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Water rates and meters

Crawley

Crawley

Board Legend
Down here in the gateway to the south, our water/sewerage is split between Thames Water (for the brick) and Southern Water for.....the water.

So, last year, the bills were roughly ?ú140 each..........................then in November, Southern installed, without warning, meters for everyone, saying...."it's much fairer and more cost effective".


So today Southern sent me a pre-warning type bill type thingy, which told me how much water my household had used since Nov 2011 according to their new meters.

They have calculated that my first HALF-YEARLY bill (for water alone) will amount to ?ú223 and will be due shortly. They went on to say that at current usage, this means my YEARLY bill will be ?ú446.
They also told me that my household is averaging 1106 litres of water per day, where the average water usage is 150 litres per person.

Now, we are a family of four. We are not a third-world country all living in a three-bed terraced house.
I work 12 hour shifts, and am out all day. The missus works mon-fri and is out from 8.30 till 6. The kids are both at school, so are out mon-fri.
We shower, rather than bath, so call that an average of once per day per person. The washing machine averages once per day. I never wash my car at home. We do not have a dish-washer etc etc etc

Just to rub salt into the wounds, Southern water also told me, or reminded me, that had we not gone on a meter, my bill would have been ?ú140 for the year. So that's pretty much a quadroupling of my charges.

I will be taking this up with Southern once i have calmed down, but does this sound a bloody rip-off to anyone else out there?
 
southern water are *$%& no help with you other to agree with that

we only use the washing machine or dishwasher after 10.30pm when according to the letters we have from southern water it is at a cheaper rate. I have to say we are only a family of 3 but we do not use the washing machine once a day maybe 3 or 4 times a week.

Can you take empty bottles with you to work and then fill them up and use those to fill the kettle when you get home or use that to brush your teeth with at the end of the day?

I only ever charge my phone up at the office where i get my locksmith contracts from, im a tight arsed git, never have my foot on the pedal when i drive down a hill, anyway i can to save money and i will do it.
 
japenesegardenlover said:
southern water are *$%& no help with you other to agree with that

we only use the washing machine or dishwasher after 10.30pm when according to the letters we have from southern water it is at a cheaper rate. I have to say we are only a family of 3 but we do not use the washing machine once a day maybe 3 or 4 times a week.

Can you take empty bottles with you to work and then fill them up and use those to fill the kettle when you get home or use that to brush your teeth with at the end of the day?

I only ever charge my phone up at the office where i get my locksmith contracts from, im a tight arsed git, never have my foot on the pedal when i drive down a hill, anyway i can to save money and i will do it.
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Money savin tip from Chich.

I know of two people at work who nick tea bags, sugar and even milk to save dough. Utter ****s.
 
DHSF said:
Money savin tip from Chich.

I know of two people at work who nick tea bags, sugar and even milk to save dough. Utter ****s.
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The police in sussex actually got told they were not allowed to charge the phones up at work.

When i first started out as a youngster in my own flat i lived opposite a petrol station, i used to go over there in the evening and take the tissue they had to to wipe your hands when doing your oil and i would use it for toilet paper. I never turned the light on in the morning but would open the window and use the light from the street light.

I used to find anyway i could to save money.

Crawley i would suggest that they have billed you wrong, my theory is they do this from time to time to see if they can get away with it. If you pay they think they have a mug they can take advantage of.

Also though mate one thing i would strongly advise is to check if your neighbours have had any builders in recently. One of mine did and i came home in the middle of day to find them using my outside tap, i went crazy also hated the neighbour whose house they were working on though to be fair he gave me some cash.
 
I have a three bedroom 1930's semi, about 1100 sq feet of floorspace, four adults in the house, dishwasher 1-2 times a day, washing machine 1-2 times a day, my bill is 400 quid a year.
 
