Thames Water - high usage...

Secret_Squirrel1970

Robin9 said:

 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

Really.....     Maybe I am looking at it the wrong angle but it seems happily around £70-90 bills.

Then jumps to £200 bill.

Then jumps to £300 bill.

Plus i am looking at it from the point of - I am barely here, living single and yet somehow approx 4 bathtubs of water every day. It doesn't seem physically possible.
Between that and looking at the jumps - rather than looking overall - it seems (seemed) odd. 

Admittedly their billing cycle doesn't seem to help - it almost seems whimsical rather than obeying any set period. 

Robin9

The Oct 23  bill  is a catch up following an actual reading . 

The last bill  Oct 24 to March 25 is a bit higher (using 15 units/month cf 10)  - depends the bill dates as it could be for nearly 28 weeks)  and it might be worth doing the checks in How much water do you use — MoneySavingExpert Forum

Not forgetting the huge tariff increases coming your way 

dunstonh

You have to ignore the estimates and look a the use between actual readings.

August 2023 was an actual month, the rest that followed were estimated until October 2024.
443 minus 340  = 103.
That period is about 410 days (estimate as you only give the month).  So, that equates to 0.25 per day, or 7.5 per month or 45 per 6 months.

CGORST

Secret_Squirrel1970 said:

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)

The same thing is happening to me but with United Utilities.  They have said I am using 8 baths full of water every day but I live alone.  I don't have baths, I have a short shower in the morning and I use the washing machine a few times a week.  I use water from water butts to water plants and clean the back yard.  In April 2024 the meter reading said I had used 25 cubic metres. I only have a mini-oven so it's not like I'm producing loads of washing up.  I have checked the toilet and that's not leaking.  

In April this year my bill said I had used 78 cubic metres and that's over winter when you'd think I'd use less. United Utilities instructed me to take a reading from the meter and refrain from using any water.  I did this and the numbers carried on going round.  Then they told me to turn the stopcock off and the numbers carried on increasing.  They sent somebody out to do a leak test and he just said there is no leak.  I explained what had been happening and he just said "well you've been using a lot more water and you should start to think about where you're using it.  I just don't know what is going on.  My bill has gone up from £17.95 per month in October 2024 to £41.74 in January 2025 and then £86.64 in April of this year.  

Does anybody know if it's possible to get a replacement meter fitted?  There is something weird happening and I can't afford to pay £86.64 a month for water that I don't seem to be using!

QrizB

CGORST said:

There is something weird happening and I can't afford to pay £86.64 a month for water that I don't seem to be using!

Where is your water meter - in your house, under a cover in the street, somewhere else?

When you say you turned off your stopcock, was it the stopcock immediately after the water meter or was it a stopcock somewhere else?

CGORST

The water meter is outside my back gate and the stopcock is in my kitchen.

QrizB

CGORST said:

The water meter is outside my back gate and the stopcock is in my kitchen.

That suggests that there's a leak between your water meter and your kitchen. That particular length of pipe is likely to be your responsibility (or your landlord's, if you rent).

There should be a stopcock down the hole with your water meter. Occasionally the leak is at the meter. If you turn off that stopcock and check to see if the meter increases, you can check that.