Yet Another Cycling Forum

Off Topic => The Pub => Topic started by: andyoxon on 23 April, 2010, 10:12:16 am

Title: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: andyoxon on 23 April, 2010, 10:12:16 am
Metered mains water here works out to about 0.14p/L, and our recent bill with a water meter was around £130 (includes wastewater charge of 56p/1000L) for 180 days.  

We (family of four) apparently used 57000L (57m3) of water in this 6 months. I'm surprised we used this much, because we are careful with water, but I guess still run a d/w and w/m almost everyday.  0.43p/day is very good value. Though using 315L/day seems like too much really - I do intend to get at least one water butt in the near future.

Andy

edit. calculations

Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: Pancho on 23 April, 2010, 10:17:03 am
So £260 per annum?

Ye Gods, I'm going to phone up our water people - I pay over £100 a month for the privilege of flushing the khazi.

Where are you - water prices vary widely across the country?
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: Woofage on 23 April, 2010, 10:22:53 am
So £260 per annum?

Ye Gods, I'm going to phone up our water people - I pay over £100 a month for the privilege of flushing the khazi.

Where are you - water prices vary widely across the country?

£100 per month :o. Our bill has just gone down to £34 for a family of 4 (that might only be for 10/12 months though). That's still a lot more than AO's. Mind you, we're at home during the day.
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: cyclone on 23 April, 2010, 10:38:07 am
I just got a bill for £180 for an unoccupied building, admittedly there are standing charges but wtf!!!!!!
Have even turned the water off at the mains! the pure and simple fact is that I must have a leak between the mains stopcock and the house stopcock.  :sick:
Means I have to dig up the carport.......not happy at all as the place has been on the market for the last 9 months..Grrrr Poxy water meter!
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: Wobbly John on 23 April, 2010, 10:39:28 am
On a water meter, our bill is about £160 per annum.

There is mostly only 2 of us at home now, and we both work full time.

Anyway, I mostly drink beer instead.  ;)
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: andygates on 23 April, 2010, 10:40:34 am
Got one, because as a solo occupant it's a jillion times cheaper...

...so they tell me.  I've never paid attention to it or the bill.  Direct Debit + reading nipple + water butt for bike washing = low usage and low worry.
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: Fi on 23 April, 2010, 10:46:46 am
I live in a relatively small house, so my water rates weren't huge anyway. I live alone so had a meter installed and  I currently pay £16 a month saving about £130 a year.  I'm am a few pounds in credit. I have four water butts, but in a hot summer they quickly run out by the time the pond's filled, the car's rinsed and the veggies watered.

Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: Hello, I am Bruce on 23 April, 2010, 10:52:12 am
I don't have a water meter.  Currently pay £349.48 to Scottish Water for water and sewage.

With a meter, it looks like the fixed charges come to £371.10.  So it would cost me more, even before two of us consume paltry 44m3 of water each year.

Numbers, in case I've got it all wrong, from Scottish Water (http://www.scottishwater.co.uk/portal/page/portal/SWE_PGP_HOUSEHOLD/SWE_PGE_HOUSEHOLD/SWE_HH_WTREFFIC_WAT_METER/Scottish%20Water%20Scheme%20of%20Charges%202010-11.pdf)
No water meter: water costs £164.24, sewage is £185.60
With a meter: fixed charge based on size of meter for water £137.42 and sewage £139.20, property drainage charge £37.34, roads drainage charge £37.34.
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: oncemore on 23 April, 2010, 10:56:02 am
Even in a very low rateable value and bottom Council Tax band house I rather suspect that with just the two of us now here we'd save with a meter.

Unfortunately, I can't imagine where one could be placed, without digging up the solid floors.
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: Jaded on 23 April, 2010, 10:59:12 am
So £260 per annum?

Ye Gods, I'm going to phone up our water people - I pay over £100 a month for the privilege of flushing the khazi.

Where are you - water prices vary widely across the country?

You get charged for water you use and for drainage, so if you have a big roof you pay more.I think.
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: border-rider on 23 April, 2010, 10:59:59 am
Works fine as long as they read the correct meter - or don't subtract the reading on one from the last reading taken on the one that supplies the cows' drinking water :)

We had a bill for £1800 for our first fortnight in this house.  It took them months to resolve it.
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: andyoxon on 23 April, 2010, 11:00:39 am
So £260 per annum?

Ye Gods, I'm going to phone up our water people - I pay over £100 a month for the privilege of flushing the khazi.

Where are you - water prices vary widely across the country?

