Last autumn, my water pressure at home became extremely low.
This meant my wife and I were unable to shower at home. We are in our 80s and I’m registered disabled, so this was extremely inconvenient.
I contacted our water company United Utilities, and someone was sent out to investigate in October. They said the water supply pipes needed to be replaced.
This took months. It required the excavation of our front lawn, for which I paid £1,776 to a local contractor, as well as an £1,783 fee to United Utilities to replace the pipework.
Unfortunately, these works made no difference to the water pressure in the house.
In April, a second United Utilities engineer visited and said the water meter needed replacing. This was free of charge and fixed the water pressure problem instantly.
United Utilities offered us £300 compensation but I feel this is not enough, given we paid £3,559 and couldn’t shower for seven months. N.M, Stockport
Going without the flow: N.M’s water pressure dropped severely late last year, to the point where he and his wife could not shower at home
Helen Crane, This is Money’s consumer champion, replies: When it comes to life’s minor annoyances, turning on the shower and being confronted with a lacklustre drip instead of a vigorous flow is surely one of the worst.
You and your wife had to run a very slow bath or get your family to pick you up for a shower at their house, which was far from ideal.
You are both elderly, and you cannot walk unaided, which made it all the more difficult. Incredibly, this ended up lasting for seven months in total.
Needless to say, you would have done anything to end this nightmare.
According to United Utilities, the solution was to rip up your front garden and replace the cold water supply pipework.
These are the pipes which deliver water from the public mains pipe, into your home.
Replacing them involves digging a deep trench to access the underground pipes.
You had to pay for this. While water firms are responsible for the mains pipe and the ‘communication pipe’ which runs from the mains to the boundary of your property, the supply pipework is the homeowner’s responsibility according to Ofwat.
This wasn’t only about the money, which as pensioners on low incomes you could ill afford, but also the inconvenience.
It involved your water supply being turned off for extended periods while the pipe was fitted.
And after all that, you turned on the shower to still be met with an unsatisfying drip.
This was bemusing, as by this point almost every part of your water supply system had been replaced.
The only old element remaining was the meter – which, as it turned out, was the problem all along. This was finally identified by a United Utilities engineer who visited your house in April.
He tested the meter and discovered it was ‘heavily restricted’ – meaning it had become blocked with debris, restricting the flow of water through it.
This is worth checking for if you start having water pressure problems, as meters can often be cleared relatively easily. You should be able to blow air through the opening in the meter if it is working properly.
Water companies usually replace meters for free, so had your faulty meter been identified earlier you wouldn’t have paid a penny.
You queried this, but say you were told it wasn’t United Utilities’ policy to check the water meter before recommending pipework be replaced.
Policy or not, it would have saved you months of annoyance.
United Utilities did offer you a compensation payment after you complained, but only of £300 – not even a tenth of what you paid.
You were also told VAT would be deducted from this amount, making it an even more paltry £240.
You declined this offer and contacted me instead.
When I contacted the water firm, it moved quickly to put things right.
United Utilities has agreed to reimburse you £3,559 you paid for the unnecessary work, as well as a goodwill gesture payment of £750.
A United Utilities spokesman said: ‘We have been in touch to apologise to N.M for his experience, it unfortunately didn’t meet the standards we expect to deliver.
‘The meter should have been checked before we recommended relaying the pipework.
‘We will be refunding the money he spent on installing the pipework and will also provide an additional compensation payment as a gesture of goodwill.’
You won’t be showering United Utilities with praise – but at least you are now able to shower.