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Post by armada on Jun 20, 2007 11:16:42 GMT
Having just had a chat with Kent water, I have been informed that a water meter is to be fitted and will cover the whole property as opposed to just the house. This means that the huge volumes of water that the animals on here drink will be metered. I was possibly mistaken in thinking that agricultural properties ie; the farm part excluding the house was exempt from metering but was just charged a standing charge and rateable value amount. We do collect water in butts, but some of the more fussy residents here will not touch it. Am i resigned to paying through the nose for metered water, which I may add is the result of these incompetent companies blaming the user for wasting water, when in actual fact it is themselves failing to maintain underground pipes.
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Post by hormonal on Jun 20, 2007 11:22:47 GMT
What animals do you have? Are they just horses, in which case they are not classed as 'agricultural'.
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Post by armada on Jun 20, 2007 11:32:23 GMT
The property is registered as 'agricultural' with the council. They wanted us to change it to leisure, but as it is'nt currently law for you to have to do that, we did'nt. I dont suppose a couple of sheep count do they? I dont have room for cattle (and dont want them anyway). The girl at the water board told me most farms these days have water meters, but obviously that is a statement I will be checking thoroughly.
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Post by faberge on Jun 20, 2007 11:41:32 GMT
Some years ago I kept my horse at livery on a farm, the house was on a meter, however, the farmer had a spring/well in the front of the property that he pumped water from to fill bowsers, this is what we used for the horse, he would not let us use hose pipes!! as this would have run from the mains i.e metered. The use of this well kept his costs down..... did'nt matter how inconvenient it was to the liveries when water ran out because the bowsers needed filling, what hard work it was washing muddy horse legs in the winter! Not much help probably, other than to say it had been a dairy farm and it did have a meter
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Post by marymary on Jun 20, 2007 12:36:03 GMT
We are on a farm and we have a meter we pay £100 a month gets more expensive in summer when we water the school nearly every day
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Post by armada on Jun 20, 2007 14:17:29 GMT
£100 a month is what I thought it would go up to, dont know where I got the idea agriculture was exempt from, we have a huge pond fed by a freshwater spring, so may go into getting a tank and a big pump, may well save me money over the longer term. I would'nt mind but for two years there have been two permanently leaking underground pipes on the lane and they have done sod all to repair them. Thanks for clearing that one up for me everyone!
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Post by marymary on Jun 20, 2007 14:26:47 GMT
We get our electric cheaper just remembered on some sort of business rate as we are a farm.. We decided to have some water butts sort of thing dotted about just not got round to it yet!
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