Homes with bigger gardens to be penalised with higher water bills
Water firms test tiered tariffs that charge more per unit as consumption rises
That a place as wet as England has problems with water supply is odd, obviously. That system of never allowing any reservoirs etc. But yes, rising charges for water consumption, entirely sensible. Exactly what we have here. Can be painful if a pipe bursts or even if a toilet cistern keeps running. But then that’s part of the point – get ‘er fixed.
You’ve just reminded me of the time I had to install a new toilet over 40 years ago. The instructions said to install an overflow where it will cause annoyance (I paraphrase) and at first I was surprised and it didn’t seem to make sense, then it dawned on me why.
The water regulations have changed. That type of overflow was mandatory then. Now a toilet overflow normally discharges into the toilet bowl. Of course water being metered now might have something to do with that change.
I don’t really get the bigger garden connection. Water consumption varies for all kinds of reasons, if you have a big garden that is mostly grass you are unlikely to need to water it at all. I have to water my greenhouse but the rest of the garden gets watered by the sky. In any case, the water for the greenhouse mostly comes from water butts which rarely get down below half full.
Ditto! It’s the politics of envy at play once more.
Ah, so presumably my having a big garden means that I’m rich? It couldn’t be that I live in a rural area in a former council house then?
It’s obviously not a Thames Water butt, which comes supplied with a big hole on the right hand side near the bottom…
There isn’t one; it’s clickbait journalism. The trigger is “excess” water use, be that via watering a big garden with the mains or neglecting a leaky bog.
What makes me laugh is that if you had a very big plot of land and installed dedicated water catchment for ultimate self sufficiency, they’d get antsy and either make you remove it or charge you for it. They own the water from when it falls from the sky until it flows into the sea. If the arseholes want to own it that much I’d fine the fuckers everytime a river bursts its banks.
30 years ago when replacing my roof I put a rainwater capture tank in to feed the toilet. Now, 30 years later, I’m getting a bit past it (and tubby) to get up there and do the occasional maintance, so as part of a current bit of roof repair I’m considering returning the rain capture to the drain downpipe. It will add about 25% to my mains water consumption if I do.
“That a place as wet as England” Balls. Much of Eastern England isn’t wet. Drier than Rome, some of it. Hereabouts (East Anglia) the drier years narrowly escape being classed as “semi-arid”.
dearime, here on the Essex sunshine coast we get less rain than Tangier (usually, this year be an outlier……….).
True, and the grass gets pretty brown in the summer. However as I’m not maintaining a golf green the lawn can look after itself. It always recovers in the autumn.
Just had a quick look via the algorithm. Driest place in the UK, St Osyth in Essex, a gnat’s over 20 inches a year. Wettest place, Styhead tarn in the lake district around 180 inches a year. Two places 330 miles or so apart.
How indeed can there be shortages of water anywhere is this country? (answers on a postcard please).
How much water do you use? Have it metered and find out. Dumb meter of course, but I’m sure they want to make them “smart”. Can’t have a flat rate while the world is burning can we?
Our electric is on a ‘smart’ meter, and Can b’e read remotely (every 30 mins). Our ‘dumb’ water meter was replaced (don’t know when, they didn’t tell us) by what they term a ‘smart’ meter’.
So smart that to read it you have to come at-and next to it (bluetooth I assume)
Our street had water meters installed about 10 years ago. I love it, it’s halved our bills.
For now …
Indeed.
Here is a plan for how to get everyone to pay for a water meter. People vary in their usage, so if you charge a flat, unmetered rate, many will pay much less if they get a meter. So allow then to pay for and get a meter. Then the pool of unmetered users have a higher average usage, so put up the price of unmetered water. Repeat as necessary with each step persuading users with ever more usage to “save money” by getting a meter. The last step is to make it mandatory for the last few unmetered customers to get a meter on the grounds that they are such heavy users it’s only fair.
it’s halved our bills
Our experience, too. Thames Water insisted they must fit one, because we have a pool, even though it only needs a few m³ a year – our usage is well below next door, with their 4 kids.
In France we got an itemised water bill. If memory serves. the cost of sewerage was 8 or 9 times supply.
So watering the garden should be dirt cheap.
That said, it’s not the water companies that are useless, it’s the regulators. There are four of them.
And the proposed Abingdon reservoir has already cost a billion quid before a spade has hit the ground.
Engineering wise Thames Water are pretty good. The ring main was roughly on time on budget, the Thames Tideway was only a billion or so over budget (mostly due to inflation). Compare the Channel Tunnel or HS2.
In France we got an itemised water bill. If memory serves. the cost of sewerage was 8 or 9 times supply.
So watering the garden should be dirt cheap.
Thats interesting. A lot of the free motorhome aires in France provide free black and grey waste disposal but charge a nominal fee for fresh water, about €2 for 100L. Even ones that charge to stay have metered water.
Around here we have tht rising price per m3 for water as usage rises. Given that the entire country runs off reservoirs that seems sensible. We generally have 5 or 6 months of the year with no rain at all bar the occasional summer thunderstorm.
The sewage part of the bill is an entirely notional 3 or 4 € a month. Undoubtedly heavily subsidised, for each household, by the high costs to high level water users. And you can sorta see the point too – sewage is the public health problem, you really, really, want to make sure everyone connects to the network. In small towns and villages this really only even became available 1980s onwards after all.
When I were a lad we had a well and a septic tank. I thin we got mains supply before I was born but we only got mains drainage when I was a few years old.
One of the neighbours got mains drainage but chose not to have mains supply. His well dried up.
Filtering shit through sandstone is actually pretty efficient. No cholera outbreaks in Somerset at the time.
No, it’s not fair. Bulk users should pay LOWER rates.
‘Homes with bigger gardens’ is an appeal to envy.
Arrest them. Climate change is over.
Bulk users *do* pay lower rates…
Then again…Industries have the Lawyers to fight back…
A blob of individual “customers” would have to organise first, then agree on something, *and* hire a Lawyer…
Far easier prey….