Water usage & costs

Just checked my last bill and our family of 5 uses around 140m3 of water a year which costs about 200 quid for supply and 250 quid for sewerage.

What does not make sense is that you are baulking at spending ~£1 per day for clean water and taking away the waste - I assume you are on mains drainage?

For comparison - my metered water (and sewerage) bill was £109 for half year for a family of 3 adults.

Bob

"What does not make sense is that you are baulking at spending ~£1 per day for clean water and taking away the waste - I assume you are on mains drainage?"

Not at all, I am not baulking at anything I am assuming (obviously wrongly) that with careful usage and being classed as a low water user the bill would be lower not higher.

but is not your water bill still based on the house rateable value in Scotland.

I believe it is but as I am in a mid range rateable value I would expect it to be less if based on usage, only 2 people living in the property, but based on size its a 4 bedroom which would project a much higher usage than it actually is.

me thinks?

What are actual costs: price per cubic metre (add together the figures for water supply, and sewerage), and the standing charge?

And what do they mean by 'low user'? The guy who fitted my meter said they worked these things out at about 150 litres per day per person.

In short, how many litres per day is the break-even point, where the metered charges are the same as the unmetered ones? In my house, it was about 400 litres per day. (The first few weeks, I used 80 l/day! Now it's probably nearer 120.)

i was assuming you must be on a low rateable value, so yes not much incentive to install a water meter. i owned a very old cottage that had a rateable value of £75, when £1000+ was common for newer houses. Very cheap water and tax. it went to band F on 1 April 1991 ;(

Mine - on a meter - is now under £150 for six months. Previously (unmetered) it was £330 for six months.

I think they are assuming a modern wasteful family. Having been born into post-WW2 austerity and lived through half a century of cuts under governments of all colours, I have no difficulty in keeping it down to about 7m3 p.a., mainly by making significant use of grey water and rainwater to flush the loo and water the plants. My Thames Water bill, =A390p.a. for W+s, is therefore almost entirely made up of standing charges. Living alone helps, as some of the draconian measures that give me no problems might be difficult to enforce on other people with a less frugal upbringing! I take it as a challenge to think up new ways of saving.

Chris

That's near enough the same as mine, current bill has me in credit and a projected bill of =A3108 for the next year. Rainwater to flush toilet and water garden, washing machine only used with a full load, no bath, just shower. I'd really like to somehow scavange the shower water as well, but I'm on the ground floor so it would need to be pumped.

JGH

Did that apply to the water supply too?

and lived through half a century of cuts under

That's about 20 litres per day. My kitchen tap gets through that in about 80 seconds. I take it you don't take daily showers, or keep them extremely short?

My water usage at 100 litres/day costs about 25p (and the standing charge is about 30p). Flushing my WC costs me about 1p a time. Is there much point in trying to save 5-10p per day by installing rainwater collection and all the pipework involved? Just buying a daily newspaper would be equivalent to wasting 200-400 litres of water!

I'm in the east midlands area and I had exactly the same experience - by the estimates I came out as a low user but it woud have increased my water bill...... doesnt make sense

I am on a meter ... average annual bill is around £30, of which standing charge is £15

Have a huge garden and it has hrs of hosepipe use each year.

Keeping bill low is achieved by re-cycing rain-water ... esp for flushing loos ... around 60-70 of your water simply gets flushed.

Are you in the UK? Because I don't believe any water company will only have £15 in standing charges. And £15 for water usage: that buys around 3 pints a day where I live. 3/4 pint a day per person -- I think Lawrence of Arabia had more than that when crossing that desert.

Just checked my bills and indeed water supply + sewerage standing charges are nearly 70 quid p.a. before I actually use any water :-/

That's near enough the same as mine, current bill has me in credit and a projected bill of £108 for the next year. Rainwater to flush toilet and water garden,

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Out of interest, how do you recycle rainwater to flush toilet?

Do you have a properly installed tank in the loft or something simpler

tim

Just checked my bills and indeed water supply + sewerage standing charges are nearly 70 quid p.a. before I actually use any water :-/

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In the past 6 months I used 15 "units" of water and got a bill of 90 pounds.

For my 2-bed flat here in Melbourne I pay $608p.a. (£400) in standing charges, and $3.52 (2.35) per 1000 litres. This is probably a correct division between the fixed infrastructure costs and marginal cost of processing each additional litre but it doesn't really act as a great incentive to cut usage.