£100 a month water bill. 3 bed semi, 2 adults 2 kids

Hoenir

united4ever said:

782 litres a day it states on the bill is what we use.

Depending on the showerhead , a shower uses between 9 and 19 litres of water a minute. 

That's between 270 - 570 litres for 30 minutes. 

 In % terms 34% to 73%  of your daily water consumption. 

itsthelittlethings

14 loads of washing a week is quite a lot, this will go towards your high bill.

Baldytyke88

itsthelittlethings said:

14 loads of washing a week is quite a lot, this will go towards your high bill.

That is a lot, I Googled some time ago that doing a wash could cost 50p, I guess their electric bill is high too.

Sarahspangles

I have nearly 10 years data (don’t judge me) based on noting down actual readings on bills. During this period my two went through Uni and flew the nest.

When my teenage daughter moved out daily usage fell from the starting level by a third with a further tenth reduction when my son left home. I can also see the year we watered the garden a lot and a little rebound since OH retired and I started working from home.

Grumpy_chap

united4ever said:

782 litres a day it states on the bill is what we use.

That is a lot.
Are the bills based on actual or estimated meter readings?

ciderboy2009

OP what you need to do is:

- Make sure you've got nothing running that uses water
- Check to see if the meter is still moving

If it isn't moving then you haven't got a leak and that is the actual amount that you're using.

If it is moving then:
- Turn off the water at the stop tap in the house (not the one at the meter)
- Check to see if the meter is still moving

If it isn't moving then you've got a leak somewhere in the house.

If it is still moving then either your stop tap isn't fully closing or there's a leak between the meter and the stop tap.  If you call your local water authority then they will send someone out to try to identify exactly where the leak is (as it may be their duty to fix it).

In my case we were using 300 litres per month for years (two of us in the house).  On the last bill this suddenly shot up to 550 litres per month with no obvious reason.

My local water authority ended up digging up the footpath outside my house and completely refitting the meter - they then added a substantial leakage credit to our account. 

Our usage now is around 120 litres per day so there had clearly been a leak there for years!  

Flugelhorn

Sarahspangles said:

I have nearly 10 years data (don’t judge me) based on noting down actual readings on bills. During this period my two went through Uni and flew the nest.

When my teenage daughter moved out daily usage fell from the starting level by a third with a further tenth reduction when my son left home. I can also see the year we watered the garden a lot and a little rebound since OH retired and I started working from home.

Our duo returned home for a few months after uni - when the first one left again the bill went down by a quarter and when the second one left it went down by a third - showed we were all using much the same 

Albermarle

united4ever said:

782 litres a day it states on the bill is what we use.

Sorry, we do laundry twice a day, not 4 times a day 

We are in the north west, Manchester 

For comparison, our household usage is a little bit less than half of that.
Also the washing machine is on twice a day on average. Dishwasher once a day. Garden watered but not excessively.
Three baths and 15 showers a week ( approx 5 Min duration) .
Apparently toilet flushing is one of the biggest users of water in a bigger household.  We do not flush every single time someone goes. We have a water saving device in the house main toilet. 
I guess long showers could be the culprit, especially if the water flow is quite strong.

thegreenone

I don't think I've ever done 14 loads of washing a week including towels and bedding.  I've just paid £202 for six months water on a meter.  Three adults.

OP, are your teenagers putting clothes in the wash that they've only worn for a few hours and could go back in the wardrobe?  Are you all wearing things for a few hours?  I understand lots of sports kit but could that be managed differently?  I don't divide whites and colours anymore, no need I chuck it all in the machine, although we don't wear jeans at all.  They would need separating.

£100 a month is brutal and definitely needs investigation.

Bigphil1474

Sounds very high, but unfortunately no amount of washing will get the red out of those shirts. Keep trying though. I'd blame the kids and the long showers, plus 2 loads of washing every day sounds excessive. There's only 2 of us but we wash about 3 times a week. If you want to save money, check for leaks as ciderboy says, then water saving measures. For comparison, we pay £75 a month on a rateable value amount, we're looking at getting meters as we thought that was way too much.