Water charges in France

[Val_2]

I have no idea what the costs are in the UK these days but for anyone thinking about moving to France and wondering what sort of bills they will be facing,this may be of use. Our six monthly bill came today for the period July - Dec 04 and is a total of 407,46 €. We have used 106 m3 in this period and this for a family of four adults who bath daily and use the washing machine probably 8-10 loads per week. We rarely wash our vehicles and do not use a hosepipe at all in winter and as little as poss in summer. The actual water cost was 343,82€ and the abonnement 63,64€. There is a previous history on the bill for the same period - 2001 = 193m3, 2002=192m3 & 2003=207m3. Our daughter lives away all week so this is why the consommation is less this time. I would be interested to compare with others on this site from different depts and see what they are paying.

[Poolguy]

Val

 

Gosh .. what a shock that is to the cash flow.

I was just curious.. as you very handy and sharp (I suspect) why for example do you and others in France not Collect water of the roof for use in the Garden, washing machine, toilet and the like...?

I don't get it... If you pay that sort of bill every year a storage tank worth perhaps two years bill could easily cut it in half or more.

Call me crazy but it doesn't make any sence to me. All of my projects in the furute will have stored water, not just to save cost but for fire protection as well.

 

Andrew 

[Quillan]

Hi Val,

Wow thats high. Our total bill was 242.40€ for 168 cubic ltrs. I was a bit ticked off as we bay for water used and for water out even though we have a fosse septic. We lived in a gite in Laval which comes under Quillan for the first 3 months and the water there is private i.e. owned and administered by the council (as is the electricity) and both were over double what we pay here and thats 4km down the road. We have 2 washing machines, 4 showers, 4 toilets and 2 baths plus a dishwasher and being a B&B they are used a lot. Fortunatly we can pump water from the river in summer to water the plants and wash the car.

Now we never realised that the cost of utlities varies from one area (or town even) to another and to be honest if it was not for living in the gite would never have known. So if you are looking to buy in France it's worth finding out before you sign as 100m down the road may be considerably cheaper.

[Iceni]

Many people have wells in France and so do not need to store water for the garden. Our well is at the top of our field, as far as possible from the barn. We pump the water into two huge water barrels by the veggy garden as and when we need to and also run  a sprinkler system via the pump. This year we may look at leaky hose if it can take the pump pressure.

Washing machines are another matter and as we are only two people it is not a great expense. Last summer storage tanks would have been quickly emptied as it did not seem to rain for months on end after a terrible wet winter, the year before it did not seem to rain all summer, so again I do not think in this area (Lot) tanks would have been much good. Our well had water in it and we could use it in moderation.

One of our colleagues only has well water but does have to buy bottled water for all cooking etc and another has commune supplied water which is free (yup that is what he says). They even filled their swimming pool with it. As said above by Quillan, you need to check the cost of water as it does vary considerably.

[Teamedup]

Ours are a little more than Val's. But the grey water from our fosse does go into the mains drains. Our water bills used to be cheap, but my that was a long time ago.

Water bills in the bit of the NE of England that we are from are dependant on local rates. We have friends therefore, who pay less rates than us here and less in water rates. We also have friends who pay more than we do here and more in water rates. Personally if I were those in a high rateable property I would have a meter installed and I would have some control over my bills.

What I would like now is to pay my water bill here on a monthly basis, but the nearest we have so far are two hefty bills per year.

 

[Val_2]

One of the reasons why it is so high is the cost of treatment because of the very high level of nitrates and metals in the soil due to very very intense farming methods around here - you should see the beaches sometimes,they resemble green lawns.Our water is pumped up from some miles away for which we also pay. We are on mains here and yes,we do store rainwater in butts and barrells for the summer use. We also have a main station d'epuration which cannot cope with the increased production of waste locally and therefore we are paying for that as well with our commune contributing a quarter of the cost for a new station in the next few years. In fact the collecte et traitement des eaux usees is 25€ higher than the distribution charge on this bill. We also flush the toilet every time as well unlike a lot of our neighbours who will leave their pee in the bowl all day and probably spend more on cleaning agents to get rid of the stains in the long run I think! Anyone on mains will pay a higher cost than properties on fosse septiques.

[zeb]

Ours was 151.44 incl. of TVA for 91 m3. Lots of advantages in living in la Charente!

regards..........helen

[Poolguy]

Gee

I'm still no closer to understanding.

