01/04/2025 readings for price increases.

Boohoo

My dad is on a Affinity/Thames water meter.

I sent an email on his behalf asking if any readings will be taken by Affinity on 1/04/2025 due to the new water charge increases and the reply was that Affinity will not be doing any readings.

My dad's bills are 6 monthly and the last bill was November so if Affinity take a reading after 6 months May time, will he be charged the whole 6 months at the higher rate or will the estimate what his usage is ?

I sent another email Friday but the last email took 9 days to get a reply.

I have taken a reading and photo today and input that reading into his online account. The online meter reading input part says only add a reading if requested from them so i am not sure if they will accept it.

Has anybody got an answer from their water supplier about this or have been instructed to give a reading so they don't get over charged?

I know you give a electric/gas reading when the price cap is changed but not sure about water.

QrizB

I can't speak for your dad's supplier, but mine will let me submit a meter reading whenever I choose.

matelodave

QrizB said:

I can't speak for your dad's supplier, but mine will let me submit a meter reading whenever I choose.

Anglian Water do the same 

The first thing I do after brekky on the 1st of April is to read both my leccy and water meters  and submit the readings to their respective suppliers  to avoid some of their strange "estimates" of consumption at the increased rates . It always seems to be significantly higher than my average over the past year (I dont have gas otherwise I'd do that as well).

They also manage to calculate the DD based on me using a lot more than I've been using over the previous year or so, even though we've been pretty consistent over the past 14 years. Although a phone call sorts it out, its pretty irritating to have to keep doing it. 

GingerTim

I'm an Affinity customer and they let you submit a manual reading

Boohoo

Thanks for the replies.

I will do another read on 30/3/25 as I won't be able to do it during the week. So only a few days Affinity water can over estimate.

Thanks again for the advice.

Brie

Does anyone know what one does if reading the meter isn't possible??  Ours is on a neighbour's property under a heavy metal plate.

matelodave

Unless its got remote reading facilities then the only way to read it is by actually taking the cover off and doing it yourself. If you think its difficult then so might the meter reader and just guess.

Just relying on a random meter reading, possibly done once a year or, even worse a random guess because the meter reader couldn't be bothered to check it properly isn't ideal. TBH even if it has got remote reading (pretty unlikely unless you are in a smart meter area) then I'd always check myself anyway. 

You really do need to [put the effort in to read it yourself, at least annually, to makes sure that all is well and you aren't getting guesstimated bills or paying for someone else's consumption.

Entirely up to you of course, but water its getting pretty expensive (over £5 a cubic metre where we live) and you only want to pay for what you actually use

MattMattMattUK

Brie said:

Does anyone know what one does if reading the meter isn't possible??  Ours is on a neighbour's property under a heavy metal plate.

The water supplier normally works on a pro-rata basis, but we have seen plenty of odd splits on here over the years. 

Boohoo

GingerTim said:

I'm an Affinity customer and they let you submit a manual reading

Thanks

I put in a reading last weekend and it showed up in the online account.

I have checked my dad's online account meter readings and my reading has dissapeared from there so maybe Affinity deleted it.

I am still waiting for Affinity to get back to from last week about this issue.

The only options i have fo inputting a read are read requested for bill, requested bill, leak allowance, account investigation and moving home. As none of the apply maybe that was why it has been deleted.