Crazy water bills

mml224

MattMattMattUK said:

mml224 said:

MattMattMattUK said:

mml224 said:

Which would be fine, if only I knew what the £785.20 was referring to in the balance above! Crazy there is absolutely no reference to it being owed to myself or the water company or am I missing something obvious here?

What are you viewing that on, if you try on the proper website, rather than the web version is it any clearer? 

Exactly the same on the main website. I only used the phone as I figured it would be easier to paste here.

Is there an actual bill/invoice you can access, rather than just that front page?

Hi Matt, thanks for sticking with me. I can download. Now what I am concerned about, is that I might be paying for someone else's water. The reason I state this is because when we moved in (6 years ago), we were not aware there was an actual water meter. When I discovered we had one, I went looking for it and there was a layer of compressed soil over it that I had to scrape away, so clearly had not been looked at for some time.

I think the next thing I need to do is request history of meter reads either side of us moving in, and look when the first request from the company was.


I just hope I can sort this out because we cannot afford to pay and maintain these monthly DD's!

MattMattMattUK

There are a few things worth checking then, first check the meter number on your account with the meter you are submitting readings for to establish if it actually is the right meter. Then it is worth checking it is actually your meter (rather than just the one you are paying for), so check before and after a period of no usage, ideally a period when you are out for a whole day or even better overnight, to see if the number moves, and also do a test when you check either side using a largeish amount of water (two people having a shower) to see that it does move.

Quidzin

As soon as I saw your screenshot I recognised a United Utilities bill as I found it confusing when I first looked at it. The £785 figure is the sum total of all your forthcoming DD payments from 1.4.22 to 31.3.23 as shown in the schedule of payments list. I'm not on a meter but that is how it works out for me. Only thing I cant see is why your DD is £145? My total is £883 and DD is £74 after the first one of £69 so total of £883. Hope thats of some help.

mml224

Quidzin said:

As soon as I saw your screenshot I recognised a United Utilities bill as I found it confusing when I first looked at it. The £785 figure is the sum total of all your forthcoming DD payments from 1.4.22 to 31.3.23 as shown in the schedule of payments list. I'm not on a meter but that is how it works out for me. Only thing I cant see is why your DD is £145? My total is £883 and DD is £74 after the first one of £69 so total of £883. Hope thats of some help.

Thanks! That makes sense. Well, I suspect this might be an issue with my kids requiring longer showers amongst other things... 
It does seem I owe over £1400 but I am still going to determine just how it got so high..

After my latest meter read submission, the monthly payments have come down to £125...

phsci

If you register for online billing with UU, the bills are available within "manage my account" for the last two years.  At the top of the section on your bills called "your water and wastewater charges" there is a subsection "your usage".  Immediately to the left of this is your meter number.  Then follows your previous meter reading (which might have been taken by UU via your radio meter, or you may have read and submitted it yourself; I do mine monthly). This is followed by your current reading and a statement of the volume of water used, then your charges for the most recent period, and the next payment to be taken by DD (if this the payment method you have chosen). Lower down still is a breakdown of the charges and, for comparison, average consumptions for several occupancy profiles. See: United Utilities - Water for the North West

matelodave

TBH the only way to control your water usage (and costs) is by reading the meter yourself a bit more often than the once or twice a year that the water company does. If you dont monitor it you cant control it.

I read mine once a month and apart from knowing how much I use and if my bills are ok it's also enabled me to identify a couple of leaks in the underground supply pipe.

One several years ago when the pipe split and as we lost around 50 cu.m of water between two monthly readings and another a year or so ago in a different place which wasn't so easy to find, so we got the whole pipe replaced.