Installing a water meter inside a property

[GoodDoc]

Detailed explaination follows, but how difficult is it to get a water meter installed inside an older property? Is this something the local water provider can or will do, or does it need to be done by a third party and then approved?

Now for the long story!

• I live in a victorian end of terrace property that was built in about 1880. I live on the 1st floor, with the ground originally being a shop, but some time before I bought the 1st floor flat the ground floor was converted to a small office. Neither property had a water meter when I moved in.
• About 15 years ago the ground floor office was extended, and the enlarged space was converted to a smaller office with a 1 bed studio flat at the rear. The office had a water meter fitted in the footpath outside, and a water meter was installed inside the new studio flat as part of the construction work.
• A year or so after that work was completed I requested Thames Water to install a water meter for my flat. The meter was installed in the footpath outside my flat. This resulted in my annual water bill reducing from ~£350/year to ~£130/year.
• About two years later I received a quarterly water bill for ~£250. Thames water provided no help in working out why the bill had shot up.
• I eventually worked out that water main from the street fed both my flat and the studio flat. The unmetered water main entered the property where the builders then split the water main, one supplied the new flat via a water meter inside the new property, and the other continued upstairs to my property. This had worked fine until I asked Thames Water to install a water meter for my property, but they installed the meter in a position where the main was actually supplying the two properties.
• This did not come to light until the first tenant moved out and a couple with a young child moved in. I had been paying for the cost of water used by both properties, and downstairs also paid for their water use (Thames water were getting paid twice for supplying the water to downstairs).
• Thames water acknowledged the issue, refunded me for the double charged usage and sent an engineer to look at the water supply within my property. I was told that it was too difficult for them to install a water meter, so they put me back on a reduced minimal rateable tariff, which resulted in my bill going back to ~£350/year (It massively frustrated me that despite clear evidence of how little water I was using my bill rose sharply because it was both too difficult to install an meter, and profitable for them not to install a meter).

I lived with this for the last few years, but in January last year my bill jumped up to £550/year, which is excessive for a single person living in a small two bed flat. At this point I'm tempted to see what the ombudsman could do (I asked Thames Water for a meter, they have effectively refused after deciding its too difficult), but does anyone have any knowledge or experience of the practicalities of installing a water meter inside an old victorian property.
I have spoken to the landlord downstairs and she has said she'd be happy to have a meter installed in her property where the incoming main splits in two (there is a cabinet with easy access to both mains, and is where the meter for downstairs is installed), but it feels like it would be easy for Thames Water to object to this solution.

Any advice or thoughts appreciated.

[paulwirral]

I live in an early 1900s house and my meter is inside , I actually moved it myself into a small cupboard when I re jigged the bathroom .
It’s been read numerous times and the only comment I get is that it’s one of the easiest one to read .

[Philvrs]

paulwirral said:

I live in an early 1900s house and my meter is inside , I actually moved it myself into a small cupboard when I re jigged the bathroom .
It s been read numerous times and the only comment I get is that it s one of the easiest one to read .

I assume you had to have it inspected after the move of location, otherwise i would just plumb a pipe off between stop cock and meter!

[paulwirral]

Philvrs said:

paulwirral said:

I live in an early 1900s house and my meter is inside , I actually moved it myself into a small cupboard when I re jigged the bathroom .
It s been read numerous times and the only comment I get is that it s one of the easiest one to read .

I assume you had to have it inspected after the move of location, otherwise i would just plumb a pipe off between stop cock and meter!

No inspection , it would be obvious if I’d done that due to the location and ease of checking , although it did cross my mind but I’m a law abiding citizen.

[.:ian:.]

When I had a meter fitted, or at least the one they fitted to replace the one originally that actually fed 5 houses, they did want to see where the incoming mains was in the house, but as this was a bit of pipe sticking out of the wall in the tiny downstairs toilet, they decided to fit it outside.

If you have good access, I cant see why they would object.

[Philvrs]

paulwirral said:

No inspection , it would be obvious if I d done that due to the location and ease of checking , although it did cross my mind but I m a law abiding citizen.

Assuming you have read this? Or maybe this guidance is new?
https://www.unitedutilities.com/globalassets/docum...

[paulwirral]

I’m more than capable of moving a water meter , considering when matey installed the new heating system the gas main pipe was in the way of the new sink in the utility I moved that myself too , bizarrely he turned up when I was doing it and laughed , saying I was doing the same job as he could to the same standard and if I was available he’d give me a job !
I also drive at 78 mph on the motorway occasionally , bad to the bone .

[WrekinCrew]

Our water meter was upstairs when we bought the house. Our plumber moved it to the attached garage when we switched to an unvented system.
Pretty sure he didn't ask / tell the water company.
It's a " smart" meter with a radio module so they probably don't even know it's been moved. It's never been read manually in 7 years.

Edited by WrekinCrew on Saturday 3rd January 08:25

[Philvrs]

paulwirral said:

but I m a law abiding citizen.

paulwirral said:

I also drive at 78 mph on the motorway occasionally , bad to the bone .

I’d normally leave it, but as you’ve gone on the defensive

Too tight to pay the inspection fee? Too proud? Too capable?

To any one looking for advice on moving a water meter, check with your water supply company before taking paulwirrals advice, would be my advice.

[paulwirral]

That’s me told , your far to clever for me to argue with , I’ll stick to joining pipes together

[GasEngineer]

Another option is to fit your own water meter on your pipework before any other pipes are taken off. They are very accurate. You can then compare to the Water Board readings.

https://www.bes.co.uk/single-jet-cold-water-meter-...

