There are seven in my household - I've just used that calculator and it reckons that my bill will be around £750 a year (even though we are frugal with water), as opposed to £320 per year now. I pray they do not become compulsory...
Good idea or not? (I reckon not with a teen in the house)
And how much pipe do they need?
Depends how clean they are :-)
I actually contacted our water authority and asked, they worked it out for me and suggested there wouldn't be much of a saving if I had any saving, and I would have to pay - I forget how much - to have the meter installed
Mine was free - Severn Trent.
value" of your home which IIRC is nominally the rental value of that property in 1991. I have no idea how it is scaled for houses built after that date. A very byzantine system.
I have 2 Adults and 4 children.
Water usage is about 400 cu. metres per year. Cost about £400 per year....and we do not especially economise. I suspect this is a bargain compared to unmetered in our case.
Mine was compulsary - Folkestone and Dover water company.
Not had a bill since...but I'm not expecting it to be cheaper :-(
Darren
In my experience you seem to break even at 4 persons in the house. You could be onto a winner.
Mine is just substituted for the mains outside stopcock. Wait until your water board makes an "offer" of free installation. They are all keen to get customers switched.
Water rates are based on the old RateableValue.
Roughly speaking: If your house is bigger than average and your consumption is less than average you will benefit quite a bit. If your house is smaller than average and your consumption higher, then going to a meter is not for you.
A water meter would probably benefit you if you are not a hose pipe addict and don't have teenagers showering twice a day etc.
mark
sometimes they are installed outside in the pavement, but if this isn't possible, they are placed inside, but they don't take up much room.
Mine was installed for free by united utilities (NW area) with a condition that allows me to have it removed at any time within the first 12 months. My old water bill for the year was £411, they are now taking £18 per month off me, but I've estimated that at least a third of this will be coming back as a rebate, making my water bill actually around £144 anually.
Their website has a water calculator, and if you answer honestly to each question, it gives a fairly accurate estimate of the amount you will use in a year:
It is not scaled for houses built after that date. The houses had water meters fitted.
Adam
Why not do like I did, and fit your own? Then you can monitor your usage and work out whether you'd be better or worse off if your supply was officially metered.
Mine replaces about 5" of pipe. I think the water-board-supplied ones are about the same.
FWIW, I've just taken a photo of it, which you can see at
In message , Ron O'Brien wrote
My local water company offer free fitting with the option to change back to the old billing method within the first year. The meter stays and the next owner of the house is metered from day one.
Oi !
Not all houses. Ours was built in 1998 and has a 'notional' rateable value which I suspect is low for a small 4 bed detached. Total payments for supply and waste (different companies) is £380
Malcolm
ISTR there's a rule of thumb which says that if you have fewer people in the house than the number of bedrooms, you're better off with a metered supply.
Can't vouch for the accuracy/truth of that, but it sounds plausible...
David
Sorry, and all that - but mine *is* in focus, despite the lighting being less than ideal.
It also depends on the habits of the individuals concerned. Until about a year ago, we had my 90+ year-old father-in-law living with us. He used to leak quite a lot - thus needing frequent baths, and toilet flushes, and clothes washing - so we used a hell of a lot of water, and would have saved very little by having a meter, despite having only 3 people in a 4-bedroom house. Since he died our water consumption has reduced dramatically - and I'm about to apply for a meter to be fitted.
Being a DIY-er I worked it out for myself :-)
I forget the exact figures I arrived at but the executive summary was that you'd have had to have an obsessive-compulsive bath-taking disorder[1] to have lost out with a meter.
[1] with apologies to all those with obsessive-compulsive bath-taking disorders
They are the devil's own devices and sent to taunt us all into early death from dehydration! We came from an unmetered, three bedroom house with long back garden. Daily showers in the mornings, car washing, baths of an evening, jet washing the concrete, flooding the garden, even contemplating a water feature for a while, all a thing of the past. We're now in a metered flat and the far higher cost is proving prohibitive, economy flush on the cistern - and pee is left to "brew"
- boiling single cups of water at a time and leaving washing up to do all in one wallop, for example and we're still paying out much more than at the previous premise. The wife even carries a water flask in the car which she fills at our daughter's whenever we visit. Nightmare. Do as suggested and try your own meter first.
Sounds like your family is just the sort whose profligate habits water meters are designed to curb!
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