Water usage almost doubled in number of households in my village

morg007

A few weeks ago on my local village FB page people were commenting on the fact South Staff Water have said their usage has almost doubled so have to pay more.  Now I have joined this having had the latest bill after a meter reading. The only leak I personally had was a toilet issue but I turned the water off it until it was repaired but that wasn't enough to double usage!  

But because its across a number of households locally we are all wondering why?  At the moment (I haven't yet contacted them) S.Staffs have basically said tough, people are using double even if they  admit that is a large increase.

So, has anybody else had this from S.Staffs or other water boards where a number of households have had increased bills?  Interested to see if this is isolated to us or not.

Trying not to be a conspiracy theorist but as its impossible to prove your usage really hasn't increased substantially if the meter says it has and after the usual test a leak hasn't been detected after the meter into the house, then could they fudge it (as they are very clear its usage thats doubled and not their pricing)?  We all know they are struggling to pay for the infrastructure changes that they need to do.... (no issue paying out profits though).

born_again

If you have a meter are you checking the readings?

MattMattMattUK

morg007 said:

A few weeks ago on my local village FB page people were commenting on the fact South Staff Water have said their usage has almost doubled so have to pay more.  Now I have joined this having had the latest bill after a meter reading. The only leak I personally had was a toilet issue but I turned the water off it until it was repaired but that wasn't enough to double usage!  

But because its across a number of households locally we are all wondering why?  At the moment (I haven't yet contacted them) S.Staffs have basically said tough, people are using double even if they  admit that is a large increase.

So, has anybody else had this from S.Staffs or other water boards where a number of households have had increased bills?  Interested to see if this is isolated to us or not.

Trying not to be a conspiracy theorist but as its impossible to prove your usage really hasn't increased substantially if the meter says it has and after the usual test a leak hasn't been detected after the meter into the house, then could they fudge it (as they are very clear its usage thats doubled and not their pricing)?  We all know they are struggling to pay for the infrastructure changes that they need to do.... (no issue paying out profits though).

My suspicion would be that the meters have bot been read for a long time and low estimates have been used, they were all recently read which lead to a need to catch up on billing from historic usage together with a need to account for actual ongoing usage being higher. That combined with the unit rate and standing charges having increased significantly this year combined with most people's inability to understand the difference between monthly Direct Debit, cost and usage probably explains it.

QrizB

I agree with Matt^3 above that the most likely answer is that South Staffs have sent a meter reader around to the village for the first time in several years. The new readings will have allowed them to correct any previous estimated bills, with the result that residents will see corrections to their payments.

These could be increases or decreases.

dunstonh

Trying not to be a conspiracy theorist but as its impossible to prove your usage really hasn't increased substantially if the meter says it has and after the usual test a leak hasn't been detected after the meter into the house, then could they fudge it (as they are very clear its usage thats doubled and not their pricing)?  We all know they are struggling to pay for the infrastructure changes that they need to do.... (no issue paying out profits though).

Can you confirm, by looking at a series of your bills, whether the previous ones were actual readings or estimates?   
Was the most recent one an actual reading or an estimate?
When was the last actual reading (not estimate) before that?


These things are usually explained by factual information and not Facebook rants/misinformation.

hareng

Bit late to the party:-
2022 £86.69 p/m going to £91.?? in 2023
2023 £19.10 p/m Water meter in the pavement, see then come round usually monthly driving down the road.
2024 £25.40 p/m 
2025 £38.51 p/m
So yes, significant increase way above what they forecasted.

dunstonh

hareng said:

Bit late to the party:-
2022 £86.69 p/m going to £91.?? in 2023
2023 £19.10 p/m Water meter in the pavement, see then come round usually monthly driving down the road.
2024 £25.40 p/m 
2025 £38.51 p/m
So yes, significant increase way above what they forecasted.

monetary amounts mean nothing.   e.g. you could have been underpaying in 2023 and needed 2024 or 2025 to catch up.      Whenever discussing usage, you would tell us what the m3 use is.      Telling us the cost of the units and the number of units is useful

QrizB

Two weeks on and @morg007 hasn't returned to their thread.

I'm going to assume the cause of their outrage was simply "the meter reader visited".

dunstonh

Too many threads end up like this.  A bit of a rant, but no interest in learning why something is what it is.   Better to remain ignorant and post on facebook with the rest rather than post here and learn something.

jimjames

hareng said:

2024 £25.40 p/m 
2025 £38.51 p/m
So yes, significant increase way above what they forecasted.

Just to be clear. You posted that your water usage had doubled but have only posted that your monthly DD has doubled. That's not even your bill let alone your usage. Bills have generally gone up by a large percentage over the last few years so even with the same use you'll be paying more.