[RGG]

We have a 250 year old property.

The water meter was fitted inside at the existing entry point without problem.

It's reliably read by radio without a visit from the meter reader.

Have the Company said they can't fit an internal meter after seeing the present entry location or have they just arbitrarily said they can't.

I'm sure you know they are reasonably compact in the scheme of things - It is puzzling to understand their reluctance to fit one.

[RGG]

GasEngineer said:

Another option is to fit your own water meter on your pipework before any other pipes are taken off. They are very accurate. You can then compare to the Water Board readings.

https://www.bes.co.uk/single-jet-cold-water-meter-...

That's an excellent suggestion - evidence to produce if the company continues to baulk at fitting their meter.

[GoodDoc]

RGG said:

Have the Company said they can't fit an internal meter after seeing the present entry location or have they just arbitrarily said they can't.

I'm sure you know they are reasonably compact in the scheme of things - It is puzzling to understand their reluctance to fit one.

An engineer visited, and when Thames Water reported back back they said they wouldn't fit an internal meter.

In their defense (not something I enjoy saying) the job doesn't appear to be an easy one.

This is the area under my desk (which explains the dust, and lazy wiring, this is usually hidden). The rad is on an outside wall, and the there's a bedroom the other side of the partion wall. That boxed in section is where the water supple enters my flat.


...and if you lift that cover, you have the stopcock (the property had been vacant for about 6 months when I bought it, and it took me longer than I care to admit to find it! It's in a very odd place).
Water supply comes up on the left from the property below, exits on the right, goes under the floorboards to the bathroom and kitchen. Adding a meter there is possible, but I think the engineer took one look and decided he didn't want to.


This is a photo of water supply for the flat downstairs (apologies for the photo, it's in a narrow hallway so I used my phone's wide angle lens to get everything in but the extremities are optically screwed up).When they added the studio flat below they tapped into the then unmetered water supply, added a water meter that fed the new flat, and the original copper supply pipe continued up to my flat. Adding a meter there looks very easy, but I'm not sure Thames Water would want the meter for property A to be inside property B.

Philvrs said:

Assuming you have read this? Or maybe this guidance is new?
https://www.unitedutilities.com/globalassets/docum...

That is interesting, assuming Thames Water operate similarly to United Utilities. However this isn't moving a meter, it's installing a new meter either in an awkward place, or in someone else's property (who is happy to do it, but Thames may not be).

[GoodDoc]

RGG said:

GasEngineer said:

Another option is to fit your own water meter on your pipework before any other pipes are taken off. They are very accurate. You can then compare to the Water Board readings.

https://www.bes.co.uk/single-jet-cold-water-meter-...

That's an excellent suggestion - evidence to produce if the company continues to baulk at fitting their meter.

Once I'd worked out what was going on I did make the case to Thames Water that if they subtracted the water usage recorded by the meter for property B from the recorded usage on the meter for properties A + B then I would be happy to pay for A.
They said no pretty quickly, and I can imagine when they developed their billing system there was never a use case for billing a customer based on a calculation using values from two meters. I worked on billing systems for a few years and that kind of scenario would give me 'test case' nightmares.

[RGG]

GoodDoc said:

RGG said:

Have the Company said they can't fit an internal meter after seeing the present entry location or have they just arbitrarily said they can't.

I'm sure you know they are reasonably compact in the scheme of things - It is puzzling to understand their reluctance to fit one.

An engineer visited, and when Thames Water reported back back they said they wouldn't fit an internal meter.

In their defense (not something I enjoy saying) the job doesn't appear to be an easy one.

This is the area under my desk (which explains the dust, and lazy wiring, this is usually hidden). The rad is on an outside wall, and the there's a bedroom the other side of the partion wall. That boxed in section is where the water supple enters my flat.


...and if you lift that cover, you have the stopcock (the property had been vacant for about 6 months when I bought it, and it took me longer than I care to admit to find it! It's in a very odd place).
Water supply comes up on the left from the property below, exits on the right, goes under the floorboards to the bathroom and kitchen. Adding a meter there is possible, but I think the engineer took one look and decided he didn't want to.


This is a photo of water supply for the flat downstairs (apologies for the photo, it's in a narrow hallway so I used my phone's wide angle lens to get everything in but the extremities are optically screwed up).When they added the studio flat below they tapped into the then unmetered water supply, added a water meter that fed the new flat, and the original copper supply pipe continued up to my flat. Adding a meter there looks very easy, but I'm not sure Thames Water would want the meter for property A to be inside property B.

Philvrs said:

Assuming you have read this? Or maybe this guidance is new?
https://www.unitedutilities.com/globalassets/docum...

That is interesting, assuming Thames Water operate similarly to United Utilities. However this isn't moving a meter, it's installing a new meter either in an awkward place, or in someone else's property (who is happy to do it, but Thames may not be).

Okay, thanks for taking the time and effort to post the photos.

I'll make a guess that a time limited slot is allocated for a meter fit and the perceived job didn't fit with that?
Then, because the pipework immediately turns 90 degrees and through the flooring; they were reluctant to go ahead?
I can only suggest being prepared to self modify your pipework so a meter can be then fitted; if the company agree to it?

It's not impossible to do it, nothing is, there's ample space to the right to extend and then drop down through the floor.
It'd best worth calling them and seeing if that would be acceptable.

[RacingStripes]

If stuff really was smart then surely the easiest thing is to bill you for your meter reading minus the flat downstairs reading....