Water Meters

[Sean Regan]

I had the new water charge notice delivered today. It'll be £827 this year, a reduction of £4 on last year.

I've resisted having a water meter for years. When we moved into this house in 1972. The water charges were included in the rates. Then it became an additional £15 a year. Then Maggie Thatcher sold the water supply off, so that's why it's so high today. Yes I know it was under invested.... But it still is.

Anyway, I preferred to pay an annual charge because I had the koi pool. The introduction of water meters ruined koi keeping for a lot of people.
A koi passes twice its own weight in urine, daily. That's why filters are necessary, but given the high stocks per cubic foot of water, lots of hobbyists have, even sophisticated filters struggle to keep the water parameters acceptable. So the practice is to trickle-change the water 24/7 through a dechlorinator as I did.

Now at even just a "trickle" you're talking thousands of gallons a year. If I'd been on a meter, my bill would have been a lot higher.

Our water supplier is offering free meter installations. The plus point is that if in the following two years you don't get a saving, you can go back to paying annually, but the meter stays. They have to do a survey to see if they can get it under the sink or wherever. That won't work in our house as the water come up in the corner of the kitchen where there is a tall unit that houses our oven with two drawers below. Just to get to the stopcock, I'd have to open the bottom drawer and put my hand through a hole cut in the back of the unit. There's no room for a meter. So they'll have to dig up the pavement outside and fit one like those most of the houses in our road have. If it's your choice to have it outside, they'll charge you £250. But if it's not practical to have it inside, they pay.

I've done the sums. With just two of us in the house, we're not using that much water. Admittedly, the washing machine is on several times a day and the dishwasher at least once, but they don't use a lot of water. We haven't a bath any more as my wife's disability made using one impossible, we have a walk in shower, so daily, that doesn't use much water. I do put quite a bit of water on the garden in the summer, but I'm prepared to pay for it. Some people are daft about it, to save a few quid, they let their lawns go white. So thry're coming to do the survey in a couple of week's time.

I reckon I'll be saving about £400 a year.

Therer's no way I'll ever agree to having a "smart meter" for energy usage.

 

[DirtMechanic]

We have 2 meters. One for the house and one for the garden\lawn. Here they attach sewage charges to water usage, as well as garbage pickup. They used to include recycling too but the market fell apart on reused material so now its garbage only. Our water usage bill is usually 360-400usd per year but doubled because of sewage. The agriculture meter has seen bills as high as 350 in one month during drought so I am glad we foresaw installing a separate meter for the irrigation lines.

 

[Sean Regan]

Around 7.00pm last night there was a phone call, it was an automated message from United Utilities asking me to rate the service I had received during my phone call with them earlier in the day. The usual "Press One " (for whatever).

I put the phone down.


What is it with companies and surveys?

It's the same with e-Bay.
You have the opportunity to rate the service you've received after the goods have (or have not) been delivered, by giving feedback.
Just a question of clicking on one of the two or three rows of stars, you can also make comments. That's easy, if I'm happy, my comment is always, "Goods as described, received well packed, many thanks." I just have to type "G" and the predictive facility pulls up the rest of the sentence. Job done.
But on many purchases, I'll get an e-mail a few days later asking "How did you like your (whatever?)"

I just delete them.

 

[Esther Knapicius]

Well water over here.

 

[Owdboggy]

When they came to fit the water meter here, they could not find the main. After a lot of electronic gadgetry was used, they traced it to the road outside. The stop cock in there did not work so they could not fit the meter. It took a while as it meant closing the road while they fixed it and fitted the meter. When they did, they backdated the charge for water used to the day we applied for the meter, so we got a reasonable refund.

 

[Sean Regan]

It seems that the water suppliers want to bend over backwards to reduce your bills.

Actually what they want to do is to reduce the huge amounts of investment needed to be able to cope with an ever increasing demand for water from new builds.

We have very soft water here, in fact in the days when you used to have to top up the water in car batteries, you could use tap water. In West London where our daughter lives, they're "sitting on a layer of chalk" so you can get a build up of scale. I can rember my mother's kettle when we lived in London, having a layer an inch thick inside. We don't get any.

