Recently, I have discovered that we have been overcharged for our water for the last 10 years. It isn't by much, perhaps £1 every time we receive our bills. I didn't realise this because of the fact that they are so difficult to understand, however one day, just on a whim, I sat down and worked out how much we use, how much the metre says we use, and how much we have been charged. The numbers on our statement were higher than our metre leading me to believe that an estimated reading had been used, and the workings out of the charge were incorrect. I pointed this out and we were given account credit (NOT a refund even though we wanted one, but never mind, at least we get free water for a while) to cover the difference that we've paid over the years. Now, we are paying just £5 a month until the credit has cleared. So don't leave it to chance, always check all of your bills to make sure that you're only paying for the things that you actually use!
I'm surprised you're paying anything at all. How long will you only be paying £5 a month for? They used estimate readings on me and now my bills are only £13 too. But it wasn't too much different to what it should have been as I use around £17 per month anyway.
I'm not on a metered water system, but I'm just wondering how you went about measuring your actual water usage? I always wonder this for our hydro (electricity) bills. I've had instances in the past where the meter stops working and by law what they do is charge you an average amount of the past few months. It sucks when it happens in the summer and they include your winter averages to get their number.