There are normal people in Countries a lot hotter than it gets anywhere in France collecting rainwater of the roof and storing in tanks up to even 10 -20 -50,000 litres. More than enough to run a family or a gite for that matter from one rainy season to the next. Water from the heavens is free and much better quality that bore water for the reasons already posted - agricultural over fertilising.

The construction of a water tank is cheap and can be DIY. If a building has a gutter then you can collect the water. It just seems preposterous to pay that much money for something that should be free - as the gods intended.

I guess I really missing something.

 

Andrew

[Val_2]

Andrew, we would all love to be able to use "free" water whether from directly above or off the guttering but in reality it just isn't possible or practical with the hectic type of lives most of us lead. I, for one want to come in, just turn on the taps and fill my bath,flush my loo and put the washing machine on all day if I wish and I can do that,albeit I will have to pay for it and not have to worry about whether there is enough stuck in a tank outside somewhere. I've never been further than europe on holidays so I know nothing about other systems of piped domestic water and at the end of the day, I do know that my water is clean and treated and is OK to drink rather than have a load of bugs and dirt and acid rain in it. As with anything "supplied" we all have to pay whether we like it or not for the maintenance,continual testings and general delivery and of course the government by way of the tax - thats Western civilisation for you.

[Alexis]

We had the bill for here in December.  Very late.  125.89€ for 74m3.

Still waiting for the others though.  I am beginning to think the other four have got lost as they have never been this late before.  Getting lost is common.

I had better phone up.....

[Wully]

Here in the South West of England we have the highest water rates in the UK.   There are two of us and we live in a three bedroom semi-detached house with a small garden.   Our water bill for the year 2003/04 was £557.00 so last year we changed over to a meter and I have worked out that we will pay no more than £300/00 this year.   We pay by direct debit the amount of £24.00 per month and are usually in credit each quarter when we get the bill.   We have not changed out useage of water in any way;  we still shower/bath, use the washing machine daily and I clean the car once a week.   The reason the water rates in the West Country are so high is because of the amount of beaches that have to be kept clean for all the holiday makers we get

[Miki]

Our water bill arrives twice a year.

Total for the year was 614 m³ and the cost 1073,25 , so we are paying around 1€74 per m³ TTC ...... ouch !!!

The reason for the costs, is to be able to keep the tourists themselves clean !

Wish you hadn't brought it up now Val !

Mind you when you look at it, Helen, Penny, Alexis and us, there are only centimes in the average M³ charged and do remember, the charges are cheaper being on a fosse septique system than being on the mains drainage.

 

[Penny29]

Hi,

Our facture came in today at E226 for 139m sq. We use the washing machine 2/3 times a day minimum, keep the donkeys in water per day (many gallons), baths, showers, loos etc plus we have the builders in at present who are using a lot of water for making render/cement etc.

We do have a well into which we had just paid to have a E1000 all singing, all dancing pump installed then the wretched source dried up (sigh). However, we are having new guttering put around the house and barns next week and the builders are feeding the downpipes into underground channels which will lead straight into the well - this way we will be able to use the pump and well in future for all outdoor gardening needs at no cost. We also plan to pop water butts around our fields and veg plots etc so that we can make use of all that free rain water.

Like the other poster I do like the convenience of ebing able to turn taps on indoors without any major hassle but, at the same time, like to feel we are doing our bit for the environment by recycling as much rain water as possible. If this brings the bills down a bit then so much the better!

 

 

 

[IAN_S]

TU

 

Unless they do things differently up north to down south in the UK I'm not sure you are quite correct. There are no rates now but a council tax that is based on a band in which your type of house fits.(maybe!) My last house was in band C thank God, therefore the council tax 3 years ago was "only" £922.00 say €1309 @1.42. Last years Taxe Fonciere here was €637.

The water was billed by Thames Water and bore no relation to the council tax. I can't find an old bill but it was a lot more than €180 for last year here, including watering the garden and 2 horses.

I realise there are people here with gites or large families etc and will therefore have larger water bills, but like for like I'm sure it's cheaper here than in the UK.

[Teamedup]

My son lives in a house in the NE sorry don't know which band it is, but the lowest, I think his water bill for the year, no meter, is around £240/£250 a year..... which we pay as he is studying. Friends in the region have houses that are in other brackets, sometimes the houses are actually no bigger, but they pay more in water tax. And the higher the 'local tax' payment the higher the water rates are, we have discussed this and we have found no exceptions to this. I don't know how the water companies work these costs out, but they must use some base and I assumed, rightly or wrongly it was upon the 'local tax' that was placed on the property.

