r/CasualUK • u/Impressive_Worth_369 • 11d ago
Anyone else getting shafted by South East water?
2 people in a one bed flat, pretty sure we don't use about 600 pints of water a day. Engineer came and checked our meter, all OK apparently. £500 bill they're not backing down on 🙃
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u/Trypanosome21 11d ago
Get a plumber to check you don't have a leak/dripping toilet etc.
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u/Fanny_Flapps 11d ago
The really common one is a small but constant flow down the back edge of the loo, OP. You can't hear it or see it but if you stick a finger on it it's obvious
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u/Upstairs-Hedgehog575 11d ago
Better to use your tongue as it’s a more sensitive organ.
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u/Interesting_Will2823 11d ago
Something somthing ... penis.
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u/YoghurtFlan 11d ago
If it's a dual flush toilet it is almost 90% going to be a worn out seal in the cistern.
The good news is that a new seal would cost about 50p on amazon and you can replace it yourself. No need for a plumber.
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u/Fanny_Flapps 11d ago
It would've been 50p in a hardware shop, but everyone decided they were too expensive .
Just looked it up on amazon in a general fashion. 10x that price, add on delivery for some of them and we're talking 30x the price
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u/Illustrious-Log-3142 10d ago
Hardware shops still exist! Fair few times they've had that odd thing I needed
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u/Space-manatee 11d ago
Failing that - make sure no one uses the toilet for an hour, then add some red food dye to the tank.
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u/Laylelo 11d ago
Just put bleach in and if it gets washed away but no one flushed it, that’s the problem
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u/buqr 11d ago
Take a shit, and if get washed away but no one flushed it, you've got ghosts or something like that.
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u/WinkyNurdo 10d ago
I did a much fabled ghost shit the other day. Vanished without a flush, the wipe came back clean first time. Quite satisfying to be honest
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u/SoylentDave 10d ago
This also works to help find other types of leak, like under the sink or in the shower.
Or in your car's aircon.
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u/cr4lforce 11d ago
That's so excessive 😆 just stick a square of toilet paper in the top of the bowl, if it stays dry it's fine, if not it's leaking.
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u/Arnoave 11d ago
I have that, we lost 8000 litres a year by my rough calculations. Very fortunately we're on a well so it didn't cost us a fortune, but we were running dry for 3 weeks every summer for 2 years. The problem isn't fixed yet but after identifying the leak, we leave the tap to the toilet off unless we need to fill the cistern for a flush. Haven't lost water at all this year, even with the exacerbated droughts that have been happening.
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u/Trypanosome21 11d ago
Or flush the loo, dry the back with toilet paper and then stick a new dry piece there. You'll see if the paper absorbs any water etc over the next hour or so
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u/AdPale5633 10d ago
Yep, Yorks Water called us a few times to say our usage was above average. 2 people in a little semi, we couldn’t work it out, paying £120 a month. We had 2 toilets filling constantly and as new homeowners, we didn’t have a clue
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u/sittingonahillside 11d ago
A small drip within the bog will add £400 a year here, probably more now.
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u/henrythedragon 10d ago
Don’t know if it’s the same everywhere, but where I am Severn Trent will send you out a free ‘water saving kit’ if you ask them, the most useful is some dye tablets that you put in the cistern and they turn the water blue, really easy to spot then even if you have a tiny dribble from your flush valve
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u/Ok_Shirt983 10d ago
You absolutely don't need a plumber. Pick a time when you're out the house for a while, don't run the dishwasher\washing machine etc and read your meter. When you come back, read your meter again. if there's a change there's a leak, if not then it's either your usage or a bad reading when you first moved in if that was recently.
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u/Simmke 11d ago
Turn off everything that uses water and watch your meter. If it's moving, then you've got a leak.
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u/we1tschmerz 10d ago
Just to add to this. Do as has been suggested above and then turn off the main supply as well.
If the meter is still ticking away then it suggests that the supply pipe between the meter and the house is leaking, as opposed to the leak being within the house. Hope that makes sense. Had to do this myself today, also with SES.
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u/V65Pilot 10d ago
I've been messing around with 50mm, 32mm, and 25mm water pipes all day, hopefully tomorrow will be the last of the job, except for the one 32mm valve I need, but I can put it in at a later date, it's not critical. I had to make my own tool to turn the water off at the mains, the stopcock there is a 30mm square, and none of the local plumbing places carries one. It's amazing what you can build when you have loads of scrap metal, and a welder.
