Faulty Smart Water Meter

Breezer1704

Hello.  Can someone advise me please.  Our road had smart water meters installed in October last year.  I have recently opted to activate my meter.  However, I know my meter is faulty and giving an incorrect reading.  I have contacted Thames Water and they insist there is nothing wrong with my meter.  The customer services assistant did a calculation of my usage and she also agreed that my usage was drastically lower than what is currently being read.  I have checked and I do not have any leaks in my property.  So, for the last few days, I have been logging every bit of water I use and calculating it.  Over the last 24 hours, I used 41 litres of water.  I read my water meter and in 24 hours it registered that I had used 112 litres

I drank 2ltrs water
Flushed my toilet 4 times (6ltrs per flush = 24ltrs)
Used my dishwasher once = 10ltrs 
Measured 2ltrs water to boil my vegetables and make gravy
Allowed 3ltrs water for washing hands and cleaning teeth (tap turned off until I needed to rinse)

That totals 41ltrs yet my meter is saying I used 112ltrs

What can I do?  I know there is something wrong with my meter yet Thames water will do nothing about this and are making over twice the amount of profit

MattMattMattUK

Breezer1704 said:

Hello.  Can someone advise me please.  Our road had smart water meters installed in October last year.  I have recently opted to activate my meter.  However, I know my meter is faulty and giving an incorrect reading.  I have contacted Thames Water and they insist there is nothing wrong with my meter.  The customer services assistant did a calculation of my usage and she also agreed that my usage was drastically lower than what is currently being read.  I have checked and I do not have any leaks in my property.  So, for the last few days, I have been logging every bit of water I use and calculating it.  Over the last 24 hours, I used 41 litres of water.  I read my water meter and in 24 hours it registered that I had used 112 litres

I drank 2ltrs water
Flushed my toilet 4 times (6ltrs per flush = 24ltrs)
Used my dishwasher once = 10ltrs 
Measured 2ltrs water to boil my vegetables and make gravy
Allowed 3ltrs water for washing hands and cleaning teeth (tap turned off until I needed to rinse)

That totals 41ltrs yet my meter is saying I used 112ltrs

What can I do?  I know there is something wrong with my meter yet Thames water will do nothing about this and are making over twice the amount of profit

Not use any water for a fixed period of time, see if the meter changes, ideally 12/24 hours, when you know you are going to be out for a day or overnight would be a good idea. Next, used a fixed quantity of water, ideally large enough to properly register, 100L for example in a very quick period of time, see if the meter shows 100L or a different result. Ideally do this at a time when your neighbours will not be using any water. 

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

There have been many posts over the years on MSE about over-reading meters and I am not aware of any case where the meter has been proven to be faulty.

The usual reasons for high consumption are:

Internal leak of water - usually a toilet cistern silently overflowing.

Leak between an external meter and house - easily checked by shutting off main water stopcock.

'Your' meter supplying another property(and vice versa)

jimjames

41 litres of water would be exceptionally low so it's more likely there is use you've not accounted for or have under accounted. I'm not sure an agent would be able to tell that your actual use was lower, more likely they're agreeing to make life easier.

Yinliru

In most cases, the error after the installation of the water meter will increase with the use of time, but at most within 10% of the error. Therefore, when there is a lot of difference between the amount of water you actually use and the amount recorded by the water meter, you need professional personnel to check whether there is a leak in the pipeline for you, because this is a large probability that you are not aware of the failure of the pipeline. I hope I can help you. Have a good day.