To wonder why our water bill has gone up?

[CobaltRose96]

Hi all.

DP and I have lived in a metered one bedroom flat since March, and have paid £35 a month to Anglian Water since then.

We received an email yesterday saying that come February our water bill will increase to £43 a month. This seems rather high for two adults, or perhaps I'm wrong? We have a shower each every day, use the dishwasher maybe once a week, and the washing machine maybe twice/thrice a week.

Our water meter is located in the basement of the shop we live above, so it's sometimes difficult to access it. I looked on our meter readings and the last time the meter was physically read was the 17th of December. The last reading before then was an estimate in July. Could this explain the increase in our bill?

Would it make a difference if we read the meter ourselves every month and submitted the readings ourselves rather than rely on an estimate? I cannot fathom any other reason why our bill has gone up as we haven't been using more water recently, aside from putting the heating on occasionally over the past couple of weeks. Not every day, just for a few minutes on the coldest mornings before we go to work.

Thanks!

Oh, and I should mention that the previous tenant was a single guy who lived on his own, so he almost certainly used less water than us.

It was most likely they have undercharged you for the first 6 months and now need to over charge you to make up the difference

Give them a call, they will be happy to talk you through the reasons

the other reason could be sewege treatment costs increasing

DD payments for water are based on predictions. They are predicting what you will use in the next 6 months based on your previous usage history. Obviously as you haven't been in the property for a year they haven't got much of a history to base the prediction on.

Thames Water here our metered water bill is about to jump from £26 to £30 per month. We are a home of four people. To me your charges seem high, I'd ring and check.

Thanks everyone. £43 for two people seems fairly steep to me, especially since our usage hasn't increased. My partner did ring them and apparently all they said was that it may have gone up because we've started putting the heating on!

Bump

I can’t see any reason that your heating would affect your water usage. It has no impact on ours. We’re a family of 4 and use around that, so it seems high for you. Take readings each month and don’t rule out a leak.

My water bill unexpectedly doubled so I phoned them. Turned out they had read the meter incorrectly. Mine is £30, me and two small DC, lots of laundry.

I was at that too @life. Surely our electricity would go up (which it hasn't), not water?

We'll definitely check for leaks and take meter readings every month.

£45.40 here
1 adult two young children

check your toilet is not constantly running,flush valves easily leak and waste lots. After toilet hasnt been used fir a while hold a small wad of toilet paper at the rear under the rim and see if it gets wet

I pay quarterly and my bill is around £60

Use your dishwasher once a week? Blimey!

If it's metered how come it's a fixed rate?

Im interested because I'm currently unmetered (£23 per month for 3 bed house)

But they have just installed a meter which we will be moving onto soon

I'm guessing it's because our bills have so far been based on estimates, @NotBeforeCoffee.

Thanks everyone. Now that I think about it, I have occasionally heard the toilet 'running' even when it hasn't been used recently. Perhaps we have a leaky loo!

If you're washing up by hand the rest of the time, be aware that this can use more water than using a dishwasher. Our dishwasher uses 11 litres of water per cycle for a full load. That's about half a sink full of water - no way could you wash a full dishwasher's amount by hand in that little water.

But I agree that £43 a month sounds a lot. One possibility is that the previous reading was estimated/wrong and you've been underpaying, or there's a leak or faulty toilet flush, as previously suggested.

£21 monthly. 4-bed house, two adults and a pooch. Yours seems mega high.

I was going to say, my first thought is a cracked or leaking toilet. Those will use A LOT of water. I agree it could also be a billing issue.

you haven't accidentally left the immersion heater on have you?

Ours is £54 a month but there's 4 of us, including 2 with SN who generate a lot of laundry. Weekly, around 8-10 dishwasher loads, 35 baths and showers, 10-15 laundry loads, often with prewash for heavy, unpleasant soiling.

Yours shouldn't be only a tenner less. When you don't use the dishwasher, do you wash up under the tap or in a bowl?

Mines £60 a month in metered. It's so expensive the water rates used to be in with my rent but the housing association stopped that so now I'm paying the same rent plus an extra £60.

That should have said unmetered

@PickAChew, we wash up by filling a bowl up.

I left the toilet for an hour or so and then put a strip of toilet paper round the back of the bowl and it became wet instantly. Safe to say we have a leaky loo?