OT: Water bills

Obviously water bills are going up.

Severn Trent claim average increase of 21% this year, local rags say 46% over the next six years. My last few bills have been £438, £484, £556 and now £703, so 60% over four years and 45% this year alone!

OFWAT don't seem to publish much about agreed increases on their website, and suggest visiting

Last week (unprompted) they fitted smartmeters down our road, we're still left on unmetered bills, the readings don't show on my online account yet, anyone know how frequently they get read?

Unfortunately not me! I've had one installed for well over a year and it still has not transmitted a reading. Neither has any other in the road. They've been round twice with their diagnostic tablets to no avail. They manually read the meter via the LCD display twice a year.

nib

Mine is read once every 6 months (at least, that's what the bills say). Essex and Suffolk Water. I log it about once per month.

I wouldn't have thought that a water meter about 2' below ground was in a good position to transmit any data

The meter sits at the bottom of the hole, with a small battery in it. It talks wirelessly to a plastic lump fixed to the underside of the lid over the hole with a bigger battery in it. That lump talks to the network. I think it uses an ultra low power occasional data service via normal phone masts but I could be wrong.

nib

Slightly tangential but Thames Water has been fined around £120 million which means there is that much less for repairs and they will recover it from customers over time anyway.

Government needs to legislate so that instead of a fine water companies can be ordered to hold back dividends/bonuses and use them for maintenance/upgrades.

My non-smart water meter is read at least twice a year.

Such a good plan it will never catch on...

-- The biggest threat to humanity comes from socialism, which has utterly diverted our attention away from what really matters to our existential survival, to indulging in navel gazing and faux moral investigations into what the world ought to be, whilst we fail utterly to deal with what it actually is.

I've got an acre and a half and a pond that needs topping up. And a private sewage treatment plant.

I dont have a water meter :-)

or nationalise. Just sent one of the perpetrators a letter:

-- Dear Steve Reed MP,

Firstly, I’m amazed that you accepted free football tickets from the water industry. You clearly cannot see how accepting ‘gifts’ of this kind can be linked to the suggestion that you are open to influence.

Secondly, I feel this is particularly worrying as you continue to block your Independent Commission from evaluating public ownership of the water industry. Why might you be doing this, in the face of substantial evidence in support of nationalisation? At the very least, I’m left wondering why we are all paying around a third of our water bill simply to service the debt the industry has taken on since privatisation.

Please don’t take money or other gifts from the industries you are supposed to oversee. In fact, please don’t take gifts linked to your job in any event. You get a decent salary. And please give nationalisation a decent airing. I believe it’s in the best interests of the country.

Yours sincerely,

--

-- Cheers, Rob

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny . . .'" Isaac Asimov

They should privatise them so we can choose our supplier.

The water industry was supposed to be opened to competition but it never happened.

Well that's 2 of us that remember.

My ST smart meter was installed early in 2024. The next bill which they haven't told me about which is on the ST website used a reading taken from it.

There is supposed to be a useage tracker online but I can't find it. ST are also considering changing their charging for smart meter users, so that the first 10 cu metres pm is charged at a lower rate, the next

I haven't popped open the new 'toby' they installed yet to have a look, but I understand some of them have an aerial poking up from the meter to be just under the lid, which is now plastic instead of cast iron.

Or rather, it only happened for business/industrial customers, not residential ones.

My smart water meter (Severn Trent) is read at least once per hour - probably more frequently - because when I log on to my account I can display hour by hour usage over a 24 hour period.

I had a message from STW a few months ago saying that I was using water continuously, and may have a leak. This turned out to be a faulty ball valve on a downstairs WC cistern - but I didn't see it because the overflow pipe was covered by vegetation.

I've had a water meter for a few years now (smart for the last couple of years) and my water bill - although going up steeply - is only about half what I would pay for an unmetered supply. I do the sums each year!

Obviously, the ratio will be different for different people depending on the number of people in the house and the rateable value. There are only

Fitted inside your house, or under the pavement?

If you water the garden a lot, it's worth having a separate meter installed for the garden tap. I had one connected up a few years ago, and when I get the 6-monthly bill for the whole premises from Southern Water I ring them up and tell them the garden meter reading. They then subtract that from the sewerage charge and send me a new bill. The garden meter more than paid for itself in three years.