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The Institution of Civil Engineers believes that the UK's water supplies are at a critical point.
The body has called for universal water metering, so that households with high water use for non-essentials like washing the car or watering the garden pay more.
Would this be a sensible and fair way of fixing the water shortage?
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174No. We live in a country with high rainfall. There should be no shortage if there were enough reservoirs and the leaks were fixed.
The solution is simple. Legislate to the effect that every household effected MUST receive a 50% refund on their water bill for each year that ANY hosepipe ban is introduced. Further, if we are ever reduced to standpipes, the water company concerned is to be compulsoraly purchased for the sum of One pound only.
I predict that there would never be a water shortage ever again.
Posted on 07 June 2012 |
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61I agree with JoeEasedale that we shouldn't be in a position of water shortage. However, I also know that more storage of water = more areas of natural beauty turned into reserviors.
Whilst the water companies should be encouraged to store more water, we should also be encouraged to conserve more. Maybe rather than a discount for Direct Debit payments, the water companies should instigate discounts for use of water butts and replacing tarmac drives with soak away paving. Granted this would be a challenge to implement, but the onus is on everyone to do their bit, not just the companies.
Posted on 07 June 2012 | Love 2 loves
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157I opted for a water meter and my water cost were reduced by two thirds. We do need more water storage and that means reservoirs I suppose. I have no quibble with that, reservoirs are hardly unsightly and have the added attraction of water sports and other outdoor activities. If we have to lose a bit of countryside then so be it.
However there should be more draconian punishments for water companies who don't fix their leaks and the fines should not be passed on to the consumer. Hit them and their shareholders where it hurts most.
One more 'however'! We have become a country of people who like to say no to everything. No project can get realised without hoards of people wanting inquiries or protesting that their little part of the world will be disturbed. People seem to want this country preserved in aspic. If this attitude had prevailed in the past we would have no railways, canals, roads, electricity, radio and TV. We would all be sitting in our wattle and daub huts lit by candles wondering why the rest of the world was having a better time than us.
Nuclear Power Plants, railways, airports, motorways, whatever - bring 'em on - we need them.
Posted on 07 June 2012 | Love 4 loves
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17
Of course you should pay for the water you use. Just as you pay for gas and electricity. Just like in most countries. Use a hose by all means. Just be prepared to pay for the water you use. I wonder how many people on water meters use hoses?
After I switched to a water meter, my bills went down by over 75%. We're careful with water usage and we reap the benefit of being so. If it's unmetered, people just run taps to waste with no thought. Or run garden hoses for hours at a time.
@JoeEasdale - we don't have plenty of rainfall. It's a myth. The eastern side of England is actually classified climatologically as "semi-arid". The only drier category is "arid" - ie desert.
However, I do think that our water industry is a joke - all the companies are interested in is making as much money as possible and spending the absolute minumum on fixing water leaks to the (very low) targets set by OffWat. The only possible exception is Yorkshire Water, who had the forethought to install a water grid.
In Germany, leakage is about 9%. Here it's more like 40%.
And I certainly agree that any Water Company that installed standpipes should be nationalised for one pound!
Posted on 07 June 2012 |
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36Living in a part of the country that has absolutely no shortage of rain, but has to put up with mostly wet weather while much of the rest of the country is basking in sunshine, I wonder why the wetter parts of the country can't get water cheaper. After all, the local company have to expend no effort at all to get their commodity, and don't even have to concern themselves overmuch with addressing leaks
Posted on 07 June 2012 | Love 1 love
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7I think everyone’s water should be metered, it’s a far fairer way of charging.
If you have water butts and are metered, you already get a discount as you use don’t use water from the mains for plant watering all the time you have stored water available. If your rainwater drains to a soakaway then you can already claim for non-returns to sewers. Some water companies allow for some mains water, which is not returned to sewer in their charges.
