Affinity Water - I don't understand your explanation of your billing. A bad start for a new metering

Mabel2012

As I'm having to give up my daily bath due to dodgy knees so will be using a lot less water. I'm also reducing the number of washes and dishwsher loads per week to save on energy so I decided to have a water meter installed. The engineer inspected my home and installed the meter on the same the same day, 25 Jan. A very efficient and tidy job. A couple of days later I went online and saw the credit I was due for the period 25 Jan to 31 March as that had already been paid by 10 months direct debit. Annual payment £494.35. The estimated new payment is £27.  A nice little saving, hopefully.

I tried to calculate if the figure was right and was about £20 out - not in my favour. I phoned Affinity and the woman I spole to could not help but said she would get someone to send me the breakdowm so I could understand it. I received the letter today as an attachment and am befuddled by the explanation,.

The unit cost of fresh water 1.0778 (ok) and the unit cost of sewage is 0.9488 (what is a unit.)

Then we come to standing charges: The unit cost + charges for standng charges is 14.46 so the charges is 5.32 and for the sewage charges is 11.70 as follows withthe unit cost 31.79.

The water meter records the usage (in litres or what). How is the sewage treatment metered? Is it calculated on the water used or what?

What the h*ll are the fixed charges.The figures make no sense 

I attach a scan of the 'explanation letter and hope some other user can help me understand how the bill is calculated and I may then be able to work out if my credit is correct.

pochase

You are not saying what the credit is you received, so a bit hard to tell you if it is correct.

They should have calculated it by dividing your payment by 365 to get to the daily charge £1.3444. Multiply the daily charge by the 66 days you paid upfront and I get £89.57 credit. There will be a small rounding error.

Units are always cubic meter (1000 l) and the same usage for sewage as for fresh water is assumed.

On top of that you have a daily standing charge for fresh water and sewage.

Mabel2012

Sorry, I didn't realise anyone had replied.

I did my own rough calculation by dividing the annual cost by 365 and multiplying by 65 (the number of elapsed days from installation of the meter 'til 31 March (the end of the annual payment).

£494.35/365*65. Result £88 approx. I received £72.  I asked for the breakdown of that figure so I could understand the credit figure but also so I could understand how my water usage bill will be calculated. I'm afraid the explanation is just gobbledygook to me.

I thought I would get a breakdown like our energy bills which I can easily check.  I can not use the above explanation to calculate jack. It seems to be🐂💩

Are you able to calculate anything by using the information the the Affinity letter of explanation?

[Deleted User]

Water usage is meter recorded in cubic metres; that is, the volume of water used.

My metered bill goes something like this (for the last 6 month period):

Actual Water Used = 19.00M3

Fresh Water Costs:

19 times 161.42pence/M3

Standing Charge  £15.09

Sub-Total £45.75

Average daily spend: £0.26

Waste Water Costs:

19 times 0 pence/M3 (my water company does not as yet charge for waste water awaiting adoption)

Standing Charge £48.81

Average daily spend £0.28

Total Spending = £45.75+ £48.81 = £94.56

I suspect that all water companies bill in the same way.

Edit: *A cubic meter is 1000 litres or 220 gallons - the equivalent of 12 washing machine cycles, 12 baths, or 28 showers.

MikeJXE

There could also be the cost of disposing of surface water if you are not on a soak away system 

pochase

Mabel2012 said:

Sorry, I didn't realise anyone had replied.

I did my own rough calculation by dividing the annual cost by 365 and multiplying by 65 (the number of elapsed days from installation of the meter 'til 31 March (the end of the annual payment).

£494.35/365*65. Result £88 approx. I received £72.  I asked for the breakdown of that figure so I could understand the credit figure but also so I could understand how my water usage bill will be calculated. I'm afraid the explanation is just gobbledygook to me.

I thought I would get a breakdown like our energy bills which I can easily check.  I can not use the above explanation to calculate jack. It seems to be🐂💩

Are you able to calculate anything by using the information the the Affinity letter of explanation?

I have already calculated £89.57 in my first post, which matches your calculation. I can't see how they get to £72.

The message you got from them is about  their meter charges, so you will need your meter readings to calculate the cost.

Usage x (freshwater cost + waste water cost) = usage cost
days x (Freshwater standing charge + waste water standing charge) - standing charge
Add the two and you will have your bill.

Mabel2012

pochase said:

I have already calculated £89.57 in my first post, which matches your calculation. I can't see how they get to £72.

The message you got from them is about  their meter charges, so you will need your meter readings to calculate the cost.

Usage x (freshwater cost + waste water cost) = usage cost
days x (Freshwater standing charge + waste water standing charge) - standing charge
Add the two and you will have your bill.

Thank you for laying out the calculation in an understandable way.

I sent a direct message to Affinity asking for a proper breakdown of the credit. Nothing heard to date. They don't accept emails, though thy are great at spamming me by email about water saving. The only other way of contacting them is by letter. The phone is useless as the people I speak to just take messages and then I receive a letter like the one included with my first post.

Mabel2012

pochase
<b>This is the reply I just received to my enquiry on the refund.</b>

"I do apologise for the previous letter which did not fully address your original query.

You were previously billed on a fixed charge based on the rateable value of your property.  The annual bill of £494.35 covered from 1 April 2022 – 31 March 2023. As your meter was fitted on 24 January 2023, we credited £90.74 to the account for the period from the meter fit up to 31 March 2023. Your account has been billed on metered charges since the meter fit. The standing charges are £17.02 up to 31 March 2023. This has led to the £73.72 credit.

The credit £73.72 has been refunded to the bank account where your direct debits came from.

The metered charges on your account going forward are £1.0778 per cubic meter for your fresh water and  £0.9488 for your waster water. The standing charges for 6 month period are £14.46 for the fresh water and  £31.79  for the waste water from Thames.

The credit £73.72 has been refunded to the bank account where your direct debits came from.

The metered charges on your account going forward are £1.0778 per cubic meter for your fresh water and  £0.9488 for your waster water. The standing charges for 6 month period are £14.46 for the fresh water and  £31.79  for the waste water from Thames".

___________________________________________________________

I now understand the figures, but I'm puzzled as to why they charged the standing charge up to 31 March and did not wait to charge it with the first meter charges in six months.

pochase

Never heard of a standing charge been calculated and billed upfront.

But at least the amounts make sense now, and you will pay £17 less on the next bill.

Just check that they don't bill the standing charge a second time.

Mabel2012

I will put a note in my calendar for July when the first bill under the metered system is due.  Thanks for your help on this. Most people I spoke to about water bills just accept the charges without checking them. I check everything.

jbuchanangb

You are very sensible to check everything. Water bills have five main line items:

Supply standing charge

Supply consumption

Sewerage standing charge

Sewerage consumption.

Surface water disposal.

Some areas have one company for supply and a different one for sewerage.

In areas where they are different, sometimes the supply company bills include sewerage bills, and sometimes the sewerage company bills separately.

Some sewerage companies only bill sewerage consumption at 90% of the supply volume.

Some sewerage companies include the surface water disposal in the sewerage standing charge, other itemise it separately. Households who can demonstrate that their surface water does not drain into a public sewer can ask not to pay this charge, although as part of it includes such things as highway drainage, it may not be a 100% reduction.

All water companies change their tariffs on 1 April, so the bill which comes after that date shows charges before and after separately.