Water bill gone up to £72 (Severn Trent) - two of us in a 4 bed house

maton91

Hi all,

Moved house back in October from a two bed to a four bed with my partner; it is fitted with a water meter. During the move our water bill DD changed from about £25 a month to £52 a month. Thought nothing of it, especially as we forgot to give an actual reading to Severn Trent

Fast forward to January 17th I decided to provide a manual reading; it was 00453 on 5th November (Severn Trent reading) and I entered 00477 on the 17th January

Today I received an email from Severn Trent saying the bill has now gone up to £72?!

It's just me and my partner that live in the 4 bed. We both WFH, shower daily (sometimes twice depending on the gym etc...), dishwasher every other day, washing machine every other day. We never use the bath and it's winter so not using the hose

Surely something is up, any ideas please?

Slinky

Don't think that the number of bedrooms you have in the house is relevant as it's just two of you. We are 2 people in a 4 bed also, and use 56 cubic meters in the last year, so in your 10 1/2 weeks we'd have used about 12 cubic meters, you've used 24, so you're using double what we do. Having said that, the average use in our area is 133 litres a day, we use 75. We're both at home most days.

We're paying £38 for the coming year with Anglian, so you're double our usage and paying £72 doesn't seem so far out.

Robin9

Your water use is quite high - 24 m3 in a little over 2 months that's approaching 100 m3 in a year. (we are 2 in a house also with ST and 80 m3 a year - my DD is £42)

Time for water saving measures - the hippo in the cistern; cut those 10 min showers to 5.

maton91

Thanks both

Is it possible I have an inadvertent leak somewhere? What is the best way to check, monitor the water meter for an hour after switching all taps off and not using the toilet/shower?

Slinky

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81872443#Comment_81872443

It's possible, and yes try that.

Also, if you've got modern toilets, the overflow flows back into the pan rather than dripping out of a pipe through the wall. You can check quite easily by squirting some coloured toilet cleaner around the rim of the pan, and checking whether there's signs of water running into the pan when it shouldn't be.

Rodders53

300 litres a day (= 9 cu metres a 30-day month) is average for two people in Severn Trent area they say. Are-you-water-wise.pdf

So your 2.5 months should be circa 22.5 cubes and you've used 24… Not that out of the ordinary imho. But it can be improved on as already suggested above.

NB was your previous home in the same area and was it metered or 'rateable value'?

jondunn

It's not your usage. Check the "pence per m3" on your bill, mine went up from 181p per m3 to 260p in December, that's a 43% increase. I presume everyone got a similar rise, in one go, with no warning. My monthly bill has gone from £48 to £80. Surprised this didn't make the national news, it's a scandal. Maybe it did and I missed it.

jondunn

What other industry would be allowed to operate as a monopoly and put bills up by 40% with no notice. And have a regulator that refuses to deal with consumers.

MattMattMattUK

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81986377#Comment_81986377

There was notice, it was also in the news for more than a year.

MattMattMattUK

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81986381#Comment_81986381

The rise was approved by the regulator. The percentage increase is largely irrelevant, we have been paying far too little for water for many decades. There has been a huge lack of investment, approved and directed by successive governments via the regulator, largely to keep bills down. Unfortunately now many decades of underinvestment is coming home to roost and the cost is now far higher than it would have been had bills been higher along the way. And before someone with limited to no understanding chips in, yes there has been profit extracted and yes CEOs have been paid, but in reality that is a rounding error compared to the chronic underinvestment.