It isn’t just a question of improving the storage of our water, though that could be greatly improved, as could repairing leaks. All mains water is fully treated before it arrives with us and that costs. We use ‘top quality’ water for washing cars (and some families have several cars), bathing, washing down paths and patios, irrigation, etc., and it’s so wasteful. I don’t know what the answer is but we take our water and its quality so much for granted. At least metering should make users aware of just how much they use and for what.
If you have a meter, and you don’t use water due to a hosepipe ban then you can’t receive a refund for what you don’t use.
Posted on 07 June 2012 | Love 1 love
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373On the subject of leaks, I will point out that leaks have been around for ever. My father, who used to be a waterboard official when it was a public service, and a senior manager when it was privatised in the 80's, was dealing with leaks back before I was born (mid 60's).
In fact, my mother told me that he took her on a tour of the reservoirs in the Hampshire area, before relocating to the Thames Water area. Even in those days, the reservoirs were a state, and leakage was high.
Since privatisation, the problem has got worse, since very little of the profits made by the water companies has been re-invested in pipework that, in some areas, is well over 100 years old.
Now, we are in the Teenies, so the water companies have had a good thirty years to make some inroads into cutting down the leaks, but they are just as bad today as they were thirty years ago.
I will make a very strong point now. You can deprive a nation of many things, and it will carry on, but deprive a nation of water, and it will wither and die. Water is the life blood of any nation. The Romans built aqueducts to ensure water got to where it was needed. So here we are in the modern 21st century, and our survival is being left to greedy bastards who would rather ration us than invest in our future.
I think that nationalisation of our most precious asset is necessary, backed up with public funding, and I never agreed with selling this most precious asset off in the first place.
Water should remain in the public domain, and not be for profit. Magpie made a mistake when she sold this off.
As for the topic of discussion, which is about installing water meters, most who have these installed will see a drop in their bills because most people use water within reason. Of course, if you have an Olympic swimming pool in your garden, you'll use more, but washing the car or watering the garden isn't going to affect annual usage that much.
One question that hasn't been answered is what is the cost of installing millions of meters (cost of meters and the installation cost), not forgetting disruption of service while meters are installed.
As for the final question whether it would be a fair way to fix the water shortage, installing meters will have no effect on the water shortage. All it will do is monitor water usage. The water shortage is purely down to poor management, and selling our water overseas.
Posted on 07 June 2012 |
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881The water shortage problem is predominantly in the South and East of England where there is a much lower level of rainfall. Unfortunately, that is where most people seem to want to live so there is a supply problem.
Building more and more houses in these areas means that there is less open ground to soak up the water to allow it to permeate down to the water bearing chalk from which it gets pumped to supply our water. Instead of soaking down to the chalk it runs off into mains drainage and causes flash floods.
Rivers had flood plains where excess water could spill over and that soaked into the ground as well. Now they allow building on those flood plains and try to keep the water off them. Building on flood plains should also be banned.
It should be compulsory for all new buildings, drives and roads to have surface water drainage into soakaways.
That would redress the water shortage very considerably. However, to answer the question, people should pay for what they use, whatever the commodity is. If they waste it that should cost them more as it would with a meter.
Personally, I do my bit with 10 water butts. I keep the water fresh with oxygenating weed and the mosquito larvae out with goldfish. They don't mind the water levels going up and down so long as I leave enough in the bottom for them to swim around.
Mike
Posted on 07 June 2012 | Love 2 loves
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653Short answer : Yes.
Lived in a house built on a hillside with road at front and garage a story lower to rear. For years we complained about water getting into garage and I spend a fortune on rubberised coatings and creating a drainage channel all around the garage walls. Back garden was like a marsh and I dug deep channels and installed French drains. I kept complaining to water company and local authority and was told that it was an underground spring and nothing they could do. The story never rang true and a few months before we moved, water company dug up the road in front and found a huge water leak which had been obviously wasting water for years. Garage was bone dry within a fortnight.
Posted on 07 June 2012 | Love 2 loves
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8Well, nobody should expect water for nothing. If they don't want to pay anything, nobody's stopping them, are they? Just get cut off and you have 100% discount. Then catch your own water from the roof where the birds have obligingly flavoured it for you and drink it. When you've finished bathing in it you might just feel a bit itchy er.. there and your contact lenses might need replacing a bit sooner than normal.......
