Water bill: checked no leaks

Humdinger1

Hello everyone 

I'd appreciate anything that you can suggest.   Two of us plus a dog in our house.  Our water bill (Southern Water) has just risen to £125 per month.  I've checked that the meter doesn't keep turning when the stopcock is off; it doesn't.   Apart from checking that the number on the meter and the bill match, is there anything else I can do to check that the process is right? We had a water advisor come out a few years back and are doing everything he suggested.   Oddly, my daughter moving out didn't lower water use.

Thanks for any advice.

Humdinger 

Merlin139

Does the meter keep running when the stopcock is on? Stopcock being off only shows that you don't have a leak between the stopcock and the meter. 

Do you have a toilet cistern that is continuously putting water into a toilet?

How many cubic metres of water are you using each month?

Try reading your meter eachday for a month. Look to see what you have used in the previous 24 hrs and figure out if it makes sense? 

RipleyG

If it's gone up suddenly, and you haven't had a price rise or a use change, then that suggests a leak, a faulty appliance, or a failure of something turning off (like the toilet Merlin139 mentions). 

You've eliminated a leak between the meter and the stopcock, so perhaps a process of elimination for the others. Useful runthrough here https://www.unitedutilities.com/globalassets/documents/pdf/how-to-check-your-water-usage 

I'd add: check appliances with a pump (dishwasher, washing machine) by running them while you're in the house. Be in the room and listen when they are filling with water to check the pump isn't running at the same time (we had this when an old washing machine pump started pumping water out while the machine was filling - it was literally money down the drain!). 

If no luck, it might be time to get a plumber in. I don't know what your bill was before the increase, but £125 does seem high. For comparison, we're 2 adults, no pets - admittedly we're relatively low users, but our monthly DD is £8.50 a month 

Humdinger1

Thanks @Merlin139 and @RipleyG I will.  The bill was already unaccountably high at £100 per month till today.  Will keep you posted.

teaselMay

RipleyG said:

If it's gone up suddenly, and you haven't had a price rise or a use change, then that suggests a leak, a faulty appliance, or a failure of something turning off (like the toilet Merlin139 mentions). 

You've eliminated a leak between the meter and the stopcock, so perhaps a process of elimination for the others. Useful runthrough here https://www.unitedutilities.com/globalassets/documents/pdf/how-to-check-your-water-usage 

I'd add: check appliances with a pump (dishwasher, washing machine) by running them while you're in the house. Be in the room and listen when they are filling with water to check the pump isn't running at the same time (we had this when an old washing machine pump started pumping water out while the machine was filling - it was literally money down the drain!). 

If no luck, it might be time to get a plumber in. I don't know what your bill was before the increase, but £125 does seem high. For comparison, we're 2 adults, no pets - admittedly we're relatively low users, but our monthly DD is £8.50 a month 

That's less than my standing charge

QrizB

Merlin139 said:

How many cubic metres of water are you using each month?

I've not seen a Southern Water bill, but mine (from a different water company) gives a figure for how much water we're using per day, on average over the billing period. Three of us typically get through 200-250 EDIT: 300 litres a day.

Humdinger1 does your bill give a similar figure?

Edited after checking a recent bill!

Humdinger1

Thanks will check today as am sure the bill does state water use

matelodave

You really need to be reading your water meter regularly yourself, rather than waiting for the bill to come in when its too late to do anything about it, especially if the meter only gets read once a year.

Taking a monthly reading s yourself will help you establish what your normal consumption is and you can then see if there are any anomalies and you can do something about it. A few years ago we had a big jump in consumption (50cum in one month) which was traced to a split water pipe

There are two of us and we are at home all day. We have an automatic garden watering system that runs from April to September, we wash our cars and caravan several times year and get through around 80-90cu.m a year, however that said, we don't waste water by letting it run down the sink whilst washing and don't stand in the shower for a long time either.
We are with Anglian water and our bill last year was £40 month (£480), this year I estimate it will be £48/month (£580) (20% increase). 

AFAIK the average consumption per person is around 55cu.m a year, so if you are using much more than that you should be doing a bit of sleuthing to find out where its all going

RipleyG

teaselMay said:That's less than my standing charge

Just had to go and check, to make sure I hadn't got that dreadfully and misleadingly wrong! We're with Bournemouth Water, on a meter, and our standing charge is £26.25 a year/£2.19 a month. 

teaselMay

RipleyG said:

teaselMay said:That's less than my standing charge

Just had to go and check, to make sure I hadn't got that dreadfully and misleadingly wrong! We're with Bournemouth Water, on a meter, and our standing charge is £26.25 a year/£2.19 a month. 

Is that for drainage as well? Likewise I thought I must've been mistaken but my standing charge is £23.99 a year for supply and £113.64 for waste water and so £11.47 a month. We're with United Utilities

Edit that's the current year, not next year's standing charge rates which are higher again

Grumpy_chap

Humdinger1 said:

 Our water bill (Southern Water) has just risen to £125 per month. 

That does seem high.
We are with Thames Water and the non-metered charge is £83 per month.
Our neighbours were bleating about water charges when the bills landed a few weeks back and the charges indicated were £84, £115, £70 per month.

Do you have any past underbilling that is being recovered?