Water Bill, is this normal?!

[zAndy1]

Got my water bill today, period 24/1/08 to 9/7/08, charge was £259.31 for water and £274.70 for sewerage. We pay by DD budget plan and our payments are increasing from £60pm to £86pm from September! Seems a bloody ridiculous amount each month to be paying for water. For comparisons sake we live in a 4 bed detached, 2 adults and 2 kids. Could somebody please give me an idea whether the amount we're paying is normal or is there something very wrong here?

Cheers
Andy

[Squiffy]

We are 4 bed detatched, 2 adults and 3 kids and we pay less than half that.

£37 per month.

[shodan]

They guestimate how much the next quart is going to be by seeing what has been used in the last quarter then use that for the next quarter as you pay in advance for the supply you will be using. British Gas do this and I asked why my bill had gone up so much and it is because we obviously use more gas in the wintertime (central heating) so they are estimating I'll use the same during the summer months. Of course I won't so instead of carrying it over and having a lower bill, I always ask for a refund so it doesn't sit in their bank earning interest.

[lurcher]

We are in 3 bed semi paying £34 monthly , our gas & electric have just gone up from £80 per month ( estimated by Npower when we tranferred to them in Dec 07 ) to £152 per month.

[zAndy1]

Well we currently pay £88pm for gas and electric , it's the water bill that's got me worried, I mean £86 per month for water simply can't be right. The balance of our last bill was £23.99, made 6 payments of £60 so balance brought forward was £336.01, total charges £534 leaving a bill amount of £198 which is why our monthly payment has gone up by nearly £30pm. There's either a lot of water being wasted in our house or a bloody big leak somewhere!

[nheather]

If you think it wrong I would get it checked.

One of my work colleagues noticed that his water consumption didn't drop when he was out of the country for a while.

It turns out that the water company had accidently registered the neighbours water meter with his account. Took him ages to get the water company to listen and come out and check.

The problem was that when the water mains was lifted there are a number of water meters and the engineer had registered the wrong serial number with the wrong house. Totally an accident and the engineer that eventually came out to investigate said that it is a pretty common problem.

My be worth checking in your case.

Cheers,

Nigel

P.S. For my big 4 bedroom house (2 adults, a 10yo and a 14yo) I pay £29.50 per month. This was increased to this amount in line with actual spend.

[zAndy1]

Well for a start I'm going to read my meter today, and I'm going to read it again in a weeks time and see how much the meter says we're using. According to the bill we used 209 cubic metres of water in this billing period, I haven't a clue what the average family should be using but I'm sure as hell going to check!

[nheather]

My last bill covering a 6 month period used

65.00 cubic metres water supply
60.13 cubic metres waste water

Family of 4 - consumption, washing machine, dishwasher, baths and showers - we don't use the hose pipe much (garden or car).

Cheers,

Nigel

[zAndy1]

Well in that case there's something very wrong somewhere isn't there. For us to use over 3 times as much water just doesn't add up at all. Right, I'm on the case now, I'm gonna get to the bottom of this cos there's no way I'm paying £86pm for bloody water!

[Mep]

we also have a 4 bed house, there are three adults as my daughter is now 20 and my 16 year old son....ours has just been put up to £63 a month!!....however, the washing machine always seems to be on and my daughter spends a good percentage of her life in the bath or shower.

[Ian J]

Originally Posted by Squiffy

We are 4 bed detatched, 2 adults and 3 kids and we pay less than half that.
.

Similar - 2 adults and 1 child and pay £461.01 per annum - non metered.

[SeanT]

We don't have a water meter - mostly because I didn't want them ripping my kitchen apart and running wires all over the outside walls. I'm kind of glad we don't now...

[zAndy1]

Blimey, £400 a year and here's us on track for over £1000! Well I've taken the meter reading and I'll take it again tomorrow and everyday this week and see what's going on. 1 cubic metre is £1.20 so should be using no more than 0.7 cubic metres per day on average which with sewerage being approx the same cost as water would equate to approx £600 per year (still a lot but better than we're doing now!).

[evilgenius]

wouldnt you guys consider collecting rain water for toilet flushing and so on or is that a flat fee or metered?

[IronGiant]

I pay Thames Water ~£150 a year on our metered account for a family of five...