No water meter on properties or rubbish charges in UK (#false)

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I paid water rates and poll tax in the UK in the 80's. when I wasn't working poll tax was the only one reduced. the rest was paid in full.

Am Chile

Having looked over and read a lot of recent posts-some people have claimed the planned so called free allowance will cover peoples basic needs-well not according to one report in todays indo as a system of a free allowance based on the size of the house is what is being suggested.

The system favoured by the operator is one solely based on the size of the house – rather than the number of people living in it.

Under this system, a family of two adults and three children living in a three-bedroom, semi-detached home would get the same free water allowance as a single person living next door

Irish Water wants the allocation to be calculated based on house size, arguing this is the only feasible way to operate the system.

All houses of a particular size would therefore receive the same allowance, as the number of bedrooms would be taken as an indicator of how many people were living in the house.

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/water-charges-plan-is-unfair-to-families-29503293.html

djpbarry

Am Chile wrote: »

Having looked over and read a lot of recent posts-some people have claimed the planned so called free allowance will cover peoples basic needs-well not according to one report in todays indo as a system of a free allowance based on the size of the house is what is being suggested.

How does that imply peoples’ basic needs will not be met?

Jawgap

Understandable enough - otherwise households will claim they've aunts, uncles, grannies, grandads and great uncle martha living with them ala the Buckets in Willy Wonka....



Quite simply, you can't rely on people to be honest, people will fiddle - and IW's proposal is a consequence of this.

I remember as a young fellah being sent out to assess housing applicants and the only way you could get a straight answer out of people as to how many kids were in the family was to tell them to show you the children's allowance book!

Am Chile

djpbarry wrote: »

How does that imply peoples’ basic needs will not be met?

The family of five in one house-will receive the so called free allowance as the person living alone next door is what is being suggested.

Gleisweiler

I lived in the UK for over 53 years until 5 years ago. Most of the replies are correct in so far as ALL houses must pay water AND sewage charges on top of Council Tax which was originally called Community Charge but referred to by one and all as the Poll Tax. There is some financial help available in the way of grants etc for those on low incomes or unemployed, but I dont know the rates or conditions now. The amount paid is based on the valuation band of the property. Bills include services provided by the local council and in our case, as we lived in Surrey on the border with Greater London a charge for the Greater London Council. I assume that a similar system (except the GLC rate) applies throughout the UK, but with Scotland and Wales now being separate countries, it may be different. Charges are determined by the locality and this is reflected in the property tax bands of A currently £982the lowest, to H currently £3000+ the highest. The stupidity of it is that someone living in a house on the H band will pay, for example, the same as a person or Lord/Lady who live in a country mansion or stately home with lots of rooms, grounds and land. This is because H is the highest band.
When we left we were paying £1700 council tax on a semi-detached. That same band today is £1900+ To date this covers refuse collections but microchipped wheelie bins were issued (free of charge) with the intention of introducing charges at a later date, something the UK government is keen to introduce, but politically the time is not right because of massive voter objections. Recycling sites were also free and large items of furniture, paint, fridges etc could be disposed of here free of charge. Water cost us £70 per month (unmetered) and sewage £55per month. I don't know what these are now. An option introduced some 10 or so years ago was the free installation of water meters. This was ideal for smaller families or folk who lived on their own, but anything where four or more live in the house it was certainly not a good deal. In parts of the south of England, especially on the Isle of Wight, compulsary metering was introduced for all properties some years ago and by all accounts, household water bills increased on average by £400.
The current system is for compulsory metering to be installed, not only in new builds, but when a property is sold or changes hands, as the buyers of our house can confirm. This is done free of charge and meters read electronically from an equipped van travelling pass the house.
BTW great site.

Gleisweiler

Apologies, I forgot to mention that in London and elsewhere the amount charged varies from Borough to Borough and area to area. Some ares such as Westminster are actually cheaper than some boroughs but the H band maximum in all parts of the UK is £320,001
Richmond has A at 1060+ and H at £3180+ while Westminster has A at £453+ and £1361. big differences.

djpbarry

Am Chile wrote: »

The family of five in one house-will receive the so called free allowance as the person living alone next door is what is being suggested.

Yes, but nowhere does it say that the allowance will be insufficient for the family of five, does it?

