Water Bills

[vernonk]

Anyone out there living alone who has questioned an extortionate water bill and been told you're using enough water for a family of five? Seems to be a stock response from water companies to try and justify their extortionate fees.

[Svejk]

What gets me is its such a small part of the bill. Eg, water used; £8.
Final bill; £115.
They're magic with numbers.

[factor-fiction]

I don't know what you mean by a 'stock response'. The charge will reflect your meter reading. If you think your meter isn't working properly or there may be a leak you need to get it tested. If you can view your own readings you can do a test yourself- eg read the meter, wait maybe 12 hours without using any water (maybe when out for the day) then read the meter later and check it shows no change.

[theshedman]

Hi, a good way to check if you have a leak is to turn off everything then go and look see if the dial is moving on the meter.

[factor-fiction]

I'm happy with my water bills, svejk. Over £800 pa before we had a meter; now £300 with a meter. I'm happy with the bills- less than £1 a day for all that water for drinking, showers, washer, toilet flushes- and they take away all the waste water and maintain the infrastructure of pipes in and out.

[vernonk]

Which water company do you work for factor-faction?

[factor-fiction]

None,lol- but I know our water bill for the family costs less than my satellite TV subscription

[Old_Geezer]

Trouble is, ff, that those who object on moral grounds to the move towards pay what you use rather than a community paying for what it needs, ends up covering your £500 discount for capitulating to what the company wants.

Thing is vern, they're a monopoly supplier for your area aren't they ? They charge what they can get away with. Water supply should be a nationalised industry that supplies without taking a profit. Would that were ever the case.

[Maydup]

Nevertheless OG, sounds as though OP is on a water meter and needs to get to the bottom of the high use. The equivalent of five people washing, bathing, laundry loads and cleaning is a huge amount of water for one person.

As others have suggested its best to check the meter and for leaks veronk.

[factor-fiction]

But by installing a meter we are much more careful with our use of water. There is a lot of wastage nationally. I estimate that nationally we could all reduce our consumption by a third if we were more careful, so that would reduce costs for everyone. I need to keep my bills down and having a meter has done that. You are free to do the same, O_G.
As for ownership, I have some sympathy with the idea of public ownership of water, gas and electricity although I am not convinced that even if the government could afford to buy them back it would make things more cost effective.

[emmie]

what gets me is not so much the water bills, mine is lowish, but the extortionate quarterly phone line rental bill, which makes up three quarters of my total monthly bill, i keep calls to a minimum, they are just about to increase it as well to almost 16 quid a month,

[factor-fiction]

I assume you are with BT, emmie and pay quarterly. It's worth shopping around. We moved from BT a few years ago and our bills have fallen to around £11 a month. Nearly all of that is standing charges but at least it's far less than the BT standing charge was. Given our use of mobiles I'm very tempted to get rid of the home phone altogether now but I just haven't worked out whether that would mess up my Sky broadband which uses a BT line

[heathfield]

Scottish Water, Scotland's only supplier, have recently taken it upon themselves to decorate their fleet of vans with a countryside view depicting a loch (presumably a reservoir) and mountains. How much did that cost? I can't say I take kindly to having to pay extra for this frivolity through my water charges, which are to increase by 2.8% next year. Grrr!

[woofgang]

factor, you still get charged line rental if you want to keep your broadband I think. My water charge has gone down by 60 quid a month since being metered and I use as much as I need.

[gingejbee]

I'm with factor-fiction on this. I'm unmetered and pay £400 pa for unlimited clean, safe water and disposal of "used" stuff. That's £1.10 a day for two people - tremendous value.

[vernonk]

Methinks the PR department for Southern Water or whatever have hijacked this thread!

[gingejbee]

vernonk- cynical you! I've always said that water suppliers are the best value of all our utility services.

[theshedman]

If you think water companies are good value for money gingejbee then you can't be with South West Water. Before switching to a meter ours was well over a thousand pounds a year and you have no choice who to buy it from.

[emmie]

bill paid monthly with Talktalk, they were reasonably cheap but now both call charges and line rental going up..

[emmie]

how do i have broadband if i don't have a main telephone line?

[emmie]

sorry i did put quarterly, i did mean monthly...