The Accidental Smallholder Forum

Smallholding => Buildings & planning => Topic started by: Womble on February 24, 2016, 02:45:49 pm

Title: Are you on metered water in Scotland? If so, read this!!
Post by: Womble on February 24, 2016, 02:45:49 pm

Folks,

This may not be relevant to many, but I think it important to spread the word!

For strange historical reasons, our house has a water meter fitted. This is supplied by Business Stream, who are the business arm of Scottish Water. Until now, we have been paying just over £200 per year for our 50m3 annual usage. Since I believe this is a little bit less than we would have paid via council tax, I never gave it any more thought until now.

However, I just found out that we are now able to choose our water supplier, just as for electricity. The long and the short of it is that we've just changed over to Castle Water (http://www.castlewater.co.uk/). Their annual bill for the same service comes in at just over £100, which is a saving of around 50%! :thumbsup:

So, I know this will only apply to a few people, but if you're on a water meter in Scotland, do shop around (http://www.scotlandontap.gov.uk/suppliers/), as it could yield a significant saving!

Title: Re: Are you on metered water in Scotland? If so, read this!!
Post by: goosepimple on February 24, 2016, 05:24:36 pm

Thanks for that womble!

Title: Re: Are you on metered water in Scotland? If so, read this!!
Post by: Rupert the bear on February 24, 2016, 07:51:20 pm

How long have you been with them ?  what about the waste water element and surface water charge?  as we don't pay this with Business stream as we have our own septic tank

Title: Re: Are you on metered water in Scotland? If so, read this!!
Post by: Womble on February 24, 2016, 10:39:24 pm

It's just gone through this week Rupert. All pretty straightforward - just a contract and direct debit mandate to sign, and they did the rest. Obviously the stuff that comes out of the taps is the same - the only change is how it's paid for.

You may be able to find a better deal than Castle Water of course, hence the link to all the possible suppliers via the government website link above. We went with Castle because they returned my Email (others didn't), and were helpful in answering my questions. The key thing for pricing is the standing charge for just having the meter. With Business Stream, this was making up more than 2/3 of the total bill, so switching to a supplier with a lower standing charge was always going to be a better deal for us.

We also have a septic tank and don't pay any waste water charge or surface water charge (actually what is that anyway?).

Title: Re: Are you on metered water in Scotland? If so, read this!!
Post by: doganjo on February 26, 2016, 09:24:38 pm

and here was me thinking that we had so much of the stuff we could give it away  :innocent: