Thames Water - high usage...

Secret_Squirrel1970

Have been in my current address for 4 years, never really noticed an issue with water, just paid the bills.

Back in October 2024 however something caught my eye – as a little aside,  the bill mentioned my use was the equivalent of 3 bathtubs full of water every day.  I had never looked at litres/use before but this struck me as high.  It is a 3 bed house yes, but I live here alone.

Raised this with them in whatsapp chat thing and after a bit of back and forth they decided it was because all my previous bills had been estimates and that this was an actual reading it was just a lot of slack catching up. This bill was £200 roughly.

End of March 2025 received the next bill which was now up over £300 and the little aside comparison gave my water use in thousands of cups of tea, much harder to visualise. But, from the little graph I can see the increase in water usage is now up to around 4.5 bathtubs full of water every day.

This is patently nonsense.  As I pointed out to them in whatsapp (again)..

-        Single middle aged bloke at home

-        Out the house working from between 9hr and 15hrs five or six days a week. Sometimes actually away on the road entirely for a couple of days.

-        No dishwasher, only doing dishes for one

-        Washing machine gets run once per week on average.

-        Do have garden but no lawn or flowerbeds and no watering (couple of watering cans randomly used on tubs/urns, occasionally)

-        Showers are about 5 minutes duration, not a power shower.

-        Have about 6 mugs of tea/coffee a day on average.

I pointed out it isn’t physically possible for me to be using the equivalent of 4.5 bathtubs of water every day. Even on the days I have a bath rather than shower (once, very occasionally twice a week) I wont come close to that much. It’s ludicrous. Daughter home from Uni occasionally but that is a short period and she spends time elsewhere then too.

Finally I got one of their ‘chat personnel’ to agree my use does seem to be rather high, given the circumstances.

That’s where it finished. They still want me to pay the bill but have sent a link to Leak Repayment (once it is established) there is a leak. I have given them £200 of the £300 so far but will pay what's left as it just keeps it easier I guess.

What a palaver. I am on a meter obviously but it isn’t in the house. It is buried in the pavement on the main road along with about 6-7 others from this little new build courtyard. I don’t have the time to be prising all of them open, matching reference numbers, finding stop !!!!!! in house and all this B/S but I am presuming that is the only way forward.

Seems to me only logical there is a leak or maybe my meter connected up to wrong property in this courtyard. 

It strikes me as self-evident there is something very wrong about that usage, but they aren’t budging until I do all this..  so I am starting this here now, and sometime over the next few days I will hopefully locate my stopc0ck and also manage to find my meter.  (tbc)

Robin9

It's no real effort to lift that lid -  a flat bladed screwdriver  is the easiest.




Can you post your meter readings from the bills please  - plus todays reading.

There was a post re consumption a couple of weeks back
How much water do you use — MoneySavingExpert Forum

QrizB

Secret_Squirrel1970 said:

Seems to me only logical there is a leak or maybe my meter connected up to wrong property in this courtyard.

Or there's a leak inside your house. Until you investigate properly, rather than just making assumptions, no-one can know what's what.

(Internal leaks don't have to be obvious. A seeping toilet cistern, leaking boiler PRV, a pinhole in a buried central heating pipe - all of these have been found as sources of leaks by folk on this forum.)

Secret_Squirrel1970

Robin9 said:

It's no real effort to lift that lid -  a screwdriver  is the easiest.




Can you post your meter readings from the bills please  - plus todays reading.

There was a post re consumption a couple of weeks back
How much water do you use — MoneySavingExpert Forum

I know, I am being a curmudgeon.....  I hate self-checkouts too.   All these companies cutting their costs by getting us to do their work    it gives me an excuse to moan.

Its more the having to hunt through a number of other meters, and find the stopc0ck etc.  I will aim to get to it next day or so - I am not currently at the property.  

Secret_Squirrel1970

QrizB said:

Secret_Squirrel1970 said:

Seems to me only logical there is a leak or maybe my meter connected up to wrong property in this courtyard.

Or there's a leak inside your house. Until you investigate properly, rather than just making assumptions, no-one can know what's what.

(Internal leaks don't have to be obvious. A seeping toilet cistern, leaking boiler PRV, a pinhole in a buried central heating pipe - all of these have been found as sources of leaks by folk on this forum.)

Well that will raise another issue - its a rented property so will have to get the landlord involved.  First I suppose I need to find if that meter still going when nothing running at the property. 

Robin9

Even if you are not at the property you will have access to the online account.   The actual meter can wait.

Secret_Squirrel1970

Robin9 said:

Even if you are not at the property you will have access to the online account.   The actual meter can wait.

I will dig into the actual readings in a bit but I think just looking at the bill amounts in that little snapshot, something has gone awry.

Secret_Squirrel1970

Having a look over the bills back to 2022 - something is amiss....

Aug 2023 Bill

Actual reading 275 (oct 2022) – latest reading (Aug 2023) 340

Usage 65

Oct 2023 Bill

Reading 340 – latest estimate 353 (usage 13)

Jan 2024 Bill

Estimated Oct 353 – latest estimate 373 (usage 20)

April 2024 Bill

Estimated previous reading Jan 373 new estimated reading 392  (usage 19)

October 2024 Bill

Previous estimate 392 – Actual reading 443 (usage 51)

March 2025 Bill

Previous reading 443 – new actual reading 526 (usage 83)

Grumpy_chap

Secret_Squirrel1970 said:

I know, I am being a curmudgeon.....  I hate self-checkouts too.   All these companies cutting their costs by getting us to do their work    it gives me an excuse to moan.
 

If there is a leak inside your property in pipes you own, how is it doing the company's work for them to find out where the leak is?

Secret_Squirrel1970

Grumpy_chap said:

Secret_Squirrel1970 said:

I know, I am being a curmudgeon.....  I hate self-checkouts too.   All these companies cutting their costs by getting us to do their work    it gives me an excuse to moan.
 

If there is a leak inside your property in pipes you own, how is it doing the company's work for them to find out where the leak is?

self-stated curmudgeon - I like moaning, even if it is baseless.  

I don't own it by the way - but that's neither here nor there in this instance.

But to continue this - just looking at the figures there, something clearly 'went wrong' in later 2024 and I have had to wade through their BS about do I leave the tap on when I brush my teeth. I don't like Thames Water and their failed privatisation farce, okay, so I moan.

Robin9

 You need to ignore the Oct 23 - April 24 which are estimates and we also have some 6 monthly and some 3 monthly.

If we take the actual Aug 23 - actual March 25 (21 months) you used 528-340 = 188  ie approx 10 per month. Compares with Oct 22 - April 23 (6 months)of 65   ie approx 10 per month


I think that's very typical