Is this water bill high

[Scared0112]

We’ve been here 12 months. Im only now taking notice of everything and I suspect we have a leak, now today our water bill arrived and I realise I do not know what is normal and chatgpt suggests not.

it’s a 4 bed, 70s house we are renovating. 2A and 2c.

we do run a dishwasher, perhaps a load of laundry a day and I would say perhaps 11 baths per 7 days.

any ideas?

It think it's the baths,that's a lot of water. We pay £50 a month and run the dishwasher twice a day, washing machine at least once ,3 showers a day and in the summer we water the garden a lot.

There are still Temporary Use Bans in the SE, and Yorkshire's TUB was only lifted in December. London nearly ran out of water in 2022. It absolutely beggars belief that anyone still thinks the UK has unlimited access to clean water.

This is an interesting read, for anyone who still doesn't get it: https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2025/aug/17/how-can-england-possibly-be-running-out-of-water

Like with climate change we're not even sleepwalking into a disaster, we're rushing headlong towards it. It's denial, delusion, denial, delusion, like so many other things when it comes to the natural environment and natural resources. 759 litres a day for a family of four is grotesquely wasteful.

OP didn't even mention her disability until after I called out her family's profligacy. Until then it was all about how much she loves soaking in the bath. And, if her disability means she's at risk of fainting in the shower, she absolutely should not be sitting in fucking tubs of water!

I don't think British Gas supplies your water (only electric and gas). From your bill, it looks like Severn Trent is your water provider.
As an example, for me, Thames Water has recently determined that the one meter on the street, which is labeled as mine only, is actually metering water for the flat above and mine too. (House that was divided into 2 flats a while ago). My bill when I moved in was rather high for my configuration so I called and asked for it to be checked out. Took them quite a while but they did and I was right, and now the meter is shut off and I pay a flat fee.

It looks high to me, is that just the water and not sewerage cost?

I've not had a bath in over 15 years. Neither have my adult children. The only person who ever had a bath was my late DH, and that wasn't every day, he showered most days. So, I'd say most people who can take showers. It's more economical to do so.

Looking at the bill yes it does look combined. We have 2 bills, 1 for water and 1 for sewerage. So considering the number of baths I'd say it does look correct.

In the 6 month period you've been billed for, if you're having 11 baths per week, you're using over 50,000 litres of water just on baths.

In total you've used 136,000 litres of water, so more than a third of it is going on baths. 11 a week is more than excessive. You might have a small leak in your toilet, as you say, but that is not going to explain this massive bill. You're using too much.

People in this country need to visit Africa and see how precious water is. We just take it for granted. Water shortages are heading this way very soon. I still can't believe there aren't public campaigns about being more careful with water. The wells are running dry and no-one seems to give a shit.

We're on a meter. 45 quid for 4 people 4 years ago. Now 75. Showers, no dishwasher. We live in Wales. But as with our electric, we appear to have to pay more for the privilege of being born here. And the water mains burst all the time.

I'm in Cornwall, South West Water, so dream of a normal water bill......highest charges in the country.

A leaking toilet can waste anywhere between 200 - 600L a day, using 400L a day over 6 months amounts to nearly £300 in clean and wastewater charges

Just me and one teen, currently paying almost £600 a year. Am about to be metered and they estimate this will cost an extra £300 a year. So £450 for the same period as you, for just two of us.

I checked ours recently. You could actually go into our bill online and see how much water was being used and when. I could see exactly how many litres were used when we had a bath or flushed the toilet. I did check for a leak by turning the mains off and seeing if the meter was changing outside and it wasn't. The price of water has increased significantly but we do used a lot. I do minimum 2 loads of laundry, 1 dishwasher, 2 showers and 1 bath. Our bill is almost £100 a month.

I thought getting a meter was supposed to reduce the cost as it's more accurate than rtv

Mines just reduced to £52 pm (Yorkshire Water) There’s 2 adults here both shower every day. Small dishwasher on every day. 3 washes a week on average. Hosepipe ban meant we didn’t use as much over the year. Yours seems normal to me

I know. I could cry.

I pay 31 + 51 a month to two companies (for some dumb reason our fresh and waste are managed by different people) so that’s £72pm Three bed, 2 bath + 1 WC. I can’t see your household using much more than us and you’re paying an extra £50. Maybe it is a bit high

I honestly think you have got away lightly there. I pay £70pcm for one adult and 2 teens. Never use the bath. We all shower most days. Washing machine twice a week and dishwasher 3 times a week. No garden watering, no car washing.
£400 for nearly 6 months at your usage is a bargain.

Sorry just seen it’s £600. Still seems low!

My bill was higher price over £700 and used slightly less water usage. We are 3bed semi, 3 adults but ones not always here and another one works away maybe 5 nights per month. 3-4 large loads of washing per week (smaller quick washes in the summer to peg straight out on the line), no dishwasher. Approx 4-5 small baths per week and same for showers for the other two. I have a 2 minute shower every day to try to keep the costs down.

We moved in 5 years ago and we’ve checked for all leaks, there are none. ( The water company can come out and check toilets and so on they randomly knocked on our door once and did that for us). we’ve changed all the toilets for flushes that use less water, we’ve got more eco washing machine which uses less water does bigger loads, we have a water butt in the garden. Nothing else we can do to cut it. Sounds awful but I’m not flushing the loo at night, using about a quarter of the bowl of water to wash up that I used to use (got rid of dishwasher as couldn’t afford it), using hardly any water to clean. I like everything sparkly and it doesn’t feel like that living like this which I hate. And the bill came in and compared to water usage last year it says it’s the same, so I don’t know what else to do.

Same area as me.

That’s the same for us. Run your shower with plug in see hope much it used OP. In our case the people having longer showers were using more than a quick bath.

I pay mine quarterly- last bill was £79. 5 showers and 2 baths per week. Average 2 loads for washing machine will No dishwasher.

It depends a lot where you live. Here in Cornwall our bill pretty much doubled when we moved back home from Bristol for a similar property with similar usage.

Are you using long washes or quick cycles on your washing machine? Same with dish washer? Turn off taps whilst brushing teeth and handwashing. Are you running dishwasher and washing machine on full loads? Pressure washers use loads of water. Could he use a bucket to wash and hose to rinse instead? Or wash it every other week? There's lots you can do to reduce your bill, you just all have to be in on it. I've had to train my husband 😂. It's second nature now. 👍.

Ours is currently £75 a month for four adults