthly bill for this year is £11 a month and I expect it to be less next year. This is only my second year with a water meter so I am cutting down on usage as much as I can.
Maybe the supplier has made a large increase in the price for cubic meters used whilst retaining the standing charges? Check on their site for the charges then do a daily or weekly check of the water used, you normally get a refund if at the end of the year you're in credit and they calculate on the previous year's usage. 

pokora

Not all the smart meters worked as they promise. I have 1 that never had conexion with Internet/their systems and they never came to take readings, so if you don't give readings you will end in this situations.

Cardew

Most of the water 'Smart Meters' simply allow a meter reader to take the reading remotely.