Yorkshire Water meter Charges question please

A question about : Yorkshire Water meter Charges question please

Hi everyone,

We had a water meter fitted last week and took a reading this morning to see how much we had used in one week.
Last Thursday when the meter was installed it read 00000 000 (obviously!) and today it reads 00001 365, so that's 1365 litres of water in a week? 1.365 cubic meters?

Before having the meter installed we paid Ј34.20 per month by direct debit over 12 months, so Ј410.40 over the year.
We are a family of 5 so I have took a bit of a gamble, but did a water calcu;ation online and figured we could be better off with a meter as we are quite water-savvy! So 1365 litres of water in a week is 195 litres per day. Is this any good for a family of 5 (2 adults/3 young kids)?

We are with Yorkshire Water and I am struggling to understand their charges on their website, but am guessing somewhere between Ј2.50 - Ј3 per cubic meter of water? Am I anywhere near right, and if so then we would be paying approx Ј18 max per month for water, or Ј216/year?

Hope someone can help or confirm what I am going on about here!
Many thanks :-)

Best answers:

• You have forgotten standing charges.
  Assuming constant consumption, 1.365m3 in a week will mean 71m3 a year. The average UK consumption is around 55m3 per person, per year; so for a family of 5 it would be 275m3 a year. Thus your consumption is remarkably low.
  Water in Yorkshire is Ј1.29 per m3, sewerage Ј1.58 m3 so Ј2.87 m3 combined
  71 x Ј2.87 = Ј204. On top of this standing charges of Ј59pa for water and Ј49 or Ј2 for sewerage(depending if you have claimed relief for Surface Water Drainage)
  Thus your annual bill would be Ј265 or Ј312.
• Thank you so much Cardew, that explains everything very clearly and yes, I had forgotten standing charges.
  Am not able to claim for Surface Water Drainage Relief, so therefore an annual bill of approx Ј312. Ј26 / month instead of Ј34 would still be saving about Ј100 per year by having a water meter, so should be worth it, but will keep an eye on usage.
  I am already very good at monitoring how much energy we use, so will now just have to check the water meter too! We only pay Ј50 / mth on gas and electric too - am all for saving money!
  I didn't know 275m3 was the average water usage for a family of 5, that means we are much lower at the moment. I hope we can keep it this way, am training my kids from a young age! This is how we currently save money on water:
  We all have a shower each day (not a power shower) and turn off the taps when usig soaps / shampoo, then back on to rinse.
  We go by the rule 'if it's brown flush it down...' Also have a 1 litre bottle in the cistern.
  Wash up the breakfast pots in about 3inch of water in a bowl, but catch all water in jugs before it runs through warm. This water goes in the kettle etc. Do the same at teatime.
  Only use the washing machine when it's full.
  Turn off taps when brushing teeth.
  No dishwasher, no car washing, no baths etc.
  Water butt in the garden for plant pots etc.
  Thanks again Cardew :-)
• A good calculator for water is found here.
  https://www.ccwater.org.uk/watermetercalculator/
  A typical person uses around 50 to 55 m3 a year. So your first reading may be a little low. It would be wise to keep reading the meter, as this will help you keep a check on usage, and let you know if you have any leaks.
• Are you aware that if you applied for a meter, and it doesn't work out cheaper, you can revert back to charges based on the Rateable Value - as long as you apply within 12 months.
• Thanks Blackbeard, I will be reading the meter every week to start with and then once a month at the same time as I read the gas/elec meters, so I will know how we are doing. Our meter is outside in the back garden, but is easy to lift up and check. They also put a stop-tap there too, as our other one was in a hard-to-reach place.
  Cardew - yes, thank you. I have read that I can revert back to charges if it's not cheaper, or if I am only saving a few pence per month and it's really not worth all of the effort! If it looks like we are managing well and could continue to save a good amount, then I will keep it.
  Thanks :-)
• =(82.15)+(int(71)*129/100)+(int(71)*160.7*0.95/100)
  Ј82.15 standing charge is made up of :
  water st charge rotary piston 0.5 inches Ј33.09
  st charge sewerage band a 0-500 Ј47.08 +household st charge with surface drainage Ј1.98, total 49.06
  -------------------------------------------
  71 is cubic metres pa
  129 is water per m3
  160.7 is sewerage treatment per m3
  based on that anything below 116.5 m3 pa will be cheaper than 410.40
  https://www.yorkshirewater.com/medial...ges%202014.pdf
• Just a quick update.
  Have been using a water meter for exactly one month now. Reading on the 11th December was 00000 000, reading today is 00004 836.
  So in 31 days we are averaging 156 units per day, so currently looking at approx 57m3 for the year - approx Ј245 including charges using your calculations.
  Hopefully having a meter instead of standing charges will save us about Ј165/yr! x
• Have you checked if you are entitled to claim relief from Surface Water Drainage(SWD) charges; that could save you Ј47 a year.
• Hi Cardew, just double-checked, and no I don't think we could claim relief from SWD charges. Our property slopes towards the road which has a public drain, has 2 surface water drains around the house and we have no soakaway.
  Thanks anyway though :-)
• Ј242.70
  have you put a plastic bottle of water in the cistern etc?
• I have got a bottle of water in the cistern, but it's a standard flush / handle on the side jobby so should hopefully save some more.
  Submitted readings to Yorkshire Water on the 11th Jan, they didn't require the red numbers so I put down 4 m3 and the bill has now come in - Ј15.99.
  I realise I was closer to 5 so perhaps should have put that but it will catch up next month and average out.
  So far so good, thanks for all your help! :-)
• I bet they'll come and break your legs though if they do come and check
• We're also with Yorkshire water and tried the meter. Just two of us (two adults, kids grown up) but I have a bath every day. We DIDN'T save and now have a big lump sum that we have to pay back having come off the meter - PIA,. I negotiated from paying it back in two instalments to two small instalments and pay the rest back over (hopefully) two years.
  Two things you need to know: your children will grow up and become teenagers and use LOTS more water AND your meter will remain in place and the next owner will have to pay by the meter. I would have thought that might make the house less desirable when it comes to selling it. I find YW's lack of transparency in this regard pretty despicable - nowhere do I remember reading that this was a backdoor way to introduce water meters.
  Also, they won't go out of their way to give you up to date readings in the first year even though the meter's outside and it apparently just requires someone to walk by and read it with an instrument. So you'll get one reading after three months, then a guesstimate after six months, then one reading after nine months, then your year's up and you're on the meter i.e. if you forget about the one year trial period it's easy to let slip the ONE time you can get a really accurate reading and work out your figures (after nine months the figures are probably accurate). Also you won't find any direct comparison between what you're paying now on the meter and what you were paying on the rateable value when you read your bills AND when you ring up to get off the meter they will go out of their way to try and persuade you to stay on it. Which leads me to think that they want as many people on water meters as possible because that way they make more money.
  So: water meters - no.
  YW and presumably other water companies: pretty despicable in the surreptitiously underhand way they've loaded this game.
• You could have got on your hands and knees, taken a reading, and plugged it into the formula, and compared it yourself, all of 5 minutes work, if the 2 readings and bills weren't enough of a warning.