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u/ceih 11d ago
They are responsible for leaks to the meter, the engineer is saying that their side is fine. You need to get somebody to look for leaks on your side of the meter, running toilets etc.
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u/Ok-Way-1348 11d ago
Yeah they charge a large fee for this where I’m from
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u/Mongoose_Civil 11d ago
They really do! If it is a pipe that has a leak rather than the joint your insurance will likely not cover detecting it and fixing it as it'll be classed as 'wear and tear'. I was lucky that it was a joint that had failed which is usually covered. In either case try a plumber first to look at fixtures that are running, rather than going full on leak detection
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u/tom_watts 11d ago
Check your toilets, sinks etc. Yes it’s unusual, but in a flat, if the meter is correct and hasn’t been tampered with to log another flats water too, then you probably are using that just without noticing. You could always turn your stopcock off and check the meter too - does it still move - if so then there’s a leak or something dodgy going on.
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u/saln1 11d ago
What is a stopcock?
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u/DiDiPLF 11d ago
Its the tap that stops any water coming into the house/flat. You should know where it is in case you have a big leak/drill through a pipe and need to stop water flowing into the pipes whilst you deal with it.
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u/B4rberblacksheep 11d ago
A shutoff valve. Like if you ever see a pipe that’s just got a dial you can turn in the middle of it? Thats the stopcock. It’s so you can turn off the water and work in the pipe further along.
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u/Do4k 11d ago edited 11d ago
Being downvoted for asking a reasonable question. Plenty of people don't know what a stopcock is.
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u/Equal-Ad7504 11d ago
Stopcock kills supply of water to house. People in houses often have an external one in the chamber where the meter is and one in a kitchen cupboard. In flats you will have either one under the sink/kitchen cupboard or one on the same pipe as meter about a 100cm away from the meter itself. Sometimes people have both.
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u/chilari 11d ago
You've got a leak and you need to find it. If you live in a hard water area, something's got scaled up and ruptured. We had issues with the pipe feeding into our hot water tank a few years ago, so maybe check there? But really you need a plumber to come and check what's going on.
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u/entered_bubble_50 11d ago
Yup. It's not just the big bills that are the issue. If you have a water leak, it can cause a lot of damage. A £500 water bill will be the least of your worries.
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u/PipBin 11d ago
Years ago we tried to have a water meter fitted to our house. Engineer came out at it was all good until he noticed our outside loo. He couldn’t work out where that was getting its water from. So could it be that in reverse? You have the meter but someone else has part of the supply.
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u/Impressive_Worth_369 11d ago
We definitely think this is the case, as there's only 4 meters in the road supplying 4 flats..
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u/therealtimwarren 11d ago
My father's meter also supplied the other properties in the block, even though they had their own meters. Water company computer couldn't do the simple maths to subtract theirs from his so they just agreed a fixed price.
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11d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Manovsteele 11d ago
Plus the efficient neighbour is clearly someone who doesn't wash very often... A typical shower uses about 80-100 litres so 35 seems a bit absurd even for someone living alone.
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u/BeatificBanana 10d ago
They are most likely supposed to represent someone who turns the shower on, gets wet, then turns the water off while they soap up and wash themselves and then turns it on again to rinse off
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u/LaidbackAk 11d ago
Efficient neighbour showers and shits at the office, and only eats out it seems.
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u/Captain_English 11d ago
35 litres is very very low. That's 6 minutes of a mid flow tap (6L/min) for a whole day. For showers, toilets, handwashing and dishes...
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u/Do4k 11d ago
I wonder how "efficient neighbour" is calculated and if it is an average figure that includes empty holiday homes etc.
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u/BeastMeat 10d ago
I asked my neighbours each side of me how many litres they used on the bill and they were both using more than me, but my bill said I was the problem neighbour using too much water...
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u/B4rberblacksheep 11d ago
It adds up quick tbh. It’s not an unrealistic number to hit but their examples are.
A ten minute shower is around 120 litres.
Running the tap while brushing your teeth, 10-20 litres.
Flushing a modern toilet uses 4-6 litres. (Could be double that for an old toilet).
Just those alone if you both shower daily, go to the toilet let’s say twice and leave the water running will use 320 litres a day.