We're Thames Water - Abingdon/Oxford Area.
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: border-rider on 23 April, 2010, 11:01:16 am
You get charged for water you use and for drainage, so if you have a big roof you pay more.I think.

Modern houses should discharge rainwater to soakaways, so you should (if you dont have an old house) be able to not pay that component.

We don't have mains drainage, so again we pay less. In principle.
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: MSeries on 23 April, 2010, 11:07:32 am

You get charged for water you use and for drainage, so if you have a big roof you pay more.I think.
Yorkshire Water charge drainage as a percentage of ones consumption, nowt to do with my roof.
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: Regulator on 23 April, 2010, 11:28:27 am
We wanted one in the flat in London - but they couldn't fit one...  :(

We don't have one in the current house as they can't fit one...  :(

We will have one in the new house  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 April, 2010, 11:47:28 am
Had one in Bangalore, but I couldn't give figures or costs since it was one meter for the whole building - 3 flats - and the landlord just included it in the rent. But I can tell you that the 1000 litre roof tank used to last about 1-2 days for a total of about 7 or 8 people. I read that water there is charged on a sliding scale. I think the first 200 litres a month are free, then most of it is charged at 9 rupees (about 11p) per hectolitre. I think. I do definitely remember that the actual cost of supplying water was stated at 18 rupees (for the same unit of volume) so even at the top end of the scale, water was still subsidised. And on occasions when the supply failed, we paid 200 rupees for a 3,000 litre "half-tanker" of water (into the sump tank, usually supplied by mains, from where it was pumped to the roof tank to supply taps) so that works out at less than 0.001 pence per litre. But the cost was not a factor - rather that there's nothing like shortages to promote water saving!
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: andyoxon on 23 April, 2010, 11:54:55 am
For those (from poll) who aren't familiar with what a water meter is...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_meter   ;)
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 23 April, 2010, 12:31:11 pm

Yorkshire Water charge drainage as a percentage of ones consumption, nowt to do with my roof.
Yorkshire Water are third on my list behind Zurich Insurance and BT. They're a bunch of incompetents and crooks and furthermore, incompetent crooks. And I don't even live in Yorkshire!

No water meters in Scotland. It's not like we're short of water. It falls out of the sky with alarming frequency.
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: Woofage on 23 April, 2010, 12:32:22 pm
You get charged for water you use and for drainage, so if you have a big roof you pay more.I think.

Modern houses should discharge rainwater to soakaways, so you should (if you dont have an old house) be able to not pay that component.


Or keep it in big tanks or drain into an irrigation system ;D.

I did hear of one WA that tried to impose a charge for rain water that didn't go into the drain, on the basis that they "owned" it all anyway and if it was lost the WA deserved compensation ::-).
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: Pancho on 23 April, 2010, 12:43:47 pm
For commercial arrangements, if you can show that not all the water that comes onto the site leaves as wastewater, you can quite a good discount. They assume that 98% of what goes on is returned but if you're doing a lot of watering (of pitches etc) then the 98% is overcharging. Equally, if you have a complex site with leaks then you shouldn't be paying for the leaked water to be taken away - as it ain't.
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: andyoxon on 23 April, 2010, 01:03:49 pm

Yorkshire Water charge drainage as a percentage of ones consumption, nowt to do with my roof.
Yorkshire Water are third on my list behind Zurich Insurance and BT. They're a bunch of incompetents and crooks and furthermore, incompetent crooks. And I don't even live in Yorkshire!

No water meters in Scotland. It's not like we're short of water. It falls out of the sky with alarming frequency.

I'd be interested to know what the cost/m3 of water is in Scotland.

edit from Bruce's figures it looks like £3.7/m3 (No w/meter).  

Here in Oxfordshire we pay  £1.4/m3 (metered; includes a fixed charge of £0.23/m3).
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: numbnuts on 23 April, 2010, 01:08:15 pm
I've been on a meter for 10 years now it was £29 a month before went down to £15 and so many years later I'm only paying £17 a month and I'm home all day
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: Morrisette on 23 April, 2010, 01:37:40 pm
Had one in our old place, which was v. cheap - turns out the meter was broken so they undercharged us for four years   :facepalm: ;D

In the new house they told me would have to practically destory the (brand new) kitchen to even do the survey so we haven't got one (took two attempts for them to even tell us that). Anglian Water are a bunch of shysters as well if anyone's interested! They screwed up the bill, sent it three times with three different account numbers, cancelled the survey appointment with an hours notice...I'm not sure how much we would save on a meter even if we could get one fitted without extensive building work - as we never had an accurate reading when we had a meter....