I left the UK in 1981 at that time they were called rates. That's what you get when you leave your country, you keep terms that fall into disuse. You end up having no idea what an L reg car is and Year 9 at school makes absolutely no sense what so ever.

Taxe fonciere at 600 odd euro, well both our loal taxes come to over £1000 a year, which is more than quite a few friends pay in the UK. And I know of people here that pay an awful lot more than we do. The view that these bills are automatically lower in France is often way off the mark.

 

[Jeremy]

We have been here for 14 months and still have not had a water bill, (Caen).

We did get a proposed bill, which I queried as it showed a charge for waste water as well as water supplied. We are too low to be on mains drains and have been on Fosse since year dot!

They sent a chap round within 2 days to check out wether we were telling porkys or not and he confirmed there and then that he would be reporting back as NOT on mains drainage..

Since then,4 months, not a peep, so we will wait and see.I will post the cost per CM when I find out.

Jeremy

[Lesbatees]

“Unless they do things differently up north to down south in the UK I'm not sure you are quite correct. There are no rates now but a council tax that is based on a band in which your type of house fits.(maybe!) My last house was in band C thank God, therefore the council tax 3 years ago was "only" £922.00 say €1309 @1.42. Last years Taxe Fonciere here was €637.

The water was billed by Thames Water and bore no relation to the council tax. I can't find an old bill but it was a lot more than €180 for last year here, including watering the garden and 2 horses.”

TU is actually right. In the UK water charges for non metered properties are calculated based on the (former) rateable value of the property. This is because the regulatory authority (Ofwat) has yet to come up with an alternative that would be regarded as fair and equitable by all parties involved. When I last looked at the statistics (which was a while ago now) only 25% of UK properties had a water meter installed, despite governmental and regulatory pressure on the water companies to increase take up of meters.

UK water charges bear very little relation to the actual cost of providing the service, as they are set by the regulatory authority, Ofwat, on a five yearly periodic basis using a fiendishly complicated economic formula known as the K factor to determine by just how much above inflation the water companies may raise prices each year. The equation takes into account maintenance and replacement of equipment and the whole thing is then averaged out to ensure that customers in rural, hard-to-serve areas don’t end up paying over the odds.

By contrast, here in France, metering is virtually universal. Unlike the UK form of privatisation, the system is subject to market forces. Communities own the plant and equipment, and companies tender for operations and maintenance contracts of varying lengths. Hence the wide variation in price per unit of water consumed across the whole country.

That’s my understanding, anyway.

Val (Ex Thames-Water employee)

[Patf]

We had a water meter in SE England and water cost about 80p per cm. The cost of disposing of the waste was twice this so altogether about £2.40 per cm. In our village (Gers) we have no disposal costs so water is about 1 euro per cm, not much less than UK without the sewage charges. But there seems to be lots of difference between departments in France. Our drinking water seems to be of good quality and the taste is excellent. Pat.

[Mpprh]

Hi

we have 3 sources of water for 2 of us, but many visitors :

Rain into water tanks : free

Town water : 1.861 Euro / m3 consumption = 26 m3 (domestic only)

Irrigation water : 0.6 Euro / m3 consumption = 420 m3 (pool + sprinklers + car washing + misc)

Peter

[IAN_S]

TU/Lesbatees

 

Thanks for the info, I stand corrected!

All I can say really is that as far as we are concerned, in our part of 11(Aude), the overall taxes, water, Fonciere etc do seem to be lower than our situation in the UK was where we had a far smaller property and only two in the house both at work during the day.

 

[Kaf]

Here in 22 we also seem to be much better off as far as household utilities go: combined local taxes for 2004 were just under €400 compared with around £1000.00 on a small two bedroom cottage in Oxfordshire when we left in April 2003. (We are now in a converted longère with about an acre of land and two large outbuildings) Our water bill for the first year here was €263 for a consumption of 135m3 which is a bit less than we were paying Thames Water and our electricity for the first year was about the same in euros as our combined gas and electricity for a year was in sterling (with a much bigger house to heat)

Overall for the first year we were here, we compared all the bills and reckoned we saved about 33% over the previous year in the UK.

Karen

[Teamedup]

Ian S

Our water rates used to be cheap here. They really were, but bit by bit they have gone up and up and up. We have already been told that ours will go up again and I'm sure that they will.