do you use a lot of water?

As we pay for both the tap water and the sewage removal, we use as little water as is consistent with keeping ourselves and the house clean.

And this hot summer has really brought it home to us that water is a limited commodity.

I use an average of 44 litres per day. I have a water meter. My payments are currently £14.50 per month. I live alone in a 1 bedroom bungalow. No car, so no car washing. I have a water butt so no hosepipe.
I am very careful with my water usage.

I just use what I need.Quick showers helps and not putting the wash machine on every day.

PamelaJ1

Mollygo keep doing what you are doing but it seems WE must do better!
Oldnproud but a lot of the bill is service charge, our service charge is £20/month for water and sewerage.
I’ve posted our bill a bit further up the thread so if you are with Anglia water yours must be the same format. It would be interesting to see if the charges are similar.

Ah, yes, I forgot about our fixed daily charges (which, not surprisingly, are exactly the same as yours) that are not based on the amount of water used . That explains it!

Possibly included in the rates but no actual Bill for water so can't say how much I use.

Mollygo keep doing what you are doing but it seems WE must do better!
Oldnproud but a lot of the bill is service charge, our service charge is £20/month for water and sewerage.
I’ve posted our bill a bit further up the thread so if you are with Anglia water yours must be the same format. It would be interesting to see if the charges are similar.

PamelaJ1

Gosh Mollygo we us quite a bit less water than the average 2person household and we are paying £38/month. Our service and rainwater charge should be similar.
Are you just lucky with your provider do you think?

Our no idea about lucky. Because if this thread, I decided to investigate further. I looked at their advice/information about showers, dishwasher usage, washing machines etc and it told me that if I followed the advice on the page, my yearly bill would be . . .
approximately £200 more per year.
What would you do?

kircubbin2000

Don't use much water but we don't pay for it here.

What do you mean by ‘not paying for it?’

Surely you pay for your water somehow? Do you mean it’s not a separate bill, but included in your council tax or something?

I assume you are in Scotland maybe?

Don't use much water but we don't pay for it here.

PamelaJ1

We used 52m3 in 6 months, Feb-August last year. We are Anglia water.

How strange - it sounds like you use twice as much water as we do, but your bill is not twice as much, yet we are with Anglian Water too. 😕

We used 52m3 in 6 months, Feb-August last year. We are Anglia water.

This is ours September 2021/22.
64 m3, £23.30pm, includes everything Southern Water.

We have inherited a very large pond. We have several waterbutts that drain into it, but now and then, when the weather is exceptionally hot we have to top it up with tap water
Do we get rid of the pond or occasionally use a lot of water ? .

Those of you who are only paying around £10 /£12 a month, do your bills show how many cubic meters a year you use?

We are paying twice as much as that, but are using around 50 cubic meters a year, so I am interested to know if the difference is totally down to your lower usage, or if some of it is down to price differences between companies.

That said, if it was only me in the house, I am confident that usage would be less than half of what it is now, though I also fear that our old sewer pipes might start to block up if too little water was going through them on a regular basis.

Gosh Mollygo we us quite a bit less water than the average 2person household and we are paying £38/month. Our service and rainwater charge should be similar.
Are you just lucky with your provider do you think?

PamelaJ1
Between £10 and £11 is my United Utilities bill.
In explaining your bill it says
In straightforward terms, we charge you for the following services:

Supplying clean water to your home

Taking away and cleaning all your dirty water (which we call sewerage services)

Taking away all the rainwater that falls on your home and the public roads and footpaths

Standing charges to cover customer services such as reading your water meter (if you have one), sending bills and dealing with enquiries

Greyduster, I'm really annoyed by the long waiting time (and water use) of the boiler. It's hardly efficient in use, whatever they say. The pipes run for miles around this house. I therefore don't use gas in the summer - I'm angry about the standing charge too.

So, the boiler and gas are off, my gas account is closed and I use the electric shower. No summer gas or electricity bills (solar, so they pay me for input). I boil a kettle if I need hot water in the kitchen. Of course, family and guests think I'm really odd (or completely mad) but I'm saving a fortune.

For those of you only paying £10/month you are doing brilliantly. Are you including standing charges and sewerage in too or is that, literally, just for water?

Jaxjacky

Greyduster we get hot water within a few seconds from our combi?

It depends where the boiler is situated.
Ours is in the loft, so it heats the water from the bathroom taps one floor directly below it far quicker than from the taps in the handbasin in the downstairs toilet or the sink in the conservatory/laundry room, both of which are outside the original footprint of the house.

I always put the plug in the the over the bath shower because I find feet get more of a soaking and it warms them up a bit in winter. Even with a full shampoo and conditioner and rinsing the bath is only about a third full.
It’s not a power shower though
In the wet room I use a large washing up bowl with a stopper in for the same as I have a chair in there for while I wait for conditioner etc to soak in.
No garden or paddling pool sadly so not guilty😉
Oh also I fill empty squash bottles with tap water and chill them for cold drinks.

Jax it’s something to do with the way the pipes are configured apparently. We had a similar problem in our last house. I’ll just have to live with it.

Maddyone
My other worry is once everyone is on a meter, will the price rise relentlessly because at that point, there’s nothing we can do about it.
I think you are quite right about that and also about the way it penalises larger families, though like all those on GN who come up with ways of economising on water use, it would do no harm for everyone to use water carefully.
However, no water meter, penalises pensioners or older people.

For example my water bill @£72 pm penalised us once DH stopped working, especially when having a meter means we now pay £10pm.

The reason I’m against paying for the water used like we pay for electricity or gas is that I feel that this penalises families. They must use more water than we do but then with children they are bound to. I don’t like the thought of families trying to economise and therefore being less than clean, not bathing their children daily as I did, or not washing their clothes as often as needed in order to save money.
I recognise that I’m out of sync with the majority of older people with this view, but that’s just how I feel. I’m sure we’d have a lower water bill if we got a water meter. Perhaps we should, because us not having one isn’t going to change the relentless march towards everyone having one.
My other worry is once everyone is on a meter, will the price rise relentlessly because at that point, there’s nothing we can do about it.

We on a water meter I have bath each day my Dh has showers water the garden from water butt, south east! 35 pound month now very happy with that ! Much less than when wasn’t on meter,

I have a water meter it costs me £24.54 per month. I live on my own in a 2 bed bungalow . Having a combi boiler means I only heat water I use . Where I used to live in 2019 3 bed house no water meter still on my own but had hot water tank . Cost me the same as everyone else which was in those days £160.60 a month . According to there data I use the correct amount for one person.