Am I obsessed with saving water?

I am much like vegasmags We have a water meter but I am not particularly obsessive about water saving

We are both bathers. DH has one daily, I economise by only having one every other day. I have bought a low water consumption washing machine and dishwasher and do not wash clothes unnecessarily so only use the WM at most three times a week, and often only twice. Visitors are free to use as much water as they use

We have water butts, that get used for watering container grown flowers near the house and the green house but we have a large garden and the fairly large vegetable patch is a long way from the house, so I use a hose and sprinkler; but not too often.

Despite this relaxed attitude to water use our water bills are still under £30 a month.

If you don't have a water meter, you are charged on the rateable value of your property.

Some water authority's will let you have trial period on a meter, to see if it does save you money

And here they will assess the charge by the number of people living in the house - only if you apply for the meter and they can't fit it for whatever reason.
Our water authority will let you have a meter for 12 months to see if it saves you money, and you can change your mind back again if you want to - but only the once!
But if you sell the house the people who buy it are stuck with your choice.

We have a meter and just use the water as we need to - shower rather than bath and only use dishwasher when full - usually about five times a week and we have a well which waters the garden etc. we pay about £270 a year.

I do pretty much the same as the OP since I've had a water meter; I guess it's something that, since I started living off my pension I can have some sort of financial control over. I tend to shower at the gym when I go [and also make sure I fill my water bottle up when I'm there ].Bath water goes into one or two containers with lids. I'm not quite as bad as when I first had the water meter. Do people really have fresh towels every day? I used to look after some children in a household where any bath towel used would end up in the wash bin but I thought they were a one off. I've started using microfibre towels more often as I started using them at the sauna and found them really good for drying. I put washing up liquid in the loo several times a day and it seems to keep it really clean

It's good to hear that there are one or two others like me, Tegan and mamaCaz. By the way, what is the OP? It's not on the list of acronyms.

In the summer, after the previous GCs visit, I carried bucketfulls of water down the stairs for the runner beans and tomatoes. My shower water went down daily also. Now it is not needed in the garden it flushes the loo. But I can reassure those who find not flushing each time a tad disgusting, that I do keep the downstairs loo flushed and always flush the upstairs one at night.

My water bill is £17 a month. I am not living on a shoe string, and not being financially careful because I have to. But I take great (obsessive??) delight in seeing my bills so low. When my OH was around he managed all the finances. After his death I was clueless about money, but have learnt over the years with help from internet sites such as Martin Lewis's MSE.

Incidentally, during the six month period of April - September, the cashback I received from my solar panels exceeded the amount I paid for gas and electricity combined.

DH used to use electricity as if it was given away. Since we've had solar panels he watches every bit we use. I have to sneak the washing in when he's not looking! Heaven knows what he'd be like if we had a water meter!

2old OP means original poster.

There is no point in us economising on water - unless it is rationed during a drought - as they can't fit a water meter for us. However, we don't waste it.

For those who've been told that a water meter can't be fitted for various physical reasons:

The chap who fitted my meter (contracted-out by Thames Water) told me that the water companies aren't exactly pleased about meters as people invariably end up paying less for their water.

I live in a small block of flats and a number of residents already had meters but for some reason they couldn't find the access pipe to my flat out on the pavement where the others are, so they fitted an internal meter. It's attached to a pipe in what was the immersion heater cupboard (I changed to a boiler that doesn't store water).

The meter is a cylinder approx. 5" x 8" so there can really be no excuse for a water company to say that it's not possible to fit one.

I think the reason I was given was that they were carrying out some 'research project' - possibly to see how easily they could fob off customers who wanted to change to a meter
Definitely time to email them I think.

Riverwalk we're not grumbling because they more than halved our water bill when they couldn't fit a meter.

I do not want a meter because whenever I have a household disaster here it is always water related- water gushing through a ceiling or a pipe dripping quite badly- just lovely.

that could cost a lot on top of the bill for the plumber

We were told 2 years before we could change back, if we wanted to, the 2 years are nearly up, but I think we`ll stick to the meter, it hasn`t lessened the bills by a lot, but every little helps.

We had a water meter installed in the summer. We have not really changed our water use, we always shower. The last time the bath was used was when family visited. We had our first water bill since the meter was fitted and were surprised at how much we saved. Our bill was almost a quarter of the same period last year!

I am obsessed about saving water. Meter charge this year was £9 a month.

Having lived on a boat for 20 years and then spending winters in the sun in our Motohome I think I could be classified as an 'expert' on saving water.
One of the best things for saving water is: baby wipes. But, make sure you only buy when they are on offer.

Petra: You could almost be me! Same length of time living on a boat (though sadly been on land for over fifteen years now), and a lot of weekends now spent in the motorhome.
Moving the boat to a water point to fill its water tank was both time-consuming and at times hard work, so there's no wonder that we learnt to value every drop!

I'm guessing that the kind Italian gentleman who let us run a hosepipe from his bathroom window to the boat one winter when we got stranded in the ice for several weeks was not on a water meter, but even so, I still feel very grateful to him. If it wasn't for him, keeping our two young sons(then aged 4 and 2, I think) clean over those few weeks would have been an even bigger challenge than normal.

MamaCaz. Funny old world. Will PM you at some time. I have been told off on here before for going off topic.

Dara : In our region, the standing charge alone would be more than £9 a month unless I've made a huge miscalculation!

petra threads often meander away from the OP and are all the more interesting for that