Mine used to be ?ú200 a year, during the week out at work for 12 hours a day, only really here for some of the weekend, 1 bedroomed flat with Anglian Water

Now in my new flat I dont have to pay the water as the landlord pays it as part of the management charge, bonus
 
Gordinho said:
I have a three bedroom 1930's semi, about 1100 sq feet of floorspace, four adults in the house, dishwasher 1-2 times a day, washing machine 1-2 times a day, my bill is 400 quid a year.
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Is that metered Vinnie?......and is that ALL charges.....water AND sewerage?....With the sewerage as well, mine would come in around ?ú600
 
Are separate meters allowed for the outside tap in the UK?
Over here we can have one so I don't have to pay sewer charges on the water sprinkled in the garden.
 
Of course, the irony of all this is the recently imposed hosepipe ban, which is massively due to the amount of leaks the water companies have failed to resolve.
And yet they are making billions and with these types of charges are likely to make billions more.

Rant!!
 
i have no idea what mine works out at, but looking at it another way, maybe you've actually been saving ?ú300 per year for the last x years which you should have been paying...?
 
I would suggest you have an underground leak between the meter and your stop****, turn off the water at the stop**** and see if the meter is still spinning.
 
Thames Water charge me ?ú19 a month and I live on my own in a flat. sounds like I'm getting done.
 
P.D. said:
Thames Water charge me ?ú19 a month and I live on my own in a flat. sounds like I'm getting done.
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Aren't the water rates based on the old rateable value of the property.........also if installing a water meter you've got a year to test it out and you can get it taken out then but if you don't then the meter is permantly kept in the house then.
 
Right, here's what happened..............

First I went to a neighbour 2 doors away. They have identical house, same appliances etc, but 1 extra person in the house (3 teenagers as opposed to my 2).
They had same bill notification, but theirs worked out to ?ú66 per half year, ?ú121 full year. That is almost a quarter of ours.

So, rang Southern water. They agreed the figures were very high, so asked me to go out to the meter and do some checks.
Now, everything seemed fine, so I took a meter reading, and worked out our usage from march 31st to today. 10 units. So 0.5 per day.
According to their calculations based on the initial reading from meter installation to March 31st, our usage was averaging out at 1.1 units per day.....more than double.

Nothing could be pin-pointed as a cause, so eventually they have agreed to adjust the charge from Nov to 0.5 units per day, but will monitor our usage in the near future....as will i.

So, all resolved, I hope. Just don't know what went wrong.
 
Crawley said:
Right, here's what happened..............

First I went to a neighbour 2 doors away. They have identical house, same appliances etc, but 1 extra person in the house (3 teenagers as opposed to my 2).
They had same bill notification, but theirs worked out to ?ú66 per half year, ?ú121 full year. That is almost a quarter of ours.

So, rang Southern water. They agreed the figures were very high, so asked me to go out to the meter and do some checks.
Now, everything seemed fine, so I took a meter reading, and worked out our usage from march 31st to today. 10 units. So 0.5 per day.
According to their calculations based on the initial reading from meter installation to March 31st, our usage was averaging out at 1.1 units per day.....more than double.

Nothing could be pin-pointed as a cause, so eventually they have agreed to adjust the charge from Nov to 0.5 units per day, but will monitor our usage in the near future....as will i.

So, all resolved, I hope. Just don't know what went wrong.
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We are with Southern for wastewater and Portmouth provide supply down here in 'chich land', so two bills. (we are not on a meter )Southern have just sent there waste bill for the year ?ú385 and portsmouth charge ?ú112 (appears reasonable) for a year supply.
That just seems massive from southern compared to previous years.
As for meters i had one installed at a smallish cottage we owned in horsham, thinking we'd cut our bills. There was just us two, small garden watered with water butts, wash mach(4 wash week),dishwasher(1 wash per day) 90% showers and never washed the cars at home. So the profile of a low user. Saved about ?ú20 over the year!
I think that a meter can be removed if within 1 year of installation.

One bright spot - no hosepipe ban for us here (not that i really use one)
 
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