Brexit, for once some facts.

[oyster]

I can't see that. There is a good article explaining the situation with water companies in the news today.
Knee-jerk nationalisers have no idea how the water industry actually works - CapX
Basically, OFWAT sets the target of water loss and pollution for water companies. The more money they invest or waste, the more they get paid. So if it's only up to the water companies, bills will go up very fast. If government wants to freeze prices, then they will have to accept degradation of the pipes.
If Starmer wants to re-nationalise, he'll have to borrow upward of £100 billions and prepare to invest many more billions every year fixing leaks.
Gas is a different thing. I can see government building gas storage facilities, buy the gas and sell it to marketing companies to retail to the public. It's still not a case for re-nationalising though.

So they claim leaks fell - and so they did for a while. Meandering around the horizontal from about 2000 onwards. No continuing improvement.

My personal involvement in a water leak, around 2014, showed me how poorly Thames were operating. My estimate of losses is around 20,000 litres a day. Which might have been going on for months - or years.

Noticed by us - not Thames. Hindsight led us to believe that end of the garden had retained moisture because of the leak rather than rain and good soil!

 

[Woosh]

So they claim leaks fell - and so they did for a while. Meandering around the horizontal from about 2000 onwards. No continuing improvement.

that's precisely their point. OFWAT does not want to set strong targets for fear of pushing up the price they charge customers or worse, force government to pay for the improvement.

 

[Woosh]

Hindsight led us to believe that end of the garden had retained moisture because of the leak rather than rain and good soil!

I thought about saving water, bought some rainwater butts a couple of weeks ago.

 

[flecc]

I thought about saving water, bought some rainwater butts a couple of weeks ago.

About 10 months too late.
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[oyster]

that's precisely their point. OFWAT does not want to set strong targets for fear of pushing up the price they charge customers or worse, force government to pay for the improvement.

The cost, as a customer, of 20,000 litres a day could be tens of thousands of pounds a year.

I'd have thought any efficiently run organisation would be doing something to avoid that sort of cost without any need for the imposition of external targets.

Starting with meters on the biggest pipes in the distribution network, then working down the scale to estates, roads, sections of roads, etc.

Not working in the water industry, I don't know what they actually did. But as a customer, I saw increasing emphasis on getting meters fitted to each property. At best a single property meter would identify a leak there and, eventually, get it fixed. Where a street meter might see a disproportionate water usage and lead them to checking 10, 20, 100 properties and possibly fixing several.

It also had the unfortunate effect of transferring responsibility to the householder for leaks between the meter and the property. But no obvious way for householders to notice such leaks without grovelling down and hoping they could read the dials down the hole. A bit difficult for many to achieve. Of all the meters that should have an indoor display, water is top. We have much more of an idea how much gas and electricity we are using than water.

 

[flecc]

The cost, as a customer, of 20,000 litres a day could be tens of thousands of pounds a year.

£10,824 currently, so just into a ten thousand with Thames Water.

No waste water disposal charge for a leak of course.

But you are right, Thames Water are a very poor company altogether, not just with fixing leaks. They have too many owners, far away foreign companies having no involvement or interest such as in The Netherlands, Canada, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, China and Australia.
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[oyster]

£10,824 currently, so just into a ten thousand with Thames Water.

No waste water disposal charge for a leak of course.

But you are right, Thames Water are a very poor company altogether, not just with fixing leaks. They have too many owners, far away foreign companies having no involvement or interest such as The Netherlands, Canada, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, China and Australia.
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I think the waste water charge would apply. They don't meter waste so they add supply and disposal rates together and apply to the total supplied.

And my first scan of prices showed some areas could reach around £30,000.

 

[flecc]

I think the waste water charge would apply. They don't meter waste so they add supply and disposal rates together and apply to the total supplied.

No, Thames Water bill them separately, the waste water as a percentage of the water supplied and used.

Ground waste water is also separately charged if it goes into the sewage system, but my estate has soakaways so we pay no ground water change for rainwater etc. For that reason they cannot charge us for leaked water becoming ground water so not being used, since we dispose of it ourselves, not via their sewer system.
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[Woosh]

About 10 months too late.
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yes, it rained solid for 4 hours this afternoon.

 

[Woosh]

I'd have thought any efficiently run organisation would be doing something to avoid that sort of cost without any need for the imposition of external targets.

the less efficient the water companies look after our water, the more likely they can bump up the running cost. As they are remunerated a percentage of the running cost, they are not readily incentivised to be efficient.
It's a perverse system that MT government set up in 1989.

