To think water company is taking the piss?

[canigooutyet]

My water used to be tacked onto my rent. This has changed this year and just received the bill. No chance of a water meter to reduce the costs as its a block of flats according to them (not sure if this is true or if they are trying to pull a fast one)

£44.50 a month for two of us. My electric is cheaper than this!!

@Motnight

We pay appropriately £22 per person per month for our water. Also live in London. It does annoy me when I walk past leaks for weeks on end!

Does your water company not have an online reporting system. In this area if you walk past a leak you can report with the location as you go by so they know exactly where it is.

Ours is £50 a month, no meter for a 3 bed in Wales. We are on the border of 2 diff company's, we pay one company but another takes the sewage away, so wondering if thats what makes it more expensive here. It does vary so much across the UK which seems unfair though.

Ask the water company if they can fit an internal meter? (They don't like doing them as it then means that the meter reader has to come indoors to do the readings).
Failing that ask if you can be put onto Assessed Measured Charges. It means that they bill you on what a family the same size as yours in a similar property would pay. They only tend to allow this when technically there is no suitable place to site a meter.

@littlepattilou it’s not good value when you look at it in the context of people like me being with the same company and paying half what they are for the same sized household!

I have no car to wash. No plants to water. Wash my windows once in a blue moon as I cannot be arsed lol. Showers are the prefered we joke about going in the bath as omg is it your birthday

Already on the Assessed measure charges.

I don't mind paying water and waste. I was just surely this cannot be right lol. And bloody hell some of the costs you guys are paying wow.

I'm going to contact them on Monday. (really cannot be arsed this weekend) and enquire about getting an internal meter fitted. Worse they can do is laugh and say no. Although doubt I will keep quiet if their reasoning is because someone has to come in to read the meter, considering gas and electric supply they have to come in and read the meter. (can understand restrictions and concerns at the moment).

Before I'm asked, yes I will come back with an update.

Tbh I'm glad this has happened now as I'm planning on moving in a yearish and never really considered the cost of water. Forget how much CT is my. first question will be how much is your water 🤣

You can request a water meter survey and if they are unable to git one they will reduce the monthly bill

Unable to fit one that should read

@SmellsLikeAHamsterCage

We pay £38 a month (for 10 months of the year). 4 bed terraced house with 5 people living in it. No water meter. We're with Affinity.

This is Greater London area, near Heathrow.

Ours is just under £50 a month for a family of 4 who love a pressure washer, paddling pool etc. Does seem a bit steep to me.

Ours is just under £70 a month! Not metered. Not London either, South West.

Yes! I was trying to say that it takes ages for them to respond!

Plus twice when I have reported a leak in roads that I have just happened to have been walking past the water company have turned up at my house instead 😂💦

@huggzy

Ours is just under £70 a month! Not metered. Not London either, South West.

If they begin with W, definitely get a meter- they have a guarantee that you won't pay more than the estimated charge anyway. We saved about half a month on what we were paying.

£65 a month for 2 of us.

£50 is the cost for those who qualify for a reduction due to low income/benefits here in Cornwall.

That seems very high. I'm Thames Water and my bill (one adult) works out as £11/£12 a month.

In my last flat I asked for a meter and they were unable to fit one as it wouldn't fit in the space available, so I was given a flat rate. Granted it was £20 a month (which I now know was probably more than double what I actually used, bearing in mind I showered at the gym every day) but it's better than nothing. I'd ask for an internal meter (I have one now and it's inside a kitchen cupboard) and if not, then the reduced rate for having volunteered to have one.

Get a smart meter fitted. That way they don’t have to enter the property to read it.

I pay just under £600 a year sound about right if not cheap to me .

London pay much less for water/sewerage rates than some other parts of the country so its very difficult to compare.
I live in devon and pay approx 60 per month. 3 bed house, me and two teens. On a meter and try to be careful without rationing water. Thats more than any other utility. I have a friend, similar size property who pays a third of that in another part of the country.
People dont realise how much of a difference water bills can vary.

OP I sent you a PM.

Thames Water and other water companies are fully aware that some properties, whether they are houses or flats, can't have water meters due to joined piping.

However they can play silly buggers to avoid putting households onto an assessed charge as this is normally lower than water rates.

The water companies do have to follow a legally defined process to put you on an assessed charge but it only takes about 8 weeks max if they don't ignore you.

@littleblackno Water bills vary within London even if they are all supplied by Thames Water.

I lived in a 4 bedroom house that had a much lower water bill than a 2 bedroom flat in a different borough.

£41 per month here,

I'd press on for a meter. We're metered (in SW which is apparently high) in large 4 bed house, 2 adults, 2 kids, a large garden and 4 dogs that need regular washing, and our bill never works out more than £30pm.

£22 each for a limitless supply of clean safe water, and all your sewage taken away?

It’s an absolute bargain.

How much do you that service is worth?

I've lived in 3 places within a relatively small area over about 16 years. There has been no meter at any of the properties.

When I lived in a 2 bed flat in 2005, the rates were higher than the 2 houses we've lived in since. A neighbour told me that the rate in the front block near the road was less than ours so we wondered if it was more expensive the further from the road you were.

SE, £34 a month over 12 months, for metered water and sewage for 2 adults.

Now there's only me living here, I'm hoping that may go down a bit (although that may be offset but increased use due to WFH).

A few miles from me, people have 2 water companies: water is provided by SE Water and sewage by Southern. Their bills seem to be higher, presumably because the companies have double the overheads and 2 lots of shareholders to be accountable to.

I don't know how they assess charges for unmetered use these days, pre-privatisation it was based on the rateable value of the property. My neihgbours refused to have a meter until the Southern metered all supplies, because they knew that for a family of 5 in a tiny 2-bed house, they'd end up paying a lot more.