Godge

Am Chile wrote: »

Having looked over and read a lot of recent posts-some people have claimed the planned so called free allowance will cover peoples basic needs-well not according to one report in todays indo as a system of a free allowance based on the size of the house is what is being suggested.



http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/water-charges-plan-is-unfair-to-families-29503293.html

That is not what the article says.

Firstly, it says that there is a debate between Irish Water and the Minister over how the free allowance should be calculated, by size of house as a proxy for number of people in the house or by actual number of people in the house.

Secondly, it does not say anywhere how much that free allowance will be. It is possible that whatever way you calculate it, you might need 15 people living in a 3-bedroomed house before you run out of basic need for each.

Thirdly, nobody has yet said what basic need is. Enough to drink? - yes, definitely. Enough to keep oneself clean? - I think so. Enough to water the garden twice a week? - I don't think so. Enough to run a dishwasher? - isn't that a luxury?.

Alun

Godge wrote: »

Enough to run a dishwasher? - isn't that a luxury?.

I thought it was generally accepted that using a dishwasher actually used less water than hand washing?

Victor

It's quite simple, demand PPS number from people so they can avail of any allowance.

djpbarry

Alun wrote: »

I thought it was generally accepted that using a dishwasher actually used less water than hand washing?

Depends on how it's used. People are inclined to use dishwashers and washing machines when they are less than full, whereas you'd generally use the one basin full of water to wash all your dishes, pots, pans, cutlery and whatever else. Also, since the advent of automatic washing machines, people are inclined to change their clothes more often, so the saving in water is more than offset by the increase in laundry to be done.

SpaceTime

Modern dishwashers actually genuinely use less water than hand-washing by quite a significant amount. Older models weren't nearly as efficient.

A modern Bosch / Siemens machine will wash your dishes using only 6 litres of water! (That's for the entire cycle, not just the wash!)

That's about two kettle fulls. Or one basin full in total, including the rinsing cycles! It's significantly less water than you'd use to hand wash them when you include rinsing and the results are much better too.

Energy consumption's also significantly less than heating the water for hand-washing.

Washing machines are also vastly more efficient in terms of water usage than their 1970s/80s equivalents and definitely a lot more efficient than handwashing.

The important thing to save water, is to fill the machine fully and not to do small washes.
However, the machines will generally all adjust the water usage according to the amount of clothes in the drum (the more water absorbed, the more will be added).

A lot of people make the error of thinking that the clothes need to be seen to be splashing around in loads of water. The process in a modern machine actually works by basically pouring water though the clothes. Most machines use the drum surface / paddles to basically ladle water through the clothes as the drum turns and the weight of the wet clothes themselves to actually squeeze the liquid through.


So, while you won't see all that much water in there, it's actually being very effectively forced through the clothes.

For rinsing, the main aim is to squeeze the soapy water out and then efficiently rinse it out with relatively small quantities of water. So, again having deep water rinses isn't really necessary.

That's why wash cycles take a good bit longer than they used to years ago or than American top-loaders but it's also much less harsh on your clothes so they last longer and it's vastly more energy efficient.

On very short cycles, the machine works much less efficiently and runs with more water usually so you have to load it lightly for it to be effective.
You're better off doing a fully loaded longer cycle with the drum packed tight if you want to save energy and water.

The other thing is that because the machines now use so little water, you need less detergent. You're effectively just pushing a very concentrated pool of detergent-laden water through your clothes.

Also, modern detergents are pretty sophisticated and rely on various cocktails of enzymes and complicated surfactants to break down and remove dirt. So, again you shouldn't need the excessively high temperatures or so much water and aggressive agitation to remove stains.

Same goes for dishwashers, they used to rely on very hot water and bleach to clean dishes. They now use more moderate temperatures and a cocktail of enzymes which is *FAR* more environmentally friendly.

...

You can save a lot of water and energy by just using better appliances!!

For example, in the USA a top loader would use 152 litres / load of about 8/9 kg of laundry.
A modern European front loader doing a similar size load does it with about 50 litres!

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I'd say quite a few Irish households will get a bit of a wake up call though.

Our neighbours water their garden and wash their car about three times a week!! Must be hundreds and hundreds of litres of wasted water.