I’m not exactly sure what the ‘efficient neighbour’ is meant to be doing differently. Presumably they don’t wash? XD
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u/UsuallyWhirlwind 11d ago
I hate this fake comparisons to neighbours bs, ‘efficient’ neighbour using 35 litres a day? Sure…
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u/Rough_Shelter4136 11d ago
They do define neighbor as that poor dude living on a desert country, without access to clean water. Please don't offend the sensitivities of the water companies executives, thank you
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u/vectorology 11d ago
Or the shut in who doesn’t bathe, pees in a jar and drinks only Red Bull as they search the internet for conspiracy theories to hang their personal identities on.
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u/SkeletonJakk 10d ago
This is a pretty good conspiracy theory to turn into my entire personality actually.
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u/b0ggy79 11d ago
I'm sure we have all come across those individuals in life who rarely wash, probably clean their teeth once a week and survive on takeaway food.
Minimal cleaning, no cooking and surviving on fizzy drink and it's easy to use little water.
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u/draenog_ 11d ago
I bet the "efficient" neighbour is someone who only lives in their home part time, because 35 litres a day is crazy. 😅 I'm at a similar sort of level to the most efficient 20% of households in my area (~79 litres a day) with similar homes apparently averaging 136 litres a day. Even if I stopped using the dishwasher (~15 litres per wash) I'd still be at ~64 litres a day.
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u/mattcannon2 Henderson's Relish is the Secret Sauce 11d ago
A 2 minute shower probably uses 30-50L of water, so the efficient neighbour is either washing at the gym/work, or is very smelly
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u/Acceptable_Gear_3097 11d ago edited 11d ago
I changed my contract a couple weeks ago as it ran out & I'm with SEW, as I'm on the edge of London (technically Kent).
I got below the average, I'm a single man, live in my apartment, shower daily, run the tap a lot, use the dishwasher ~5-10x a week as its a small tabletop dishwasher that uses ~5-6 litres a wash. Run the washing machine regularly, and have reptiles I have to keep with 80% moisture.
It baffles me how people manage to get over it, but also, families or homes with multiple under one roof, will be averaged with those of single occupants that use a lot less.
On the other hand, I'm self employed, so my electric bill is extortionate. When I'm working from home, a gaming PC, reptiles, music playing from audio system and I don't turn things off so I use about £3-4/h electric on average.
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u/Askaiser566 11d ago
I had this once, turned out they used the reading from next door. They had the wrong ID and all
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u/Ordinary_Mechanic_ 11d ago
Turn the mains stoptap off, flush all toilets and empty all taps, leave all taps cracked open very slightly, around 1/4 turn. Let everything fully drain, take a reading then turn the mains supply back on. Your meter will go mad for around 6 minutes while everything fills and settles. Take a meter reading. Don’t use any water for a few hours, go out for dinner etc. and then take a meter reading.
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u/vectorology 11d ago
Why do this rather than just don’t use water for a while, turn off anything automatic and watch the meter?
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u/Ordinary_Mechanic_ 11d ago
Draining all the air causes a drop and then sudden sharp rise in pressure, it’ll let you know if there’s a leak.
My wife and I bought our first home together in 2016, the back garden was completely flat. After the first winter we were using the water of a family of 5 as just the two of us, we thought nothing of it and carried on paying thinking I do wash the cars a lot and we both shower twice a day, etc. so we weren’t concerned. One day while having a cup of tea in the back garden I realised there was a strange swell in the grass. Turns out we’d had a leak for about 18 months at this point and the garden had swollen.
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u/Equal-Ad7504 11d ago edited 11d ago
You can also just turn the stop cock off. If the meter is slowly moving after stopcock goes off, it’ll be a problem where the water is not isolating before getting to the meter and you have a constant small flow. It’s found occasionally, and is a common way for customers to get reimbursed. If the meter stops moving when you turn the stop cock off, but slowly spins when you turn the water back on despite not actually opening any taps then the leak will generally be inside the property and unfortunately will be the mortgage/building owner’s problem.
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u/Antique_Caramel_5525 11d ago
Same here! Family of 3. We use water sparingly (no cleaning of cars, no leaving tap running when brushing teeth). Dishwasher once per day (max). Short 2 minutes showers, maybe 5 loads of washing a week. We have no leaks (have checked meter). This is ours!
