The Saga of the Water Meter

In almost every decision on restoring this house, I deliberately tended to adopt the long term solution.  After all, we expect to be living here for a fair while, so the more expensive long term solutions were always worth considering as we would derive the benefit.  One such was the sheepswool loft insulation (see this page); this was quite expensive but it allows the ceilings to breathe, and is so much nicer to work with than the glass stuff which irritates.  Another has been the acrylic secondary glazing (see this page), which has made the house so much more comfortable, and in any case will have paid for itself in two years or less.  Other investments are purely financial, based on the expectation that we will still own the house in ten or more years' time; one such item was the water meter.  We had one in our rented house in 2010, and the experience was that, with just two of us living there, the meter had saved us about £150 per year.  So it was a no-brainer to have one fitted here and, quite naturally, I wanted it done early in the restoration.

I had identified that the mains supply for the house had a stop cock under a plastic cover in the pavement; there were two stop cocks inside the house; the main one was in the hall and fed a flexible (washing machine quality?) pipe which went to the bathroom above and had supplied the cold tank (which had already been removed to the garden!).  The other supply went to the old extension, and I had had the plumber fit a new internal tap so that we could properly attach a hose for the plastering and floor laying.  When that was working I had the plumber feed the other supply through to the kitchen so that it was ready there, but out of the way of planned work.

So, early in 2011 I made an application to Thames Water for a meter.  They sent out a workman (actually a contractor) who looked at everything and asked me if I wanted an internal or external meter.  I said "external if possible", not wanting to have a meter getting in the way of the kitchen floor and plaster work about to be tackled.  Little did I know.  A crew was sent without delay, and they very speedily fitted a meter under the pavement.  OK so far!

There was an amusing small glitch later in the year - when doing the extension we found that the water supply in the old extension actually carried on under the brick wall separating our back gardens and fed our neighbour's outside tap.  This would not normally be a concern, but in fact it had been used as the sole supply for the construction of a £3 million building at the back; this was an arrangement which preceded the sale of next door, and when they purchased it, the builders had an obligation to pay his water bill for a period.  As it happens, the construction had been completed about two months before I asked for the meter, which was fortuitous.  My neighbour admitted that he had been puzzled that his water bill was completely normal!

Having moved in (July 2011), I had a very low bill the next month, followed in February 2012 by a quite reasonable one of £91 for a six month period.  You can imagine my consternation when in August 2012 I received my second six month bill for £274.  Now, the house next door (not our other half but a separate cottage) had been rented out from February 2012, having been empty for over a year; it was not difficult to do a quick bit of detective work and spot that there was no other water main cover in the pavement for 15 metres, and so clearly they had fitted the meter to a shared supply. D'oh!

I can write this now in the cool light of reflection of the last five months.  That time was regularly punctuated with me telephoning Thames Water and getting not much satisfaction.  It took a considerable amount of persistence to resolve this issue, and their first level help desk staff became predictable in their complete lack of ability to achieve anything.   Their typical response was to say that someone would call in 6 working days but nothing happened.  One really stupid thing that someone did was to rescind all their bills back to when the meter was fitted (although the meter readings WERE valid and acceptable to me for almost a year), and then send out a bill for the standard rate for April 2011 to April 2013, so that I owed them £789, payable at once!

If you have the same sort of issue, my top tip is that at the first excuse you say the magic words "I want to escalate this issue".  Once I had been passed on to the "Escalation Department" I had much better service and progress was made, ultimately successfully.  Sadly for me that did not happen until I had wasted nine weeks and many phone calls in trying.  A second top tip is to keep a good record of your phone calls; it really gets the attention of the Manager in the "Escalation Department" when you can name the idiot who failed to do what he promised four months ago, and when you give a string of names and dates they quickly realize that you do indeed have a point.  The other thing to remember is that it is (usually) not the fault of the person to whom you are speaking, but one of their colleagues, so a plaintive sob story with a hint of desperation gets a far better response than shouting at the poor unfortunate one who was unlucky enough to get your call.