 

[Sean Regan]

The engineer from United Utilities cvame today and confirmed there was nowhere to fit a water meter inside the house.

The stopcock is behind the back panel of this unit. To turn off the water, as I had to a month ago, when I replaced the electric shower in the bathroom, I had to get down on my hands and knees, open the bottom drawer and put my hand through a round hole cut in the thick back panel of the unit to reach the tap. No big deal, but there's no room for a water meter without losing that drawer, which we're not prepared to do.

The units in this kitchen are now fifteen years old and still in perfect condition. They were put in by a kitchen fitter. It's a small kitchen but it still took him a week. I did the decorations and the tiling.

We don't use that side door, it's where we put the three bins we need.

So the meter will have to go under the pavement outside our garden wall. Like the rest of those fitted years ago. For which we won't be charged.
Internal metersif they can fit them are a cheaper option for them now.

Of course, the engineer had to take photographs of the situation to prove to, "some numpty in a suit at head office," that he knew what he was doing.

 

[DirtMechanic]

The engineer from United Utilities cvame today and confirmed there was nowhere to fit a water meter inside the house.

The stopcock is behind the back panel of this unit. To turn off the water, as I had to a month ago, when I replaced the electric shower in the bathroom, I had to get down on my hands and knees, open the bottom drawer and put my hand through a round hole cut in the thick back panel of the unit to reach the tap. No big deal, but there's no room for a water meter without losing that drawer, which we're not prepared to do.

The units in this kitchen are now fifteen years old and still in perfect condition. They were put in by a kitchen fitter. It's a small kitchen but it still took him a week. I did the decorations and the tiling.

We don't use that side door, it's where we put the three bins we need.

View attachment 61110

View attachment 61109

So the meter will have to go under the pavement outside our garden wall. Like the rest of those fitted years ago. For which we won't be charged.
Internal metersif they can fit them are a cheaper option for them now.

Of course, the engineer had to take photographs of the situation to prove to, "some numpty in a suit at head office," that he knew what he was doing.

That term "Numpty" is new to me. Always curious about our common foreign languages so I wonder if it means "Numb+Empty=Numpty"?

 

[Sean Regan]

Had a letter this morning from United Utilities, they're coming to fit the water meter in the pavement on Friday.

 

[DirtMechanic]

Had a letter this morning from United Utilities, they're coming to fit the water meter in the pavement on Friday.

Excellent! I love it when roads get cut up by utility workers who have no training nor interest in proper repair. Have your "before" pictures taken soon.

 

[Sean Regan]

They won't be ripping up the road, just a small area about a foot square of the pavement, or "sidewalk" as you would call it.


As for utility workers' "proper repair," they don't.
The practice in this country as far as the highways are concerned, is for these people to make a temporary repair and pay the local authority a sum which would cover a "proper repair." This would be done the next time the whole road is re-surfaced, or never whichever the case may be.

 

[Owdboggy]

Strangely when they fitted our meter in the road outside (no sidewalk) the water company repaired the road better than it was before.

 

[DirtMechanic]

They won't be ripping up the road, just a small area about a foot square of the pavement, or "sidewalk" as you would call it.


As for utility workers' "proper repair," they don't.
The practice in this country as far as the highways are concerned, is for these people to make a temporary repair and pay the local authority a sum which would cover a "proper repair." This would be done the next time the whole road is re-surfaced, or never whichever the case may be.

We more in common than I realized.

 

[Sean Regan]

They came this morning and fitted the water meter in the pavement outside our house. They were there about an hour, at most. All cleared up and away. Strangely, the water pressure seems to have increased.
These meters are "Bluetooth." they can read them whilst sitting in a van in the road outside the houses.

 

[Sean Regan]

We were left with this yesterday.

A different team came this morning to finish the job (in the rain)

I've stopped my monthly direct debit to United Utilities. We can argue about what I owe them later.