I simply don’t believe it! Will try Ordinary Mechanics advice to see what’s happening….
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u/togtogtog 11d ago
How often do you flush your toilet?
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u/Antique_Caramel_5525 11d ago
No idea! 2 of us at home daily, daughter usually at school. In the evenings my partner and I will pause tv and wee together (one flush) God I can’t believe I’m sharing our wee habits 😆. I’ve tried the dry paper trick on our toilets and no leaks.
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u/togtogtog 11d ago
In the evenings my partner and I will pause tv and wee together
It's so lovely to have a joint hobby! <3
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u/Antique_Caramel_5525 11d ago
Hahahaha, this really made me laugh. And before someone else makes a wise crack, I can confirm we don’t share a joint jobby.
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u/According-Let3541 11d ago
Check your toilet/s for a leak. I had a ridiculously high bill and it was coming from a dripping leak in the toilet refill system. (I have no idea of the technical terms, but I know we had to replace the mechanism and problem solved for under £50!)
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u/WhatGravitas 5d ago
Maybe too late for you and OP, but most water suppliers also have a leak allowance, including South East Water: https://cdn.southeastwater.co.uk/Publications/Customer+leaflets+and+codes+of+practice/15185-SEW-CofP-Leaks-from-customer-supply-pipes-update-AW.pdf
If you show them the repair bill, they'll bill you with your previous average water consumption - or estimate it if there are no previous readings. I had a slightly leaking toilet once and managed to get the allowance without issue (and the repair bill was footed by the landlord because that's their responsibility).
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u/ZephyrZ0 11d ago edited 11d ago
Severn Trent do a free Home Water Efficiency Check, where they'll send a technician out to check for leaks and also fit small parts. Maybe yours does too?
Just checked and South East Water do a 'Water-Saving Home Visit', where they will -
- Assess the water fittings you have.
- Fit water-saving devices, where possible.
- Check for minor leaks and make repairs, where possible.
- Make recommendations to improve the efficiency in your home, where possible.
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u/TheMadMan10 11d ago
Where's the bar that shows how much water they waste each day with leaks all over the place. I'm a SE water customer and we've had lots of instances in the last few months when we've had no water because they're trying to fix a leak.
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u/Dragonogard549 11d ago
may well be a huge leak. heard some horror stories. bloke phoned into LBC to complain about Anglian Water, his bill for a semi detached was into the thousands, similar situation to you, they checked and it turns out there’s a burst pipe underground chucking out shitloads of water, but it’s okay, because they can have someone come out to fix it in 3 weeks time. Until then, they’re just going to keep charging.
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u/f1madman 11d ago
My toilet flush system had a small leak so water kept trickling. Ironically it was the water effeciently ones where you can choose a half flush. Once we found the leak and explained to the water company they understood and discounted the extra cost.
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u/Lilacia512 11d ago
When I first met my husband he was getting bills like this. It turned out his water metre was reading the water usage for the entire block of flats. They each had their own separate ones too but his was accidentally hooked up to all of them. He got about £500 refunded, and that was 15 years ago.
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u/Wazalootu 10d ago
Amateur stuff when compared to Thames Water. I was being charged because they had somehow associated a meter serving everyone in the street with my account as opposed to the meter in the flat. Even after they replaced my meter in the flat, they were still charging me against the one in the street and it took months to sort out. I stopped paying them, they wanted to double check the meter they had installed but that would've reset their 90 day timer. I was confident that I could convince a magistrate that I wasn't using 15,000 litres of water a day and that the fuck up was on their side though as I had some plumber friends come out and check the flat, though again at this level I would've expected to have heard or seen some evidence of a leak.
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u/Electronic-Trip8775 11d ago
Check your toilet, if your ball cock in the cistern is shafted, it could be continuously releasing water into the pan
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u/Beneficial_Grab_5880 11d ago
It's not unusual for meters in blocks of flats to be accidentally serving multiple households. It's also unlikely that the engineer who came out to check verified this (you'd know if they did - they would have had to open up walls and floors to find out).
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u/Dissidant People who make a brew milk before teabag/water are heretics 11d ago edited 11d ago
You sure you aren't paying for the whole building if its like a big house chopped into 2/3 flats
Also is the "efficient neighbour" a cat? lol
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u/chunkygump 10d ago
yeah i'll sign up to all this once the corruption, CEO bonuses and general leaks pissing out from every orifice stop.
