Garden sub metre to off set garden water counting toward sewage cost

mitchen

I am an Anglian Water customer and they allow readings from a garden tap sub meter which you can buy cheaply on line to account for water used on your plants or lawn which does not then get counted toward the sewage part of your water bill. Anglian water are quite upfront about it and are happy to answer questions. I wanted to get my sister one, she is with Southern water, both she and I have tried several ways to ask about their policy on this and how to go about uploading the data to them but they just seem not to want to know. Live chats are terminated, emails are not answered. I would be OK with..sorry we do not subscribe to this policy, but they wont even say that? Any one else tried to get this sorted with a water company and does anyone know if it is a industry wide policy or up to individual companies? Thanks!

matelodave

I'd guess that is up to the individual water companies to decide whether they'll allow sub metering. In much the same way as they can decide whether to impose compulsory metering if they consider that you live in a place thats subject to water stress - it's a local decision.

Some, like AW only charge 90% of the metered water to offset the use of water for cooking, drink and a bit of car washing, others dont, so I doubt that it's an industry wide policy to either allow or disallow sub metering.

If you dont get any sense out of phoning or e-mailing then you could send a letter by recorded delivery but if they wont answer then there's not really a lot you can do.

Cardew seems to be the water guru, pehaps he has a clearer idea of what, if anything ,you can do.

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

We had another question on this very subject 2 weeks ago;

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6275892/adding-additional-water-meter-to-reduce-sewage-wastewater-charges#latest

By a co-incidence the OP in that thread was advising that Southern Water allow the same scheme as Anglian.

As I said in the above thread the man who fought the battle had a lot of trouble before he won, iirc it went to court and applies to all water companies.

Again iirc the original water company insisted on approving the meter and inspecting the installation - I mentioned the opportunity for fraud.  However that was some years ago and they may have relaxed their inspections.

I expect the poor response from Southern is the usual reason! i.e people are working from home and can't be bothered with finding the answer to 'difficult' problems.

I suggest you contact the Consumer Council for Water and complain. https://www.ccwater.org.uk/households/

iirc = If I recall correctly