Water leak.

Think I'll fire off a few e mails to both SE water, and Southern Water and see what they come up with.
Surely commercial users dont pay for sewerage rates, on water that just evaporates or sinks in the ground.

 

Blimey @pete ive just caught up with this. I hope your garage is now safe & secure.....next time you need a police officer (hopefully you won't meed one) tell them you have a gun they will come running then...it's a flipping joke .
Good luck with the water company ,I will be really interested to see how you get on.

 

OMG I have been reading with all that has been happening to you pete, sounds absolutely ghastly. Wow are we lucky to be on our own private water supply and have a septic tank so no water or sewage rates to pay or people wanting to dig holes all over the place. No doubt our water doesn't meet EU standards but none of us have had a day's illness in the 13 years we've been here and it's lovely to drink. I can't believe you are effectively being charged for waste water which has actually gone onto your garden, that just doesn't sound right, but in this day and age who knows. Keep us updated.

 

Oh My! What a nightmare!! glad, like @silu we are the same.

 

A few years ago I had an external water meter fitted. This is connected to my outside tap and I don't pay the sewerage charge on the water on this meter, just the supply charge.
I had to pay for the meter and arrange for it's fitting, by a plumber, about £200. It also took SWW's billing department several bills to get their heads around the maths.

 

These big companies seem to be able to get away with anything now Pete. The winter of 2013/14 was quite a mild one here as was this last winter, so our gas suppliers decided to charge us for the gas we're not using! It's like walking into a shop and handing over money without receiving any goods. How on earth do they get away with it?

 

Sent an e mail to Southern water regarding waste water.
Say it could be 14 days wait for a reply.

Anyway, got a letter today saying they were amending my bill from 253M3 of waste to 40M3.
Not got the actual bill yet, just some stupid letter from someone in customer services trying to justify their job, I guess.

Anyway the charges are unbelievable, S.E Water charge me roughly £1.50 per cubic meter of water, (I dont mind paying that), but Southern Water charge me £2.27 to get rid of it.

That makes one cubic meter of water around £3.80, daylight robbery, when you consider most of the water I'm likely to use in the summer Southern water wont even see.

How can this set up be legal?

 

Nigel, do you have to pay two standing charges?
Due to the fact you have two meters.

 

Any thing which says waste, up go the price

 

Just an update.
I sent Southern water an e mail, which kind of got ignored, so I came across The Consumer Council for Water on line and sent them an e mail also.
Within a day of then contacting S. Water I got a reply.

It was mostly padded out rubbish regarding "surface water" and how they have to charge for that.
Really nothing to do with what I was querying.

They then went on to explain what the water companies and Ofwatt had decided that they should only charge for 92.5% of the water that passes the meter, suggesting that 7.5% goes missing.

Well in my case its much more than that during the summer at least, but I've given up now as it seems between them and the so called "regulator" a deal has been done that cannot be challenged.

So it appears that they are charging for so called "metered" water waste, but as they dont have a clue how much enters their sewers they are allowed to take a wild guess.

I think the whole set up stinks, literally, but the consumer appears to have no say, due to Offwat and the water companies doing a deal.

 

Nigel, do you have to pay two standing charges?
Due to the fact you have two meters.
@pete Sorry for the delay in responding; only just noticed question.
Yes there are two meters. One in the road out the front and one on the side of the house connected to the outside tap. The total water consumption comes from the one in the road and then the reading from the external meter is subtracted from the total consumption and this figure is used to calculate the sewerage charge. The sewerage charge is calculated on 95% that figure.
I actually pay three standing charges c£37. a year for the main meter, c£35 a year for sewerage and £6.50 a year for the sub meter.
The high sewerage charges are the reason a lot of commercial companies have sewerage meters.

 

Thanks Nigel.
Southern water did say something about a sub meter, but made it clear that I'd need to get it fitted myself and they would NOT read it.
So that takes me back to who reads it and who does what?
I'm kind of fed up being the person in the middle of two separate companies.

Cant say they are being very helpful, and the Email I got from them was really quite patronising.
I guess they dont like getting their boat rocked, especially seeing as its sailing on sewage.

 

In my case SWW read both meters, which is why the sub meter had to be on the outside of the house and easily accessible. The meters are read every 6 months with estimates in between.