Just got a water meter!

[HappydaysArehere]

Just got this Water meter against my better judgement. DH's brother said it saved money and one or two other people. There are two of us at home all day as we are retired. I cook from scratch and make cakes/puddings as well, this is involving washing of veg and fruit, clearing up. Then there are the wash loads which now seem numerous, the toilet flushing, the shower which needs to run before it gets warm,the dish washer every evening, the cleaning. We use very little for the garden as we have water butts and my husband usually washes the car with buckets of water. I regret our decision as I realise I hate thinking about it all. Apparently we can revert within a year so all is not lost. I find it annoying tho so will I get a shock or a surprise?

shove I was having the same when I bought my (expensive) rainwater shower head

the same thought

This app isn't liking me much today.

Mine is £600 a year. There is a water meter which the builder installed 20+ years ago but we haven't signed up for it.
So I have the rare luxury of being able to compare consumption exactly.
Large 4 bed house four people. I have never, ever skimped on water. Washer on 24/7 at least once a day, DW the same. Hosepipe used a lot for garden in summer.
Last year I checked again what out metered bill would have been and it matches pretty much what we pay.

So the answer is that yes, I could pay less if I tried but I don't want to feel guilty every time I turn on a tap

It' s said to be cheaper if you have unoccupied bedrooms. Not sure about this.
Our water bill on the meter is £14 a month but we are very frugal as water is limited resource.

We have been put on enforced meter. After the first three months our monthly payments went right down, saving around £20 a month. Since having another child and becoming a sahm its gone up a little but still saving, The paranoia about water went down after a month or so. I do use economy cycles on the dishwasher and use shorter wash cycles where possible

A meter certainly isn't cheaper for us and I regret having it installed. I think the bill used to be about £60 for DH and me. Then with a meter it went up to £80-ish and now we have 1 year old DS it's £121 a month. Thanks, South West Water.

If its yellow, let it mellow
If its brown, flush it down
Wash clothes if they are dirty, not because they have been worn for an hour
Only run the dishwasher when its full
Do not leave taps running when brushing teeth etc

4 in our house - water bill is £30 a month

Surface water is something else you can challenge.

I filled out a form to ask them to inspect our house as we were told by the builder that we had a soakaway under the drive & there sending me a refund of £140 and my bills will be £60 a year cheaper from now on.

They haven't been out to inspect the house.

I bet all my neighbours are still paying it.

I am on a meter and am sure it's cheaper than when I was on water rates.

HOWEVER, before you sign up for a meter, find out about the position regarding who pays for problems with the pipe between you and the meter. My mum has paid for an insurance for years because she was told she was responsible if anything went wrong (it has with her neighbours several times and the water company wanted £2000 to fix it and only relented because she cried on the phone and said she'd kill herself). It seems to me to be a bit of a scam to sell an insurance but my mum says her home insurance wouldn't cover it. She also says it's only because she's on a meter, if she wasn't, the water company would have to pay, I don't know the true position but I would check if I were making the decision now. My understanding is you can't switch back. On the whole I support meters because it stops people using a hose to water their gardens after 2 days of warm weather (here's a thing, the grass will recover really quickly once it rains, which will be soon, it's the UK after all) but if people are going to have high maintenance bills that should be really clear and it's not.

The south-west is the most expensive place for water. Although my mum lives alone, she pays nearly twice what we pay for a family of 3 (£23 a month in south-central England) and she is far more frugal with water than we are. I believe it's because of the cost of maintaining the coastline.

I definitely recommend the water meter unless you have a backyard pool or something extreme like that. We are with Thames Water and despite having a large household with fairly liberal water use (long power showers, lots of washing etc) we tried out a meter under a scheme in the area and went from £700 per year to £500 per year. I think they are deliberately raising the prices for people who are not on meters as they want people to switch over.

Rented accommodation.
Lived in a 2 bed house for 7 years, paid £27 a month.
Moved last January to a 2 bed flat with a water meter, now pay £59 a month.

2 adults, 2 children.

Have spoken to Severn Trent water, turned water off for 24 hours to make sure there is no leak. Just have to pay it. Extortionate!

We are not excessive in our use of water either.

