So I resisted the temptation to title this thread, Should I Forgive Thames Water ?

Just found out that Thames Water want to charge £1,400 pa for water as the property does not have a meter. This is quite staggering for a 2 bedroomed flat.

Any advice on how to challenge this ?

Thames Water suggest I have a meter fitted but I am only a tenant and landlord said I should pay for the meter. Also I understand it’s not possible to fit meters to all the properties, we need to pay for a survey to confirm this. In this case we get a discount, anyone know what that’s likely to be ? Any experience of surveys / cost of meter installatons (from memory at my house the meter was installed for free)

Just found out that Thames Water want to charge £1,400 pa for water as the property does not have a meter. This is quite staggering for a 2 bedroomed flat.

Get a meter, then – Thames Water fit them for free.

My daughter had a meter fitted when she moved into a rental in January. Severn Trent did not charge and fitted it inside her flat as the mains services is to multiple flats within the property, they didn’t do a survey just knew somehow.

Thames water were happy to fit one for me when I was the tenant in a house down in Oxfordshire. didn’t need to do a survey or anything

Edit: I’m trying very hard to resist the privatised industry jibes… 😆

I’ve just moved out of a flat in a similar situation. Rented with no meter. The landlord said I could go through the process to get one fitted, but I wasn’t there long enough to justify it/go through the process of doing it.

They sent me a few letters recently before I moved out telling me the price of unmetered water was going to go up a lot (Southern Water). My dad was telling me they’re trying to discourage people from being unmetered/want everyone metered.

My house is rated at £760 a year for water. A gobsmacking amount for a tiny house. I asked how/why and was told it was the figure/calculations that my council arrived at back in 1992.

So I said I wanted to go on a non-meter rate (£450) because I didn’t want them ripping up my drive etc. After a fair bits of hoo’ing and fro’ing they agreed.

£1,400 is appalling for a flat. Have they given reasons?

? They wouldn’t need to rip anything up to put a meter in. They just put it somewhere inside the property where the pipe first enters (often behind the sink in the kitchen).

But we used to be on a ‘derelict’ rate at our old place and just paid for basic drainage / soakaway costs. It was about £12 a month. I told them that we had renovated and were living in it several times before I finally gave up and accepted their generous offer 🙂

Still, came as a shock when our bill went up by about 500% when we moved into our new place :-/

The water pipe comes up the drive and in under the front through under the hallway towards the kitchen. I told them they weren’t pulling my wooden floorboards up so they said ‘drive’? No.

I didn’t want a meter- I wanted it on the fixed/frozen amount really as having a small un we run the bath, shower etc alot.

Seems a bit bogus to me.

We were paying £700 a year for our cottage. 2 bedrooms but the 2nd downstairs reception was previously used as a bedroom, now it’s my office. 3 adults live here and we have a small garden.

Water supply is oddly linked in with the landlords farmhouse next door and they don’t have a stop cock (have to turn the water off in the road) which also shuts ours off and our stop cock is hidden in the loft space above the kitchen. So putting in any meters is a bit more work than in your average house, but admittedly still not that hard.

They wanted to fit a meter so I explained the layout and they sent someone round to take a look. If I remember rightly it took 2 visits as the first guy was just a quick check and the 2nd actually went into more detail and did a brief questionnaire of our use. The landlord had reduced the size of our garden to give us more parking so as a result our garden was below a threshold he quoted but I cannot remember, they also thought the formal gardens at the front were ours but they belong to the landlords farmhouse and we just get to enjoy looking at them without having to do any gardening (win-win). We also corrected the account to show that it is only a 2 bed property, only has one bathroom (now with no bath, only a walk in shower) and we have modern a washing machine and dishwasher. As a result our bill halved which was very surprising.

Survey was free (Wessex water)
Meter would have been free
Minor complication to installation meant we stay off a meter.

Can’t really offer any help other than our water company have never tried to charge us for the above.

So I said I wanted to go on a non-meter rate (£450) because I didn’t want them ripping up my drive etc. After a fair bits of hoo’ing and fro’ing they agreed.

I didn’t want a meter- I wanted it on the fixed/frozen amount really as having a small un we run the bath, shower etc alot.

to be honest they should have told you get the meter, I imagine you also use a hose pipe to wash the car as well 😉

Meter should be free for you: https://www.thameswater.co.uk/your-account/16968.htm

Oh I forgot to say, we ran through the calculator on the Wessex water site and it showed we would be no better off on a meter than our adjusted rate. We don’t waste much water or wash the cars very often (once a year! 😳 ) and use water butts on the outbuildings for watering plants and the sheep when they are in the orchard so we are happy to stay off-meter.

about £380 pa here for a 2 bed terrace house (un-metered)

Our unmetered rate is about £400 pa for a 3 bed terraced (Cambs).