The result for me was that in order to have a meter it had to be internal.  Of course, this would have been much easier if it had been done before installing our new kitchen (June 2011), so there was a bit of an issue as to where to put it.  The only sensible place was under the sink, and Thames Water said that their installer needed six inches "all the way around" to fit the meter.  Now, it is natural to fit pipes within two inches of the wall and floor, isn't it?  This is what my plumber had done, and they wanted me to sort out the pipes before they would send someone to fit the meter.  I rather griped at that generous use of space which would have used the entire space underneath my sink for just the meter, and asked if my plumber could fit the meter as well.  This did not seem to be allowable, but they sent a man to look at the possibilities; he actually brought a meter with him, which somehow I persuaded him to leave and I then paid my plumber £96 to fit it right at the back of  the sink cupboard.  Good job!  All up and running.

I have today received their latest bill and I'm £165 in credit.  They wouldn't pay my £96 but the nice young woman has used a low figure for estimating the consumption if I'd had a meter which gave valid readings.  This has (deliberately or inadvertently?) given that sum back to me, so I'll let that drop, as I am really fed up with phoning their hepdesk!

Woolly Loft Insulation

Having completed the wall last week (at last), I found myself curiously relaxed this week.  When the weather is OK I will finish the gates, but they are secure and useable for now, so what to do?  Then I remembered my list (from August) of the tasks that I wanted to do before winter.  Most of these were left from last winter as the extension and the wall have managed to fill most of my time, as well as using most of my energy.  I am painfully aware that jobs like finishing the bathroom and the bedroom wardrobe have literally not been touched since we moved in (July 2011); happily, 'er indoors has been most patient but I'm aware that I can't rely on that indefinitely.

Looking at the weather forecast, it was easy to decide that the loft insulation was top of the list.  A long time ago I opted for a "cold roof" which means laying the insulation onto the joists and ensuring that the loft space above is well ventilated; I bought lots of "Thermafleece PB20" almost TWO YEARS AGO with the intention of laying it as soon as possible after we had plastered the ceilings.  However, things often don't work out as you expect, do they?  This stuff isn't cheap but it is far preferable to fit something like this in an old building because it's breathable, whereas that modern stuff actually prevents the passage of water vapour and it never dries out if it gets soggy. I managed to do about two-thirds of the loft before the onset of winter last year, but left the difficult bit around the hatch until last.  Now it was time to tackle this.

"Thermafleece PB20" is actually 60% British sheeps' wool and 40% recycled polyester which gives it body.  It is much nicer to handle than man-made stuff as it doesn't irritate your skin.  However, I found on the first two occasions I used it that it can irritate your throat (or perhaps that was the dust in the loft); I developed a cough in the following week each time and so I then decided to always use a face mask - this has worked!

It is however more difficult to cut than other modern stuff, and you can't tear it easily.  It comes in compressed rolls and I realized that it was far preferable to try to cut it whilst still compressed.  I used an 8" carving knife for the cutting, with frequent pauses to re-sharpen it on a steel.  I either cut it on the roll by piercing the roll radially many times with the knife and then hacking at the remaining bits, or else by laying it on a board and slicing it whilst also trying to keep it compressed.  Both these were nevertheless somewhat trying procedures, as well as being tiring on your arms.  Annoyingly I found an easier way this week, only about an hour before I finished. I found this by accident as I was cutting off the end a piece which was going to fit up to a joist; I laid it over the joist and put another piece of wood under the insulation so that I was cutting between the pieces of wood.  For some reason cutting down and through the fleece was very easy and effective.  What was a two minute job became a ten second one!

I have laid three layers: a 70mm layer between the joists, and two 100mm layers over the top.  Indeed, this seems a bit "over the top" but the levels of insulation recommended have increased since the days of a simple three inch layer of horrible fibreglass stuff.  The thickness of the top layer can be seen in the photo on the left. Note that in all these photos there is a good gap between the end of the insulation and the roof itself, as ventilation is important (contrary to those who would like us to live in sealed boxes!).

I had a spot of bother when doing this job in 2011 as I wanted to board the area under the roof light.  Unfortunately this was near the central internal wall and the joists on the front of the house were larger than those on the back, so you can imagine the issues I had with relative heights of joists, insulation and board.  That was when I ran out of time and energy over a year ago, but this time I persevered and have succeeded.

The last job I had to do was to fit the loft hatch and add some insulation on that as well, as it was probably a major source of draughts last year.  Hopefully the expense of this stuff will be borne out by the improvement in the warmth of the house and a reduction in heating bills over the duration of our retirement.  You can but hope!