High water bill and water meter found broken

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Hi,

Since we moved in 4 years ago our bills have steadily increased to the point our usage has been double other households of the same size. There's 3 of us here and our bill has increased to £51 per month in comparison to our neighbours on £35 per month, a family of 4! I'm extremely frugal about water waste so I know we're not being excessive.

I contacted the water company to make sure they had our correct details and they said our usage is very high. I begged for something to be investigated, we had an internal visit - no leaks. So they setup another visit to check the meter and supply. Lo and behold our water meter was in fact broken and has just been replaced. I'm praying this is what caused the high bills.

Has anyone been in this situation before and did you receive any compensation once it had been sorted?

Yes, we had a bill for over 1k and the WB suspected a leak, did all the suggested checks ourselves and no leak found. WB came and checked meter and found it to be faulty and replaced, we were reissued with a new bill which they calculated on the previous years usage.

Our water meter stopped turning (evidenced by using about 5m3 between 6 monthly meter reading by them). I e-mailed them, got told water meters didn't break, so I left it as it was in my favor. 6months later, next meter read same as previous one, and they replied to my e-mail saying they were going to replace the meter.
We never got charged for the water used while their "unbreakable" meter as broken.

However, you are the other way round. I think you will need to push for bills to be recalculated.

I wouldn't worry about whether anyone else got a refund, crack in with requesting that they calculate yours. Is there a reason you can't idi that?

My parents went away for a couple of months. Their water bill for that quarter was more than double the total for the previous two quarters. They called the water company to come out and investigate. The water meter was leaking, but there was also a leak where the pipe from the meter joined my parents' pipe. Because water was coming out on my parents' side, the company insisted that it was my parents' responsibility. My parents argued that the problem was that their internal stopcock had been shut for two months, so no water should have been running through that pipe. The faulty water meter was pushing water through that they had not bought.

Eventually the water company accepted responsibility. Because the bill has been paid by DD, my parents wanted an immediate refund, but the company said they would return it in instalments over 6m. My parents had to argue with them again: they are pensioners living on a carefully calculated budget, they can't afford to just suddenly drop a couple of hundred pounds unplanned. This took less time to resolve, and my parents got the money back within a couple of weeks.