Does anyone live in a flat with a water meter? One of the properties I am looking at renting has a meter, and the rent of course does not include water. I've always paid the monthly rate whereby you can use as much as you like or the landlord paid for it so I never had to worry.

How much will you be expected to pay monthly/per year? I will be living on my own, and only have a shower, no bath, but there is also a washing machine and I do my laundry at least once a week.

Another flat I have seen I'm a bit apprehensive of as it has electric storage heaters (does this mean you don't have hot water instantly???) What are these things like, apparently they are economical according to the previous tenant, but does it warm up much slower than your regular gas boiler heating?

Can anybody help please??? This is really important as depending on how much all this will add to my expenses I will have to decide which flat to go for!!!

Thanks a lot:-))

I used to live in a flat with a water meter. I only used the shower, not the bath and used the washing machine 2 or 3 times a week.
I paid 12 pounds (no pound sign on this keyboard!) a month direct debit an this was more than enough to cover the water I used.

There are two of us in a flat with a water meter. We use the shower every day, washing machine three or four times a week and we have a dishwasher which goes on every day. We pay £25 a month standing order.

Electric storage heaters work by going on overnight and using "off peak" electricity at a lower cost to heat up large bricks inside them - which is a slow process. However, they are notoriously difficult to regulate. If it's very cold one day and milder the next, the storage heater will still be giving out heat when it's not needed. They're pretty much on or off with nothing in between.

Thanks for all your comments, if anyone can add anuthing else please feel free..the water is not worrying me too much any more, but the heaters don't sound great!

Hi

I live in a flat as well, with the water there's no prob at all, i use to pay 20 quid a month (shower all days, small clothes washing n dish washer) but ..the electricity is a crime !

If u want n advice, 1st look for a shared house (bills inc) if u cant then try to minimize the electricity usage by turning off the heater during the day (just use it 30min to heat the water in the night to use it the next day) and if u have a freezer use it in level 2 thats enough to have your food ok.

Juan

Cheers for the advice, useful stuff! :-))