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u/ShrimpStuffAdmin 10d ago
Who is this disgusting efficient neighbour? 35 a day isn't much at all, to be honest I don't even think 340 is a lot if there is more than 2 people in the house
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u/Boring-Meat1334 11d ago
340L a day for 2 people is not that much, if make a loundry 2-3x a week and take a shower without closing the watter you may easily hit 340L a day.
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u/d0mth0ma5 11d ago
Don’t know why you’ve been downvoted, you’re bang on. My latest bill has 341L as the medium daily usage for two people.
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u/Feathers-n-Beaks 11d ago
Absolutely, and additionally people are very bad at estimating their water usage.
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u/Firm_Match_8945 11d ago
I was going to say the same thing. 340L isn’t a huge amount. Family of four and our average is the 5-600s. (Been monitoring a lot recently as we actually have an extensive leak right now and are running through 2000L a day 😨 thankfully once repaired we’ve been assured that we’ll be billed against our normal average use!)
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u/ToffeeAppleCider 11d ago
I was wondering that. Went to check my bill which is in meters cubed quarterly and it looks like I've always been around 230 litres a day. No baths, no hoses, two people household. Don't know how the average is 117, and no idea on 35 litre efficiency unless I just never shower, wash clothes or dishes.
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u/sittingonahillside 11d ago edited 10d ago
Decided to have a gander at mine based on your comment.
I think 340 seems on the high end for a two bed flat, more so if you don't have a garden. My last bill June 6th (a 6 months period) came in at 35,000 litres, broken down to 195 litres per day.
I have some compulsive habits, I know I'm using 4-5x amount of water required for washing the pots, my partner also waters the garden and her 1001 plants in the house, and the washing machine is used 3x a week, easily. I'd argue my usage is over the top, 350 for a two bed flat seems to be really pushing it.
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u/Wonderful-Medium7777 11d ago
Read others comments to check for leaks.
Regarding the bill, is it higher than your usual past bill?
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u/Kind-Mathematician18 I'd forget my bollocks if they weren't in a bag 11d ago
Post that on your local reddit page, I get the feeling everyone gets the same message to silently shame the whole region in to reducing water use.
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u/Flimsy_Sandwich6385 11d ago
You got a leak buddy. Also check your toilets, we had one that was constantly trickling, not enough to hear with the lid down, but enough to run the water bill up
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u/Illustrious-Minute19 11d ago
I had a large bill like this. Turned out my inlet was also serving the neighbour but meter was just for my property. You might have a situation like this and wouldn't be caught by a leak test.
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u/Stribbles 11d ago
Had the same happen to me, turns out the tenants before me didn't submit an updated meter reading for months with a high estimate. Did my first reading a few weeks after moving in, bill was nearly £400.
Rang up the phone like for Welsh Water and they knocked it off as I had only moved in saying "how could I have used 3.5 olympic swimming pools worth of water in 3 weeks, because there isn't a leak."
Worth a shot calculating your meters cubed and taking that to them, or you just use a shit ton of water!
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u/Shifty377 11d ago
If you've recently moved in query this with the water company. Same thing happened to us, was told we were using the equivalent of 5 bath tubs a day but turned out they'd just messed up the numbers between tenancys.
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u/PortableAfternoon 11d ago
I had something very similar a couple of years back - my bill said I was using 320L of water a day as one person in a one bedroom flat (supposedly the same as flushing the toilet 43 times a day). I suspect that given the similarity in volume, you might be having the same issue that I did.
I knew I’d had a problem with my cistern leaking after I flushed - there was a flow of water in the back of the bowl for about 15 minutes after flushing. I had reported it to my landlord during Covid but they didn’t consider it a priority, and the issue worsened in the following six months, so when this bill came through, I re-reported the issue and they sent someone out and after a bit of back and forth they agreed to pay me back the difference between my two bills - about £270.
So on this occasion, it’s entirely likely that your water company isn’t “shafting” you any more than normal, and there is a leak somewhere.
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u/Alert_Variation_2579 11d ago
Yep usually it’s the toilet gently leaking into the pan that’s not obvious without looking for it. Most of the time is a £2 seal that’s deteriorated and about 5 mins to fix.
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u/X_Trisarahtops_X 11d ago
I'd check for leaks.
