Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?

[TimO]

A Question. If you live somewhere where a new house owner is made to have a meter fitted (I think this happens in some areas?), would the water company pay for (say) destroying and rebuilding a new kitchen to fit one, or would they just give it up as a bad job?

I'm not sure that they can force you to have a meter, and with some older buildings it's probably very difficult to do.  It's not so much to do with ripping out a kitchen to fit one (although why would you?), but more that with older buildings now containing many flats, it would difficult to isolate individual supplies.

Most water meters seem to be fitted at or near your property boundary, where the water people enters your (or your landlords) land.  Obviously with flats, there is generally only one pipe which splits somewhere internal to the building.

[numbnuts]

I live in a flat and they put it next to the stopcock, it's 12 cm long and 8cm dia

[simonp]

I have one.  I think I use about 5 m^3/month.  This is just me.  I don't have a shower, which would reduce use a bit.  But not by all that much, since I tend to have a shower at work when cycling to work, so the bath gets mainly used at weekends after rides.

Monthly bill is around £20/month - when I first got a meter it was down around £15 a month for 7 m^3/month or so.  Usage has dropped, prices have gone up.

[Giraffe]

AW fitted meters about 12 years ago to all houses that could have them. I monitored usage for 3 months then went onto the SOLO tarriff and the charge went from whatever it was on rateable value to £4pcm. It's £8pcm now.

I use about 350 - 400l/week, so less than a third of the national average.

[Polar Bear]

By choice we live in a band A Edwardian mid-terrace.   There are the two of us here and we are careful with our water usage.   The garden (veg) is not watered from the tap, although secondary use of bath water is often undertaken.   We do not have a car to wash.   Our luxuries are a bath every evening (we share the water) and the washing machine, usually used 3 to 4 times a week.   We wash up once a day in the sink.   I drink an awful lot of tea and I'm at home most days.   We cook mainly from fresh ingredients so use water for potatoes, rice, pasta, couscous, quinoa, etc.   The veg steamer sits atop of the carbs pan.

Monitoring our use, we calculated that a meter would result in our paying at least twice what we currently do.   As we don't exactly waste water as it is, it is obvious to us that the original low tariff plan for meter charging to tempt folk over has long since been abandoned.   

[microphonie]

I'm also on Anglian Water's SOLO tariff (no standing charge but a higher unit cost which guarantees to be cheaper than standard charge so long as usage is below a certain amount). Single-occupancy 3-bed semi with 2 water butts. I pay £12 p.m direct debit and use 34 units per year. Much cheaper than the water rates quoted when I bought the place.

[PH]

I'm a bit puzzled by this talk of digging floors up to fit a metre.  I live in a flat and the meter is a small box under the sink.
Bill for the last six months was £52.  Used 12 Cubic meters, shower at the gym or work, economy flush on the toilet, washing machine used once a week and a bit of hand washing.

[Mike J]

I'm a bit puzzled by this talk of digging floors up to fit a metre.  I live in a flat and the meter is a small box under the sink.

Ours is outside the front door, at least I assume that is where it is (never bothered to look)

[simonp]

Mine is under the kitchen sink in the cupboard.  Read via a cable running to outside the garage door.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Back to rainwater; rainwater harvesting, either in a tank to be used as household water or soaking into a borewell to replenish groundwater (not simply into the soil) is now compulsory for almost all new constructions and has to be retrofitted to a lot of older property in Bangalore. The penalty for non-compliance is, in theory at least, to lose your mains water connection.

[Wowbagger]

Thread resurrection!

There are just 2 of us here now. I'm wondering whether it would be worth our while to change to metered water. We currently pay £41 a month.

I asked my brother whether he's on a meter - I suspected not and I'm right - but he told me that as a pensioner retired from the Essex Water Company, he pays £12 a year for his water.

[tatanab]

We currently pay £41 a month.

Close to what I pay for 6 months.   Just paid the latest bill at just short of £48.  I live alone.  You might think that I shower once  a week and run the washing machine once a week too; neither is true but I take less than 5 minutes in the shower.  I do subscribe to the 1976 mantra of "yellow is mellow (within reason) and brown goes down", but even so I seem to use only a little water.  I think the drainage bill must be linked because I pay only about £25 every 6 months.  Edit - I am on a meter.