United Utilities in the NW here. Asked for (free) meter recently. Bloke comes round to assess and for various complicated reasons we can’t. Gives me a form to sign ‘would you prefer to pay £27 a month less?’ Oh go on then. Easy as that.

It’s the size of a bean tin and needs to go by your incoming mains supply, usually next to your cock.

Just a thought but are Thames Water trying to claw back previously unpaid bills by adding them to your current bill?

Had the same thought of thing but with electric when I rented a house with a key meter, we ended up paying about double the price per unit because the previous tenets had unpaid bills. They reversed it for us.

My non metered rate was £600 odd when I moved into my current house 8 years ago. Meant to change to a meter, eventually did and now pay about 2/3 what I did so annoyed I didn’t do sooner. Change was easy except that I initially had a massive bill due to an undiscovered leak. Fortunately once fixed under house insurance they recalculated my bill based on subsequent usage figures. We should all have meters really.

The water pipe comes up the drive and in under the front through under the hallway towards the kitchen. I told them they weren’t pulling my wooden floorboards up so they said ‘drive’? No.
I didn’t want a meter- I wanted it on the fixed/frozen amount really as having a small un we run the bath, shower etc alot.

Is there any reason why it can’t be fitted at the point where the external stop tap is ?

That’s where mine is fitted, no mess or digging etc. dead simple.

apparently not- the water assessor bloke said it’d have to be on my property but it needed abit of intervention/work – I said no thats not reasonable.

So basically you said no to everything simply because you didn’t want to have a meter, not because any option was particularly impractical then?

Thanks for the responces. We got a meter put in for free at prior house, hopefully same here. Lady at building management co said its not possible to have a meter at every flat due to location of pipes (1970’s / 80’s conversion of nurses accommodation). Will contact Thames for a survey / meter quote.

Cornwall is pretty bad for water rates too.

I didn’t want a meter- I wanted it on the fixed/frozen amount really as having a small un we run the bath, shower etc alot.

I’m with Thames Water, don’t see why I should subsidise your water bill and encourage waste. Roll on compulsory metering.

We only pay £270 per year for a 4 bedroom semi detached in North Kent. Non meter.

Is that water + sewerage or just water? If the former it seems very cheap.

That is the whole of my water bill. House used to be 2 bedrooms but we extended.

ahh. So it’s based on the old rateable value before you extended?

Don’t think so as we just transferred our account from previous house which was 3 bedrooms.

We pay United Utilities £373 a year for a 3 Bed Detached on a Meter, 2 adults, 14yr Old Daughter(lives in the shower) and a 3year old.

My dads had a meter put in at there house recently which involved digging a 12″square hole in the footpath at the end of there front garden all that remains is a 6″ square access panel with some fresh tarmac surrounding it, His bills are dramatically less now as previously they were on water rates for a 3Bed Maisonette,as theres only him and my mum there now they dont use a lot of water so are better off , but doesnt always work out as well for larger households.

What’s this paying for water you speak of?

We had a similar problem with thames water for our two bed flat, when i questioned them on it they said unless questioned you go on a rate linked to your postcode and the properties in the surrounding area. Which for us is a load of bloomin great mansions!!

To cut a long story short they sent out a man to assess the flat for getting a meter and he said dont get one as you can be put on a special tariff for smaller properties. He advised not to get the meter as we have two small kids and at the time it was cheaper to go on the cheaper tariff rather than the meter, because of the washing machine use, baths etc

I have a 2 bedroom flat, and the non metered cost was £600 odd per year.
I requested a meter be installed (for free), but when they came out to do it I was told it wouldn’t be possible without me paying for extensive new pipework (in the region of £1000) to isolate my supply.
Instead they offered to put me on an ‘assessed’ charge, based on my estimated usage- so now it’s around £400 per year.
Still pisses me off as I’m never home!

The basic calculation is you have less people than bedrooms you will be better off. I live (alone) in a 3 bed house and the water rates were ~£500 when I moved in. Got a meter and now paying ~£230 on a meter.

£1,400 seems a lot, surely you will be better off even if you did have to pay for a meter (though it appears not from links above) if you are staying much over a year.