 

[oyster]

No, Thames Water bill them separately, the waste water as a percentage of the water supplied and used.

So if they supply 20,000 litres of water that leaks, the bill will include whatever that percentage is. They cannot split "used" from "leaked".

Agreed about ground drainage!

 

[flecc]

yes, it rained solid for 4 hours this afternoon.

Same here, but it was across the middle of the day.
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[flecc]

So if they supply 20,000 litres of water that leaks, the bill will include whatever that percentage is. They cannot split "used" from "leaked".

No, they can and would have to split them, or have a court tell them that and pay all the court costs.

My water usage as a single occupier has been very consistent in all bills year on year for over 54 years, so if a large leak occurred in the buried supply pipe before it entered my home, the difference would be that which became ground water. Since that could not enter their sewer system they could not charge for its disposal. They would have to deduct the excess from the left hand billed total of water supplied BEFORE calculating th percentage of waste they deal with to enter that in the right hand column of charges.

I have a track record here in such matters.

When I first moved here I went to war with the Inland Revenue first and the water company second.

With the Inland Revenue it was to reduce the valuation band on the new build property from C to B, and I won for both myself and all my 54 neighbours.

With the Metropolitan Water Board it was a different issue, that they were trying to charge for ground water, so I proved to then that we sent no ground water to their sewers. That reduced the bills of course, once again for all my neighbours too, so I was a popular chap at the time.

The water leak issue is bit academic anyway for various reasons. As a single spending huge amounts of time way from home and as an environmentalist economical with water anyway, I was the first to have a water meter installed many decades ago so my consistent usage has long been known, saving me large sums over time compared with a standing charge based on a family usage.

Since my home is a flat in a block standing in Management Company grounds, any ground movement or works that damaged the inlet pipe on it's way from the water main to entering my home, causing a leak, would involve the management company or its insurers. That's very different from someone owning the garden etc around their home.
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[flecc]

It also had the unfortunate effect of transferring responsibility to the householder for leaks between the meter and the property. But no obvious way for householders to notice such leaks without grovelling down and hoping they could read the dials down the hole. A bit difficult for many to achieve. Of all the meters that should have an indoor display, water is top.

Now that virtually everyone wno hasn't got a camera has a smartphone, it's actually dead easy:



This set isn't for my home, I monitor the reserve's water usage as well so with photographs have proof to avoid any arguments with the water company SES or with the Council who manage the reserve for the National Trust.

As mentioned before, I have a track record of successfully arguing such issues so make sure I have the evidence.
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[oyster]

Now that virtually everyone wno hasn't got a camera has a smartphone, it's actually dead easy:

View attachment 48571

This set isn't for my home, I monitor the reserve's water usage as well so with photographs have proof to avoid any arguments with the water company SES or with the Council who manage the reserve for the National Trust.

As mentioned before, I have a track record of successfully arguing such issues so make sure I have the evidence.
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You are not accounting for people who can't get down, meters which are covered in muck, busy streets, in the road, have a heavy cover, be difficult to identify from an array of them, etc.

I'd do the same as you - photograph - but it isn't always simple.

 

[flecc]

So if they supply 20,000 litres of water that leaks, the bill will include whatever that percentage is. They cannot split "used" from "leaked".

I actually worked this out based on your suggested 20,000 litres lost through leakage per day.

In my case that would mean they would be charging for the disposal of 56 times my normal total water usage, recorded during the last 31 years in my retirement.

It further means 98.3% of all the water they supplied would be going to ground water from the leak which I dont have to pay for since I have the disposal facility for that.

And of course it would be impossible for me to return 98.3% of that huge total supplied since to do that all the waste would have to be pressurised to almost the same degree as they pressurise the supply to eject it back into their system as it arrived. Either that or I'd have to have a vast storage tank to hold the waste for slower return.

That set of impossibilities alone mean case won.
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[oldgroaner]

This is an amazing breakthrough for Vegan technology

 

[oldgroaner]

So much for Brexit..

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1559944313055989761

 

[oyster]

This is an amazing breakthrough for Vegan technology

The product contains Gellan gum - some of which is produced from lactose which would undermine vegan credentials. Not clear whether they have ignored this, not realised it, or made sure the specific product they use is not made from lactose.

Whatever they do right now, I'd not be at all surprised if at some point they switched supplier and ended up using a lactose version without checking. "Oh - it was cheaper."

 

[oyster]

So much for Brexit..

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1559944313055989761

It was well done - but a bit old now.