After living in a house with unmetered water for 30 years, I moved into a rental with a meter. I read the meter on the way in and on the way out 13 months later. During this time I never had any contact with the water company - no bills received - and the direct debits were unchanged until the final month.
After that I moved into a purchased house, and again no contact and no bills, and unchanged direct debits for a year. Then bang, the most recent DD is more than double the previous ones at £97 - for a month.
This prompted me to do some digging. Apparently in the rental we were using about 7.6 cubic metres per month and now we are using double. But our lifestyle hasn't changed.
There are only two of us, we are both retired, we only shower and never use the bath, we don't use a lawn sprinkler and I used to wash my car about once a month - now it's less frequently. Towels and bedding are washed once a week (two lots, we have separate bedrooms and bathrooms).
I'd love to know what would be a "normal" level of water consumption for someone like us, as even 7.6 cubic metres, ie 7,600 litres, sounds a lot for a month and double that seems completely crazy.
I want to argue with the water company that it's impossible for our consumption to have doubled as we haven't changed our lifestyle. Then maybe ask for the meter to be checked. It would be useful to have some comparisons before I tackle them.
After that I moved into a purchased house, and again no contact and no bills, and unchanged direct debits for a year. Then bang, the most recent DD is more than double the previous ones at £97 - for a month.
This prompted me to do some digging. Apparently in the rental we were using about 7.6 cubic metres per month and now we are using double. But our lifestyle hasn't changed.
There are only two of us, we are both retired, we only shower and never use the bath, we don't use a lawn sprinkler and I used to wash my car about once a month - now it's less frequently. Towels and bedding are washed once a week (two lots, we have separate bedrooms and bathrooms).
I'd love to know what would be a "normal" level of water consumption for someone like us, as even 7.6 cubic metres, ie 7,600 litres, sounds a lot for a month and double that seems completely crazy.
I want to argue with the water company that it's impossible for our consumption to have doubled as we haven't changed our lifestyle. Then maybe ask for the meter to be checked. It would be useful to have some comparisons before I tackle them.