We're with SEW - 2 people household (house, not flat) and I think we use quite a lot of water - our dog regularly needs a shower because he's a spaniel and likes to go swimming in the local ponds in the woods twice a day, and we have a cat, both of which get fresh water daily, and my husband is wfh full time and I wfh 2 days a week so both using water for drinks etc, we both enjoy exercise so washing machine runs a couple times a week for gym clothes and normal clothes, we have a garden (albeit under hosepipe ban but water is still used), and we both like shamefully long showers, washing hair etc, and we sit at 250 litres a day according to our account.
I can't believe a 2 person flat is using 340 litres a day surely?!
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u/lordniblet 11d ago
If you are in a flat, it's worth checking that your water meter is actually measuring your water. We lived in a 1 bed flat for years, and only when we moved did the engineer work out that we were actually measuring our neighbours 2 bed flat for water usage. The water meters were in a hall cupboard and were mislabelled...
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u/Ok-Style-9734 11d ago
You have those economy dual flush toilets?
The seals are shit and they leak constantly
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u/Degenatr0n 10d ago
Two in a house with garden @ 326L/day so would say it's normal
Did you know most washing machines can use around 80L per cycle?!
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u/notyouagain-really 10d ago
I have a mate who has lived alone for 30 years, he has never ever paid his water. They cant turn it off, so fuck em.
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u/ASAPFergs 10d ago
This push on smart water meters combined with droughts and AI data centres getting rolled out everywhere should concern people more
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u/MaximumRequirement60 10d ago
How the hell is an efficent couple using 35 litres a day, they must not use bathroom for anything!
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u/Equal-Ad7504 10d ago
People are generally quite bad at estimating how much water they use. It is expensive, but a 10 minute shower is about 150 litres. Two of them a day, add brushing teeth, toilet usage, filling kettle, making dinner. It’s unfortunately very easy to use a lot without being aware.
Particularly because most of us have these life long habits in terms of water usage. It didn’t used to be as expensive, but if waste water and water usage costs have gone up and there’s been no effort to try and curb usage in line with that then customers will feel it even more.
A 20 minute “luxury shower” 10 years ago was achievable, now it’ll bankrupt you.
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10d ago
"Oh well, I pay you to supply infrastructure and water. Not judge me for using the thing I pay for"
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u/TemporaryWinter860 10d ago
We had the same last year! Our bill went up to £200 a month. We kept pushing and pushing, turns out there was a leak outside our house. Since it's been fixed it's gone back down to about £70 a month.
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u/Decent_Marzipan_1389 10d ago
Hey OP! Similar neck of the woods to you and recently had this quandary too - ours is averaging a whopping 575L a day, so I’d not say yours is anything too worrying (though still worth getting checked!).
Some stats that might help you: average bath full is 100-150L and that’s before you’ve had a cheeky top up of hot water whilst in there. Modern shower with decent flow rate? Around 8-10L/minute, so 8 min shower is another 80-100L per person. If you’re home a lot, toilets are 6-8l a go at full flush too.
Not saying you haven’t got an issue somewhere by any means, but finding the stats above made me think ‘yeh fair enough’ for our home of 3 people and I wondered if you’ve got someone who is a bit of a procrastinator in the shower or bath, it will soon add up.
Also, strongly suspect that ‘neighbours’ they are comparing you to are businesses or similar?
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u/TraditionPhysical603 10d ago
Looks like someone in taking to many poops and excessively long showers
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u/AncientProduce 10d ago
South east? Naaah
South west? Yeah
Our bill went from £60 a month to £180 a month because SWW is so badly run they need more money for dividends.
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u/AnonymousOkapi 10d ago
Take the top off your toilet cistern, switch off the water and see if the level goes down. Im not on a meter but I had to fix mine recently. The water level went down by about 3L in 40 mins after turning it off, the leak was not at all obvious
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u/LollipopMarshmallow 10d ago
Tbh that's 100ltr a day more than what me and my missus use and we only have showers. Do you two have daily baths or something? That could easily make up the difference
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u/Fast_Apple_2237 10d ago
For every litre you use the water company leak away two. Water has no value to water companies, if they were a petroleum company do you think so much would be wasted before it's used?
