Converted terrace, one water supply, two bills

feedtheshark

I live in the ground floor of a converted Victorian terrace. Both myself and the upstairs flat have terrible water pressure (around 1.2 bars). I had a builder out last month to see if anything can be done and he said the problem comes from a single supply being shared by both flats. He also said we should have one bill, whereas both myself and the upstairs neighbour are both paying Thames Water.

Is it correct that there should be only one bill, split between us? If so, how would we go about getting 15+ years worth of bills back!

Following on from this I need to improve the water pressure, my boiler doesn't work the pressure is so weak and I get no hot water unless I switch on the heating. I just thought that was how things worked until I had a builder out...

How can I get Thames Water to improve the pressure, do I need another line or can they improve things at the mains?

Any other suggestions welcome, feel like I've been paying double for half the service all these years, with additional and unnecessary heating costs on top of it all, which atm are PAINFUL.

QrizB

I think your builder has misled you.

If your flat and the one above are separate properties, it's correct for you to have separate water bills. I don't know why your builder would say otherwise.

Traditional British plumbing (an open vented system with a loft tank) works with water pressures of a fraction of a bar. 1.2 bar should be plenty. If your flat was modernised to have a closed unvented system, the person doing that should have considered the lack of pressure and done something about it.

You can certainly complain to Thames Water about your low water pressure, but they might not be able to do anything. It might fall to you to fit a booster pump.

Cardew

Above post is correct, each separate premise should have their own account and bill. The extension of your builder's argument is that a multi-unit block of flats should only have a single bill.

That said many conversions of larger houses(built before the introduction of water meters in 1990,)into flats simply didn't bother registering the separate flats with the water company and only one flat got billed.

If your building was converted since April 1990, meters should have been fitted. If they have not been fitted are both flats paying charges based on the old Rateable Value(RV) of the original complete property?