£12 a month on a meter

A couple of water butts to use in garden, washing cars etc

Showers
Dishwasher on eco
Occassional bath
Washing machine (but not 17 loads a week, like a recent person was complaining about)

I've been on a water meter for 18 years, since DD was a baby. We are a family of four. We have two bathrooms with power showers. We have a dishwasher and a washing machine. We have a large fish tank and a pond. We have an irrigation system in the garden. We have a jet washer with which we clean the car, the drive, the patio etc. The two adults shower daily... occasionally twice, but we have no trouble keeping these to 4 minutes. The teenaged girl showers (for too long in my opinion) daily and often has a bath before bed as well. The teenaged boy showers daily (with arguments) Toilets are flushed after EVERY use (none of this if it's yellow let it mellow). Dishwasher (only a slimline one) is often twice a day. Usually at least one bowl of 'hand' washing up per day. Washing machine on at least once a day and (confession) not always a full load depending on what needs to be washed. We do turn off the tap when brushing teeth etc but I can't imagine many people don't do that. We don't 'scrimp' on water usage but we don't 'waste' it either. We get a bill every six months and our February bill was £190! That is just over £1 per day for four people. My neighbour in an identical house pays water rates of over £600 pa.

We are 2 adults in a 2 bed semi, who couldn’t have a water meter because our supply is shared with next door and there was nowhere to put a meter after the split. But Yorkshire Water did reduce our rates on some assessed charge scheme because we are technically under-occupied. So we do pay a bit less than normal rates (£33 pm instead of £40 pm). This is worth asking about if you are in a similar situation.

I’m not sure if we would pay more or less on a meter, maybe less as we aren’t obsessive showerers, cleaners or towel washers. Maybe something to revisit – our water company’s website has a usage calculator.

A few people have mentioned dishwashers, seemingly believing that they use a lot of water. This is incorrect.

Our dishwasher uses 11 litres of water per cycle. That is about half a sink full and it would not be possible to handwash an entire dishwasher load of pots in half a sinkfull of water without it getting all greasy, cold and gross. It is not necessary to rinse anything before dishwashering either, so in reality washing everything up in the dishwasher probably uses quite a bit less water than doing it by hand, especially if you are a running water washer.

There are 4 of us in a 4 bed house with water meter. We have cheaper bills than our old 2 bed with only 2 of us without meter.
We have all of the water saving measures in our house (new build). Our water company also sells very cheaply or gives out free water saving devices on their website which include
Special adapters for shower heads
Things to make you use less water when flushing the loo
They might be useful if you are worried.

2 of us in a house, my water is around £11 a month. I have a dishwasher and washing machine, power shower etc... I'm very happy I'm metered, it would be around £26 if I were not.

I shower at gym and poo at work to try and help keep our water consumption down, it has made a big difference!

We're with SE Water and pay £18 per month on the meter. Water rates were £60 (£600 pa) so it's a significant reduction. There are two adults (one who works from home), a rugby playing child and a Labrador who loves swimming and mud.

I run the dishwasher about 5 times each week, do about 8 loads of washing. Showers or baths for all each day (dog gets hosed down!)

We don't skimp particularly on our water usage and it's still only about 30% of the old rates bill.

There's 2 of us in our house. I work from home and cook everything from scratch. DH has a bath every day.

We've recently had a metre fitted and our bill has gone down from £35 to £27 per month.

We're with Severn Trent Water.

Are you saying you don't pay for water when you should Downstairs? How does that work (genuine question).

I find water pretty good value to be honest - we don't pay quite as much as you, but in the UK we are incredibly lucky to have pretty much as much clean drinking water as we want supplied direct to our homes at a price that is affordable to most people.

I am going to look into meters for us again (we've just had an extension built, which should have overcome the previous meter siting issue).

It sounds like we are being ripped off paying on rates, even with the reduction we have. According to our water company website, we are paying an above average, which sounds ridiculous for rates, as we certainly don't have an above average house (small 2 bed exLA semi in average area).

I could understand our bills based on rates being high if we lived in a large house in a naice area, but that is far from the truth. I was surprised when we moved because our water bills nearly tripled despite moving to a house that only cost £10k more.

1 adult 2 children here,would love to go on meter but scared I'll end up paying more than the £40 a month I do now,my sister less than half a mile away is charged £100 less in rates than me

we changed to water meter when 2 dcs still at home and it was about £140 per quarter - dd had twice daily baths - so did not save very much
Now just me and dh and it is around £75 per quarter - far cheaper than the water rates

Blimey this makes me think it's time I got a meter. I pay £370 a year (=£30 pcm) to Thames Water. Just me, shower at the gym, no washing machine, normally do washing in the sink and just spin it, flush twice a day, wash water get re-used in the toilet. Washing up on a needs-must basis. They will end up paying me.

I don't do this to save money, I do it to save water. We can't go on thinking it will all last forever. Plus water distribution takes masses of electricity.

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*no dish washing machine. Washing machine used for sheets and jeans, the rest gets done daily in hand basin, then that water is saved for the toilet.