After watching the one show, and then checking my water bill & ringing my water board I've just found out that for the last 15 years I've been paying them for surface water drainage (i.e. rainwater from the roof) when it goes into a soakaway in my garden 😯 . The water board are now going the send me a 'form' and after they check it out they will probably send me a considerable refund 😀

How do I tell if I have a drain or a soak away?

Think you need to make sure that 100% of the water from your property goes into your soakaway and that nothing is running onto the road for example.

The water company could, yes – I might be wrong, but it's probably not going to be for the whole 15 yrs as the charging structure changed more recently than that (2000) to distinguish surface water runoff / foul water discharging.

In theory they only need to rebate for the period from which they could have known that you weren't connecting surface water runoff (the current year) – but many of the companies apply some discretion and backdate more generously. I guess if you can show it's been like that for years then you're in good shape for a bigger rebate.

You might want to check out the regulator Ofwat's site which has some stuff on this: http://www.ofwat.gov.uk/consumerissues/surfacewaterdrainage/prs_web_swdrebates

Hope you can splash it on some shiney gear 😉

I am not sure it will be a "considerable" refund 😉

But mines a pint if it is!

Out of idle curiosity, which company? Some are more, er, frugal than others 😉

good info 'drain' (apt!) – but its now not looking good for a big rebate 🙁 – bummer – how do you cancel chainreaction orders………………

its Welsh Water

And complain to the water user regulator? They are known in the industry as WatUse

Ah, Dwr Cymru…. they're actually (on the whole) pretty good to their customers (effectively a not-for-profit structure, so they hand money back if they outperform against targets). But I'd wait and see!

Yup, been nicknamed Drain since I were a lad – and ended up working in the water industry… Nominative determinism in action? Seems to happen quite a lot – there's Tempest, Flood, Winterbourne, Salmon…!

WCA – which regulator, Ofwat or CCWater? CCWater is more about taking the part of domestic users in cases of dispute resolution, Ofwat doesn't deal with individual cases (well, VERY rarely) but does crack down on more systematic naughtiness 😈

Sorry to hijack the thread, but who do you work for Drain? And do you know what you're doing in the next AMP. I currently contract for DCWW, but they've yet to make their mind up about the next AMP, so I'm not sure I'll have a job past March…..

What happens if your water doesn't go into a drain nor soak away onto your own property? (Ours soaks away into a neighbouring field). I wonder if the farmer could charge me for my water draining there?….