New Thames Water Smart Meter installed

brook_heather

So I've returned home and the smart meter is still showing all zeros even though TW have put an "actual" reading of 2m3 on my account which is clearly fabricated.  Without the meter recording any usage it's difficult to confirm whether there is an internal or external leak.  TW have also issued multiple bills - the latest has reinstated all the charges for the old removed meter so not sure what to do now.  I need to prove there is either an external leak or the old meter was faulty.  I've found my bills going back to 2009 and no years had an average daily consumption above 1000L until 2021 when the average should have dropped substantially due to 1 or 2 children at Uni.

Londoner_1

I have a smart meter, had it since 2018, it sends data eveeryday to TW but teh data appears online 3-4 days late, ie today i can see water consumption for 21st sept.  Over the past year they have me down as potential water leak (small amount) some people turned up last year to check but was not at home. They turned up agian last mnth, luckily i was at home ,  after investigation with them it turns out 1 toilet was slighty overflowing. 

Yours could be an estimate, when our meter was installed, we had a 2 year grace period to check our consumption before fully switched over to the meter.

brook_heather

I was already on a water meter for the past twenty years before TW installed the new smart meter.  It's still reading zero unfortunately - I have complained several times to TW but hasn't been fixed or activated yet.

brook_heather

Today I received (another) re-calculated bill from TW - they have reversed the charges for the previous four years and reduced the final reading on the old meter from 10565 down to 8864 so I am now in credit by over £2K.  Hopefully that is now the "final" re-calculated bill though my smart water meter is still not reading any usage - shows all zeros on the display.  No response to any of my complaints about the faulty/inactive new smart meter so not sure whether they will bill me on zero usage or will estimate my usage?

brook_heather

Just an update on this - my smart water meter was finally activated in early May 2024 after several complaints and immediately showed that water was leaking with a daily usage of about 4000 litres (of which 500 was probably actual usage).  I arranged for a leak tracing company to find the leak which they confirmed but the old supply pipe was too deep in the ground for them to find so they suggested a new plastic water pipe should be installed instead.  I used a moling company to install the new supply pipe at a 750mm depth under the existing side passage whcih just required a hole to be dug at each end.  As the existing pipe was an old lead pipe I arranged with Thames Water to replace their pipe from the boundary to the meter - this was done for free the following week though I had to pay for the replacement on my side which was about £1200 plus £200 for my plumber to connect up the new pipe to the existing water pipes in the basement.

So I now have a new 25mm plastic pipe with no joins going from my basement to the meter in the pavement - after the leaky lead pipe was replaced the meter was showing just the expected daily usage however a few days later when TW did their part of the lead replacement they managed to damage the meter somehow and so it is temporarily removed awaiting the installation of a replacement working meter.