[madcow]

2 of us at home (Occasional visits from offspring, no baths) , £360 per annum , £30 per month on a meter-Yorkshire Water
The one time we did switch from rateable value to meter supply (York Waterworks and with two growing children in the house ,so baths every day) we were £££ in pocket even after installation charge.
If you do switch to meter , its cheaper if your rainwater goes into soakaway so look at that as an option.

[Cudzoziemiec]

We currently pay £41 a month.

Close to what I pay for 6 months.   Just paid the latest bill at just short of £48.  I live alone.  You might think that I shower once  a week and run the washing machine once a week too; neither is true but I take less than 5 minutes in the shower.  I do subscribe to the 1976 mantra of "yellow is mellow (within reason) and brown goes down", but even so I seem to use only a little water.  I think the drainage bill must be linked because I pay only about £25 every 6 months. Edit - I am on a meter.

I know in some places it's a multiple of the water usage but I've no idea how wide spread that is.

[ian]

I must be pretty clean, when you labour under the aegis of tidiness, it comes to about £150-180 each half-year (usually 50-60 cubic metres of what my gran called corporation stout). Apparently the average for two people is 320 l/day. We're just over at the moment (330 l/day, the highest it's been, probably because we're both at home and do shower-necessitating exercise, rather than bathe in the local swimming pool).

The double up and assume that the amount of water in is the same as water out when calculating the wastewater charges.

[quixoticgeek]

My flat in the UK has a water meter. The biggest issue is that they never seem to actually do anything with it, so they keep doing estimate readings, then when they realise that was bollocks, charge me zero for a couple of years, until it's caught up. Not quite sure on their algorithm...

J

[numbnuts]

Just me and retired, I pay £20.60 per month

[Paul H]

I'm on my own in a small flat, about £160 last year and some people must be on a better deal than me as half of that was the fixed costs I have no control over.  It did come down a bit when I changed to a meter, but not by a lot.  Unlike other utilities it's also pretty hard to save a financially significant amount of water, even when I was working away from home three days a week it didn't come down by much.

[ian]

I've no idea how we use 320 litres a day. I don't think we drink that much. I assume showers (four a day at the mo, and it's one of those profligate rainfall power shower things). Might be a bit higher over the summer from garden watering. Used to be in the late 200s when we didn't both work from home all the time.

[rafletcher]

We have a 2 bed cottage, just the 2 of us, but my wife can wash for England, and I keep the veg well watered. No idea how much we use and we're on a common main for the row, so no meter outside. We could (now) have a meter fitted inside (previously the amount of pipe available under the sink was insufficient, but since we had to have a new main pigged in and the riser is in the outside cupboard - saved dismantling a kitchen and digging up a concrete floor -  there is probably enough).

No idea how much we use, but we pay £26.60/month for water and sewage. I think that's pretty good and have no intention of getting a meter.

[road-runner]

... two of us consume paltry 44m³ of water each year.

Almost the same, the two of us used 43m³ in the last year = 59 litres per person per day.

[ian]

I think it's down the power shower. Google says 10-16 litres/min, so assume 12 l/min for four 5-minute showers a day gives up 240 l/day. Plus toilet flushes and washing and averaging out my predilection of lying in big hot, sudsy bath with a beer and a book.

I do love my power shower though. It's the only thing that can pry me from the Land of Nod.

[arabella]

I don't have a meter, as I disagree with the concept of metering something as essential as water.  I'd prefer a per person allowance* covered by a standing charge and anything above it charged massively.
So I'm quids out of pocket.  They keep writing to tell me I'd be better off with a meter.  I say how do you know that.  Apparently they installed one anyway.  But they never tell me what it says or where I can find it so it may just be a standard letter.

I'm not sure how "household size" fits with data privacy etc.

*sensible amount for flushing loo, showering, cooking etc. Nothing for car cleaning/the garden (water butts) etc.  More details need to be worked out eg size of household if students/army youngsters/special needs etc

[Kim]

My approach to this, if I wasn't Generation Rent, would be to install my own meter.  Then I could collect data on how much I actually use (and for what) for a bit, and make an informed decision...

[Cudzoziemiec]

I don't have a meter, as I disagree with the concept of metering something as essential as water.  I'd prefer a per person allowance* covered by a standing charge and anything above it charged massively.
<snip>
*sensible amount for flushing loo, showering, cooking etc. Nothing for car cleaning/the garden (water butts) etc.  More details need to be worked out eg size of household if students/army youngsters/special needs etc

But how would you know whether people/households had exceeded their allowance without metering? Unless you adopt a limited supply system, but that would require extensive rebuilding of mains and properties.