Water Bill...should I move to a meter?

[CornishTeaTime]

Never had a meter as Severn Trent Water has always been reasonable BUT its gone up hugely just had an annual bill. £770 for the year!

3 of us in the household we also have a bath no shower ... is it worth moving to a meter Im wondering?

Absolutely if you can get a meter I would. I used to be in a rental without a meter and it was extortionate compared to my current place with meter.

How many bedrooms? As rates are based on this. Water boards think a 3 bedroom house has 5 adults in it.

One adult £23 a month also ST

Just get a shower attachment to go on the bath taps. 'Install a shower' sounds very grand but a shower attachment is less than £30 in Argos, you can probably even get cheaper than that.

Mine has also gone up hugely this year and I can't have a water meter fitted! Shared main with three other houses - very old cottages. When I first moved into this cottage my water bill was the same as it had been in my old metered house, around £20 per month (only me here, one bathroom, two showers a day and washing machine on maybe once a week). Now it's gone up to around £50 per month! But I suppose those shareholders have to get their dividends somehow.

Martin Lewis says if you have less people than you have bedrooms you should save on a meter.

I'm.in a meter Severn Trent. It's about 300 a Yr 1 adult in house, have showers rather than baths. Have a dishwasher and do about 3 loads of washin.a week. There is something you can fill in that calculates if you would be better off. Do u water garden?

How many bedrooms in your house? If you are not on a meter they will have assumed a usage for you. A water meter means you will get billed for what you use but if you use a lot of water it might be more expensive. It normally works out cheaper, but if you are high users ( and a bath will use more than a shower) it might not. I am not sure if you can still switch back if you are worst off, I know you used to be able too.

They might be able to put you on a better rate, talk to them as if they can’t fit a meter you shouldn’t be worse off.

You’ve got to tell that Dog to limit his time in the shower!

My road's whatsapp group is full of water bill / water meter chat as everyone's shocked by the rise. Turns out the prices have gone up 19% for metered, and 29% for non metered. They won't install meters as 'there's not enough space' in many of our flats. We can request to be moved to a special rate that takes into account the size of property, number of residents, etc but need to arrange a survey first - and that's something we never knew about, we had to seek the info. Crazy!

I'm not sure how much worse off I'd be to be honest. The cost of everything has gone up so much that I'm assuming the cost of my water would now be coming in around £50 pm, as it was about the same when I moved in (five years ago now).

Cheap way. Shower curtain across back of bath and another across front of bath if you don't have tiles. Sticky pad on wall to hold shower hook.

If you do have tiles, cheap tap or rubber shower hose (I know, grandma probably had one).

I just checked my ST account as had not had an email. Now £93.50 a month! Also considering a meter. Two bed, two adults, two dc. Two showers everyday for adults and about 2 or 3 showers a week and maybe a bath for dc.

Does anyone know how they fit a meter? I know our outside stopcock is shared with nextdoor. We do have one inside which has recently fully seized up, can it be fitted on an inside one?

Just had a letter from Welsh water they are raising our bills by 27% this year . How the hell they are being allowed to do this l really don't know .
DH is a keen gardener so l don't think a meter will help unfortunately.

Similar price to us. Three in our family. We have
Been told it gets reviewed yearly and if we are paying over we will get a refund of the difference.

Mines over £1000 combined!

I tried that website but can’t see how to compare.

Click on 'what happens to your money' and then 'annual bill'

If you can't have a meter fitted, ask for a single person discount. If you tell me which company I'll have a look for you

we are Thames water unmetered and just got this year’s bill. Ina increased by £700 a year to £2,700. Definitely need to look at grtttinf a meter…

Thanks. I’ve done that. It just tells me the average of £600. Whys mine twice that?!!

We are six people, all teens and adults and it's sooo expensive. £150 a month, we are definitely a high usage family. Plus we have a leak I cannot find the source of when anyone uses the shower despite having the bathroom ripped out and the insurance round.

Are you in England? That's not how water rates work, usage doesn't come into it if you don't have a meter, you pay based on the ratable value

You can still change back from a meter so no reason not to try it OP

Come on @CornishTeaTime ! You can get a shower for a couple of hundred pounds and instantly start saving lots of money if you switch to a water meter.

If you do change to a water meter now, your water bill will be LOADS more, if you only have a bath. Of course you need to get a shower installed. Makes no sense for you to not have a shower installed, when it would save loads of money.

We have 2 bedrooms and 2 people, and on chatting to our water provider, it emerged that we would be no worse off and no better off with a water meter. So we left it as it is. I don't like nasty surprises, and like to know where I am.

As pps have said, if you can't fork out £200 now, stick a rubber hose shower attachment on the tap! Simply google rubber shower attachment for bath taps. They cost between £8 and £16. Get one of them!

A relative lives in a 1930s house where a few houses are down a path which due to issues with pipework, she and the fellow residents of houses down the path are unable to have water meters installed. This streetview is an example within a couple of miles from me, though these houses were built in the 1950s - see the houses on the left (they are only on one side of the path) https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.5880816,-1.1170109,3a,19.8y,131.81h,90.44t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sF2EqN4RuasWP0I3UDhi_ZA!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D-0.4366973895099875%26panoid%3DF2EqN4RuasWP0I3UDhi_ZA%26yaw%3D131.81018544073532!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDMwNC4wIKXMDSoJLDEwMjExNDUzSAFQAw%3D%3D

Her waterboard (unsure which one she has) have put them on a scheme for households unable to have water meters. Houses on the roads have no issues with meters being installed.

Mine is £16 a month on a meter. Electric shower daily (x1) and dishwasher once every 2 days or so. Garden watered every day in summer.