How Has My Consumption Changed So Much??

carted00

Hi,

A bit of background first. We moved into a new build property 31 Oct '07. We had no communication from Anglian Water until Saturday when a Notice of Legal Proceedings appeared on the doorstep. Spoke to the postie and a fair few properties in our road had had them. Not surprising really when the address is completeley wrong.

Anyway, I phoned the number and explained the situation. Nice enough bloke but no sorry out of him, he said he'd get a new bill sent out and cancel the legal stuff.

Said bill arrives yesterday, £266 for 111 days to mid-Feb, 105 cu.m, could have knocked me down with a feather. Phoned the helpline and she asked me to look at the meter reading. In the following 86 days I've only used a further 38cu.m. Turned off the supply and checked with next door, definitely only our supply went off. Woman did a bit of calculation and reckoned our start figure should have been 63 cu.m instead of 3 cu.m

Now unfortunately on the day we moved in I signed a handover sheet with the meter readings, I checked the electric and gas because they were easy to get to but the water meter was under a pile of turves, and soon after the area was being dug for a street light so I never got round to checking it.

Now I could understand the massive difference if I'd received a high bill and changed my ways, but as I've only just received my first bill I have not done anything different regarding water habits so I'm at a complete loss to explain what's happened. I spoke to my neighbour and his start figure was 4 cu. m which was what the Customer Services lady said was usual.

The only way I'm going to get any money back is if the builders are willing to say they'll pay for 63 cu.m instead of 3 cu.m. Don't see that happening myself, but there must be something to explain such a massive difference, I just don't know what. 60cu.m is a hell of a lot of water, how many swimming pools would that fill??

Anyway, any advice or suggestions would be most welcome,

Darren

mute_posting

AFAIK, 60 m3 is the average usage of 1 (average!) adult per year.

Do you know if your plot was used as the "hub" for the site (for want of a better description!) perhaps the builders were using your water supply during the construction of the neighbouring houses?

MP