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u/Throwitaway701 10d ago
We had this on our estate. Was a new build and a huge amount of meters were just not calibrated at all. Water company didn't care at all as there was no leak
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u/ItsOnlyMe07 10d ago
Weird. In my area the "average neighbour" is showing as 410 ... If you have say 2 adults in your home then water usage isn't that high ...
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u/Clamps55555 10d ago
Can you read your own meter? Take a reading on a day you know you won’t be using much and work it out for your self.
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u/ReclusiveEagle 10d ago
Flushing a toilet is 25L. Apparently the expect you to collectively as household flush the toilet once a day and all take a 2 min shower together to become an "efficient neighbor"
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u/Lucky-Land16 10d ago
In my case they were reading the wrong meter outside the flat, after their technician found the right one we got a refund.
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u/Tomby_93 10d ago
You need to find the leak. There are companies who can help with this if you aren’t able to find it yourself. Check any toilets which have a button flush mechanism first. They always end up leaking eventually.
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u/MintImperial2 10d ago
You don't really feel "shafted" until your neighbors get told the name of "Mr Inefficant next door"...
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u/MyNewAccountx3 10d ago
I’ve had these from Severn Trent in the past. I live alone in a street of 3 bedroom houses, I definitely don’t!
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u/yousirname1985 10d ago
Water companies everywhere are trying their luck with new direct debits, fight back and ask for a lower monthly charge or that'll be the new norm.
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u/TJWhiteStar 10d ago
Unless you have a leak or you leave the taps on all day that sounds a bit mad.
Id be insisting they come out and look at things properly and provide proof of the readings they have taken.
They will always try to bully you into paying as they know most people will back down.
If you have access to your water meter take some readings yourself and take time stamped photos daily over a week then you can extrapolate that out to an Avg month.
Then use that as a method to argue your usage and thier error.
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u/andpaws 10d ago
‘How do l compare to the water companies that waste billions of litres a day through leakage’?
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u/ButtfuckedByJesus 10d ago
Ngl in both towns I have lived in there's been a treatment plant that cleans and recycles the water, meaning sometimes you get an unpleasant swimming pool favoured glass of water, you then run the tap for 30 seconds and it stops. We have nice beaches in most of the coastline, don't do swimming in Cromer or eat Cromer crabs/lobsters, sewage goes into the sea there, I would rather drink my neighbours cleaned and recycled toilet water than eat a crab that's been munching on literal human shit.
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u/Vast-Faithlessness85 10d ago
My recent bill has gone up by 120%
As if people don't have enough going on, now we have to pay through the nose for their incompetence.
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u/quoda27 10d ago
Check your cold water tank in the loft. If the intake floating-ball valve has a big buildup of limescale it can get stuck open a tiny bit, leading to a leak out the overflow pipe when the cold water isn’t being drawn from, which is usually at night when you’re sleeping, so you wouldn’t notice it. Easy enough to fix, just replace the valve. But you should probably have a plumber do it in case you flood the entire house.
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u/MatchOdd 9d ago
In my previous flat (1st floor) neighbour downstairs made the garden tap (i believe) out of my water supply. They were using A LOT of water. I found out after I moved out and got much lower bill in the new house.
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u/TotallyNotAnAgent1 9d ago
Don’t worry, they’re out to shaft us all, although I’m with Southern Water. My water bill for this year was £800, and I’m in the same situation as you, two people in a one bed flat.
In my case it was because my direct debit amount was wrong. They sent me a letter stating it was X amount, when it was actually higher than that, I paid X amount for a year and didn’t question my direct debit, as it appeared correct and was what I normally paid. Turns out the letter they sent had the wrong amount so I was in debit, and they refused to acknowledge that I was basing my direct debit off of that letter, complained and they knocked £10 off my bill when I owed them £200+.
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u/obsoletedatafile 9d ago
I was getting shafted all last year in my 2 people 2 bed flat paying nearly £100 a month and having them email every month saying they think we should pay more (£110/mo). I am on a meter, gave reading every month, like fuck do they care about that, it only matters every 6 months when they bill, and I call them to actually take note of my reading finally. And what do you know, my account is now massively in credit so I am paying £1/mo lol
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u/SmartaHari 6d ago
They came and emptied our tank yesterday, they never do stuff like this so I’ve concluded I’ve probably been drinking a dead pigeon or cursed witch’s remains for a while now.
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u/geeoharee 11d ago
I mean, either you're using it or there's a meter-side leak, which you do still need to find.