I've installed a professional water harvesting system from rainwaterharvesting.co.uk after changing to a water meter. My last half-yearly bill is £101. That's down from £500 annual average. We drink, brush our teeth, shower often and cook. The rainwater takes care of the rest. You learn alot as you get along.
Of course everybody should be metered. It's a no brainer. (Especially the £5 a hand carwash guys jetwashing away at your expense.
Posted on 07 June 2012 | Love 1 love
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310I am wondering if the fitment of a gravity fed grey water use for toilet flushing is financially worthwhile.
Just suppose you have the storage tank in the garden and a lift pump for a loft mounted header tank to supply the toilets.
From the website mentioned above, 4 people in our house - average flushing 4.42 times aday and using average 5 litres per flush. So that is a total of 32,266 litres a year. Total cost from my current supplier @ £2.44 a cubic metre (ie 1,000 litres) for supply and removal of the water = £78.73. So an effective water cost saving. Roof area and annual rainfall average for where I live would support this usage, but not a lot more.
So take off any pump running costs of about £5 a year all in, and we would save a relatively paltry £73 a year for an initial outlay of about £1500. So payback would take 20 years purely numerically. Take into account loss of opportunity for that cash and it does not make any financial sense for us to retro fit these products.
Posted on 07 June 2012 | Love 2 loves
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1A friend recently reported a constantly running tap in an empty property adjoining his house. He was told we cannot go in to do a repair without the owners permission, but no one knows who owns it. So, they boarded it up before they left!!
Posted on 07 June 2012 | Love 1 love
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52@MikeGG1, do your goldfish live in the dark?
New houses around here are fitted with a water butt, (as well as an outside tap for some reason...), and I think that water should be used for things like watering the garden and cleaning the car. I have two downpipes on my house but only one has a water butt fitted to it. If the water butt was mounted a bit higher and had a proper tap fitted to it then I could attach the hose to water the garden and rinse off the car.
Somebody mentioned using water butt water for flushing the toilet, what an excellent idea. Can't be that difficult to set up. It's given me an idea, especially as my water butt is right behind the wall of the downstairs toilet. Speaking of toilets, my house is just over a year old and has new fancy flushing systems fitted to the toilets that use about half the water for a flush (at a guess) but are so ineffective that it is not unusual for me to flush three times to clear the bowl. My neighbours have the same problem so it's not just me. My bet is that I use a lot more water flushing this new system that I did with the old systems. Even my five year old has to flush twice. The water gushes down at a very fast rate, enough to splash out of the bowl sometimes, but it doesn't flow for long enough to clear the waste.
I think water meters should be fitted to the heaviest users first, people like hairdressers, etc. It's a pity the water taken away can't be metered and charged accordingly. My water is taken away (physically in a lorry) by a separate company. When I changed to water meter, I moved to a new area at the same time. I pay the same price with a meter as I did without one, but I moved from a cheaper water area to a more expensive one (Welsh water).
Posted on 07 June 2012 | Love 1 love
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310@culluding fool.
We are on a meter and we pay for water supplied, and also a separate amount for water removal. The assumption is that all the water supplied is also removed. Some of this water isn't, of course. I probably should follow it up with the water company (Severn Trent) and see what they say.
Also, fitting grey water flushing has to be cost effective, and for us it isn't at the cost I have seen (around £1500) to fit the system.
Posted on 07 June 2012 | Love 0 loves
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8Iamcoldsteve posted
I am wondering if the fitment of a gravity fed grey water use for toilet flushing is financially worthwhile
With reference to the rest of your post just above: As I said, you learn to be creative as you go along. You just mention the flushing. What about watering the garden; washing the car; jetwashing the patio; using it more freely once you've got it? and most important of all: Are you thinking the price of water is going to go down (inflation)? I bet you George Osborne wouldn't be too happy, and that's enough motivation in itself. What about no hosepipe bans to worry about and no mains water being turned off? etc etc.