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?
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: rogerzilla on 23 April, 2010, 03:36:51 pm
We pay £30/month, which is quite a lot considering it's Thames Water and they're the cheapest.  A back of the envelope calculation suggests about 170 cubic metres a year (1 cubic metre = 1000 litres, so that's over 28,000 toilet flushes).

I paid the same as that in Plymouth when I lived on my own - South West Water was eye-wateringly expensive, not because it is a dry region (there is more water than anyone knows what to do with) but because they were, for the first time, installing sewage plants instead of just pumping shite into the sea.

The wastewater charge depends on your circumstances:

http://www.thameswater.co.uk/cps/rde/xbcr/corp/201011-metered-charges-leaflet.pdf

Next poll should be "was water the Tories' most dogmatic and barking mad privatisation ever?"

Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: Hello, I am Bruce on 23 April, 2010, 03:56:18 pm
I'd be interested to know what the cost/m3 of water is in Scotland.

edit from Bruce's figures it looks like £3.7/m3 (No w/meter).  

On top of the fixed fees for metered water: £2.15 m-3 for the first 25m3, £0.78 m-3 thereafter.  Plus £2.61 (down to £1.24 after 25m3) for the waste produced by every m3 supplied.  So even if the fixed costs were reduced enough to make it worthwhile having a meter, I would still be stuck with a pricing policy that penalises low usage relative to high.

Even though Scotland has lots of water, it's still environmentally costly to process it for domestic use and to dispose of sewage, so I'd rather see a pricing policy that made metering worthwhile.
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: TimO on 23 April, 2010, 04:57:20 pm
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.
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: numbnuts on 23 April, 2010, 06:01:25 pm
I live in a flat and they put it next to the stopcock, it's 12 cm long and 8cm dia
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: simonp on 23 April, 2010, 06:38:16 pm
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.
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: Giraffe on 24 April, 2010, 10:51:53 am
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.
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: Polar Bear on 24 April, 2010, 11:04:44 am
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.   
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: microphonie on 25 April, 2010, 09:08:14 am
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.
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: PH on 25 April, 2010, 10:36:36 am
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.
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: Mike J on 25 April, 2010, 11:16:24 am
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)
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: simonp on 25 April, 2010, 11:26:27 am
Mine is under the kitchen sink in the cupboard.  Read via a cable running to outside the garage door.
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 May, 2010, 07:44:50 am
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.
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: Wowbagger on 15 September, 2020, 03:45:16 pm
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.
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: tatanab on 15 September, 2020, 03:59:27 pm
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.
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: madcow on 15 September, 2020, 04:01:05 pm
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.

Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 September, 2020, 04:14:58 pm
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.
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: ian on 15 September, 2020, 04:41:30 pm
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.
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: quixoticgeek on 15 September, 2020, 05:45:35 pm

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
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: numbnuts on 15 September, 2020, 06:06:50 pm
Just me and retired, I pay £20.60 per month
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: Paul H on 15 September, 2020, 10:21:10 pm
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.
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: ian on 16 September, 2020, 09:28:21 am
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.
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: rafletcher on 16 September, 2020, 10:01:18 am
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.
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: road-runner on 16 September, 2020, 10:22:51 am
... 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.
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: ian on 16 September, 2020, 10:32:15 am
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.
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: arabella on 16 September, 2020, 04:30:10 pm
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
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: Kim on 16 September, 2020, 06:39:17 pm
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...
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 September, 2020, 06:53:03 pm
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.
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: citoyen on 16 September, 2020, 08:12:15 pm
Being on a meter does teach you some harsh lessons about domestic maintenance.

It was only after receiving an unusually high bill that we realised the seal on the toilet flush mechanism had deteriorated so there had been a constant trickle from cistern to bowl for some months.
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: Kim on 16 September, 2020, 10:01:28 pm
It was only after receiving an unusually high bill that we realised the seal on the toilet flush mechanism had deteriorated so there had been a constant trickle from cistern to bowl for some months.

I had one of those.  I thought it was tinnitus.

This is why I'd like a meter.  With a pulse output for RRDtool goodness.
Title: Re: Do you have a water meter and how much water do you use?
Post by: citoyen on 16 September, 2020, 10:30:50 pm
I had one of those.  I thought it was tinnitus.

Ours was not a significant enough trickle to register audibly. Unfortunately it was significant enough to register on the meter.