£1600 water bill

[rsbmw]

Hopefully this is the best place. I'm after some advice. My aunt has received a £1600 water bill (6 months), despite living on her own and being out at work all day, etc. Her water bills for the past 12 years don't total this amount! Thames Water say the meter readings are correct, have checked there are no leaks, and she is liable, but clearly there is a faulty meter or something at play here.

Any thoughts on best approach to dealing with this?

[zygalski]

I think she'll just have to suck it up.

[AClownsPocket]

Thats ridiculous. I'd want Thames Water to fully investigate why the sudden change. On the proviso that if a fault is found and its the homeowners, she is willing to pay for the investigative work along with any remediation. If its outside, I'd want TW to fix it and 'rethink' the water bill.

[Magic919]

You could try CCWater.

[davepoth]

rsbmw said:

Hopefully this is the best place. I'm after some advice. My aunt has received a £1600 water bill (6 months), despite living on her own and being out at work all day, etc. Her water bills for the past 12 years don't total this amount! Thames Water say the meter readings are correct, have checked there are no leaks, and she is liable, but clearly there is a faulty meter or something at play here.

Any thoughts on best approach to dealing with this?

Take some meter readings yourself and see what the rate of increase over a few days is, then multiply it out for a six month period and see whether the meter is still ticking round that fast. If it is then the problem is ongoing and you can try to locate it.

[347Andy]

Is this her first metered bill ? If not how much were the previous ones ? Check that the meter isn't turning when there are no taps on or washing machine being used etc. £1600.00 is a ridiculous amount to be charged under the circumstances, something must be wrong.

[red_slr]

Just before bed take a water meter reading and then same again in the morning before you use any.

We could not find any leaks etc but the meter was turning (slightly) overnight.

Turned the water off overnight at the master stop and meter did not move.

Turned out to be a toilet flush valve leaking past its seal.

Was silent and if you looked in the toilet bowl you could not actually see the water running down until you put something on the back of the bowl then you could see it.

[sparkythecat]

red_slr said:

Just before bed take a water meter reading and then same again in the morning before you use any.

We could not find any leaks etc but the meter was turning (slightly) overnight.

Turned the water off overnight at the master stop and meter did not move.

Turned out to be a toilet flush valve leaking past its seal.

Was silent and if you looked in the toilet bowl you could not actually see the water running down until you put something on the back of the bowl then you could see it.

This happened to us as well. Took us ages to find it and used a lot of unnecessary water. Old fashioned overflows are much better as you see the pipe dripping straight away

[fatboy b]

Make sure the meter being read is hers. Ours got 'mixed up' with a neighbours a few years back when we switched from standard tariff to meter. Turned put we already had a meter on our pipe, but the neighbour was paying for it as his own.

[eldar]

red_slr said:

Just before bed take a water meter reading and then same again in the morning before you use any.

We could not find any leaks etc but the meter was turning (slightly) overnight.

Turned the water off overnight at the master stop and meter did not move.

Turned out to be a toilet flush valve leaking past its seal.

Was silent and if you looked in the toilet bowl you could not actually see the water running down until you put something on the back of the bowl then you could see it.

Need more than that to use £3,000 worth of water a year, I suspect - That is two tonnes a day!

[rsbmw]

Thanks for the input.

Apparently the rate of change on growth meter has returned to normal 'recently' just for a few month period it was mental. I don't believe given the required volume that this can be real water usage, so will recommend ccwater as a good first step.

[2lefthands]

If the meter is logging use, a leak exists upstream of the meter and it is homeowner responsibility. If this is the first huge bill, now is the time to act. Get a local plumber out on a find and fix, but make it abundantly clear that they are coming to find AND fix the issue, otherwise the cowboys will be out with the divining rods for days! You may need to stretch to about £75 per hour to get a decent plumber to consider the work. Just ensure someone is watching what they are doing for the time spent - some can't resist extracting the Michael when it comes to the older customers...

[rsbmw]

Thanks

As I said the water board have confirmed use has 'returned to normal', which suggests there was never a leak to start with. Given the volume of water apparently used this wouldn't have gone unnoticed. Pretty confident this is a dodgy meter and something she should be fighting.

[jules_s]

I had exactly the same, a two month spike and then back to normal

Water supplier changed the meter after I complained and they took no extra money for the 'increased usage' for the months in question. I understood it wasn't uncommon for faulty meters to do that

[g7jtk]

If you have a meter at the boundary look to see if it is turning then surname odd your internal stop cock. Look again. If it's still turning you have a leak between the two.

[konark]

If you have a small leak at the toilet for instance that wastes just 1 litre a minute, that can add up to 60 x 24 = 1440 litres per day, which is nearly one and a half tons.

[Paul Drawmer]

It might be worth having a look at the meter reading. Maybe the meter reader accidentally transposed a couple of the figures of the reading and recorded an artificially high figure.

[Welshbeef]

When we moved into our house the water meter reading wasn't taken until 3 weeks after move date. We then got a bill of £500 ...

So I asked what volume of water is that? Turns out swimming pool. As such I asked when the last official date was turned out it was over a year before.
I turned everything off and then saw the meter still running I found it was the header tank and was going out he overflow. Must have been leaking all year. We fixed it and they charged the previous owner.

[bluesmoke2stroke]

Water meters are fairly simple things.its impossible for them to turn without water flowing through them.
Push button toilets malfunctioning are the main source of high bills in my area (meter reader/fitter).
If its the first time anything like this has happened my water company can and do write it of as a 'gesture of goodwill'.
Good luck.

[Hoofy]

g7jtk said:

surname odd your internal stop cock.

What?