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80The availability of water stocks is very dependant upon where one is in the country and upon the preceeding months rainfall. It is not an infinite quantity and is reliant upon natural renewal by rain.
Supply is an expensive process and maintaining the ever aging old supply system is ever more expensive.
Usage must be responsibly controlled and the only logical means is by charging users by the quantity they consume - metering. The rates charged should be standardised across the country and should be at a lower unit cost for the first so many cubic metres and the rate escalate with the increase of usage.
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310Harajus,
Yes I agree that more uses of rain water can be found. That assumes that you can collect enough. As my first post said, the annual rainfall in my area and my available roof space wouldn't give much more than that required for the flushing of toilets. This assumes that our usage for flushing is about the same at the web site you mention say is typical.
Yes, prices will go up. But 20 year pay back isn't viable.
Posted on 08 June 2012 | Love 0 loves
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1Here's a good'un
I live in Cardiff
They have recently closed one at a place called Wenault
They (the water company) are pushing to get plans passed to fill in another to build more homes at Llanishen Reservoir. The plans have been turned down by the council but they keep on submitting more plans.
Tell me. How can we have more homes without a water supply ?
Posted on 08 June 2012 |
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81I wonder where the engineers at the ICivE who came up with this suggestion mostly live? London and the south-east? - with a high population density, high demand, lots of land used for housing (so rainwater runs off into rivers rather than soaking into the land), intensive agriculture, and low rainfall (relative to other parts of the UK).
Here in Aberdeenshire we have plenty of rain, and a low population density. We never have hosepipe bans, we have no shortage of water.
We shouldn't be wasteful of it here, wastefulness anywhere is abhorrent, but we're hardly at the about-to-run-out-of-water crisis levels of SE England.
I wish that decision-makers in London would stop assuming that the solutions needed for where they live need to be applied to the whole country!!!
Posted on 08 June 2012 | Love 1 love
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73In principle, yes, meter water and make people more aware of their usage. Scare stories about encouraging poor hygiene seem to have very little basis in fact.
In practice this is not as easy as it sounds. My house, for example: there is a branch from the water main in the street to serve four houses. This branch splits into (essentially) two: one half supplies all four kitchens, whence the supply (in my case) to the rest of teh house is derived. The other half supplies all four downstairs loos. Technically, not all that difficult to modify, but water companies fitting meters have to spot things like this or it makes a nonsense of it. And that is what costs the money.
But I do agree with the sentiment that water companies need to address their leaks. I wouldn't be surprised to find that some are still using wooden pipes that were put in 120 years ago. Maybe if every water supply was metered, people could see the waste in the annual report, and the water company would experience some pressure (if you'll pardon the pun) to fix its leaks.
Posted on 08 June 2012 | Love 0 loves
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20When I moved recently, I was a little shocked to find the water rates doubled from my previous home.
I took the option of having a meter installed and have been told that i should see a 60% reduction in costs in comparison but If I dont find it is any cheaper within 13 months I can revert back to unmetered.
The water companies should be made to fix the leaks, with them covering ALL costs, as it is them who will be benefit in the long term.
Posted on 08 June 2012 |
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38 881OorWullie
The government didn't pay a penny towards the Channel Tunnel. It was all private money!
Reservoirs aren't the problem here. It is the level of water in the water-bearing chalk beneath us which is the problem. Too much has been extracted and not enough is going back in. Hence the need to legislate for more soakaways.
Alternatively there should be a National Water Grid so that some of the excess water from Wales, Scotland and the Lake District can get to the South and East.
As it is, Manchester is supplied from the Lake District (Thirlmere) and Birmingham is supplied from Wales (Vyrnwy). To add a historical note, Vyrnwy was used for practice by the Dam Buster Squadron.
Mike
Posted on 08 June 2012 | Love 1 love
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137 310yocoxy,
I think you will find that smokers pay far more in through tax / VAT than they take out through the NHS.
Posted on 13 June 2012 | Love 1 love
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