Is my water meter unreasonably noisy?

[SunnyUpNorth]

Our water meter is underneath our study in the cellar. When any water is being used it makes a really loud ticking noise which is the counting mechanism for how much water is being used. The faster the flow of water the faster the noise.

When I am in the living room, which is next door to the study, I can hear it over the TV. So that is the floor above and one room over. It hasn’t been too much of an issue as we mostly use the living room in the evening and wouldn’t oftenbe using water then.

However we are now having our cellar converted to a usable space and the room the meter is in may potentially be a bedroom and is next to what will be the playroom/tv room. So obviously we don’t want that noise in either of those rooms.

I want to check how much other people can hear their meters. Most people we know don’t have cellars so their meters would be within their house and I have never heard anyone else’s meter.

I spoke to the water company today who fobbed me off and said meters will make some noise and that I must be sensitive to noise. It isn’t a banging or clicking noise in the pipes, it is coming from the meter itself and is very loud.

As the meter was only changed 6 years ago they said they could come and move it but i wouldn’t have to pay a fee. I don’t want it moved as there is no room in the house that I would find that noise acceptable.

I've never noticed any noise from ours!

That’s what’s i thought!

Anyone else??

I've only had one buried in a pit under the pavement, and never even heard it.

I suppose you could box it in, and put rubber bushes under the fixing screws for the meter and pipes to prevent vibration passing into the fabric.

Is it connected to plastic pipes?.

Ours is incredibly quiet.

Thanks both. It will be being boxed in anyway but given how far away I can hear it at the moment I’m not sure that will be effective enough.
Hopefully they will agree to send an engineer out to check if it is abnormally loud.

2 houses I've had with water meters, the actual meter is at the boundary of the property so in the pavement at the end of the driveway. I've never heard of a water meter being actually inside a house.

Water meters fitted inside are very commonplace - it's much easier to fit a meter where the water supply comes in than make the hole in the pavement where the external stock cock is bigger.

I’m imagining lots of ticking pavements!
Builder said today he thinks it’s unusually noisy. I have a plumber coming next week so will get him to have a listen and water board have said they will change it if I want.