Querying Utility Bills

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Big Boy
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Querying Utility Bills

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My water bill this month has come in at a massive 49 Baht (cheaper than usual - usually just under 100 Baht). My Thai neighbour who is tighter than the proverbial duck's backside when it comes to using water or electricity has been hit with a massive 4,564 Baht water bill. I would guess she uses less than half of what we use.

She has been to the water company to query it, and they are simply saying the bill has to be paid.

IMHO it has to be a faulty meter (I haven't noticed my foundations being washed away by what would have to be a massive leak). Still the water company say it has to be paid.

Happily its not my problem, but what do we, as Farangs, do if our meter goes wrong? I would have thought it would be the water board's responsibility to at least check it out - they're not showing any interest. As a minimum, I would have thought they could install a second meter to check the meter's accuracy. It must be obvious that an old lady isn't going to possibly use that much water in a month. Even if all taps were left running for the duration, I would have thought 4,564 Bahts worth of water improbable.

Meters must go wrong, and I'd like to know what to do if it happens to me. If they don't sort it, the problem will become compounded month on month. Even if sorting falls to the owner, something has to be done. There must be a procedure, or is this a case of TIT?
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Re: Querying Utility Bills

Post by hhfarang »

Even with a leak, it would have to be massive to run up a bill like that. We had a continuous leak that caused our monthly bills to increase by 500 baht once, but I don't see how it's possible for a bill to be that high. I'm with you. It has to be a faulty meter. Our meter was stolen once and we had to pay for the replacement and if I recall correctly it was less than the cost of the monthly bill you mentioned. The person may be better off just buying a new meter to see if that fixes the problem.

Edit: I just spoke to my wife about this and she said it is a case of TIT as the water company offered no help for us with any queries when we had a leak or when our meter was stolen. She also said that you probably cannot just go and buy a new meter as I suggested; that the old one would have to be disconnected, hidden and claimed as stolen. :roll:

By the way, the electric company did come out and do a requested audit on our usage when we got a 17k+ bill, so they seem to be better than the water company at customer service.
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Re: Querying Utility Bills

Post by Pacman »

Do you have swimming pool with automatically refill water into it? It might be another issue that you miss out! My friend used to have that kind of problem and the end of the day he found that his overflow tank was leak and he had paid the big bills for a few months before he found its problem.

Otherwise you should ask some Thai to notice them at the water department office, they will send some guys to do an inspection for the leakage. But as you might know, it's probably take a century before they come out to see you.

Good luck.
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Re: Querying Utility Bills

Post by Big Boy »

No, there's no swimming pool. As I've said, she's tighter than a duck's backside regarding water usage. Shower, toilet, dishes and washing machine I would guess is the limit of water consumption next door.
I just spoke to my wife about this and she said it is a case of TIT as the water company offered no help for us with any queries when we had a leak or when our meter was stolen. She also said that you probably cannot just go and buy a new meter as I suggested; that the old one would have to be disconnected, hidden and claimed as stolen. :roll:
That's outrageous, but probably the answer I expected. It's no wonder she's been in tears for 3 days now, TIT, and there's nowhere to turn. Here's hoping my meter doesn't go faulty.
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Re: Querying Utility Bills

Post by HHTel »

This happened to us a few years ago. From a usually under 100B bill we suddenly got one for several hundred. Checked with the water company who looked at our history and came out to see us. They diagnosed a faulty meter. We had to pay for the new meter (around 4 or 500 baht) and they accepted 100B to clear the current water bill. Never had a problem again. I'm sure it comes down to WHO you deal with. Some Thais always 'know better' than their bosses!
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Re: Querying Utility Bills

Post by Nereus »

Like most Government departments, there is always some d--head that thinks they personaly own the department.
This may not work, but ask a Thai speaker to call "K. Saeng" (Visut). He works at the water department, and he also moonlights at his own shop. He may not be able to help, but it may be worth 2 or 3 hundred Baht to have him come and check it out. :cheers:
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Re: Querying Utility Bills

Post by Big Boy »

Thanks for that Nereus. She's out at the moment trying to get it sorted. If she gets nowhere today, I'll pass those details on.
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Frank Hovis
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Re: Querying Utility Bills

Post by Frank Hovis »

It should be easy enough to go and have a look at the meter, it should be whizzing round with enough speed to become airborne at that rate.
It's normal (I think) to have a stopcock both sides of the meter, turn off the consumer side and see if the meter still spins, if it does then the meter is faulty and she should contact the water dept, not about her bill, but about a faulty meter.

Also, if she has last months bill it should be easy to compare the numbers on the bills to the numbers on the meter; it's possible the meter reader got the numbers wrong on the bill.
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Re: Querying Utility Bills

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Yes. it could go airborne. The water board don't want to discuss (no idea what's happened today yet).

The meter reading was correct.
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Re: Querying Utility Bills

Post by Condoking »

We had a problem a while back with the water meter spinning round. On checking I found it was air going through not water, possibly due to repairs somewhere in the water main and me venting yhe line for them. I shut the valves off either side then a couple of hours later the air had vented out and all returned to normal. Next doors wasn't spinning maybe because my ballcock was open and theirs shut. Fortunately our bill was not much difference so didn't have to buy too much air.
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Re: Querying Utility Bills

Post by PJG »

We had the same problem a couple of years ago. Meter was changed but problem still remained as the meter was running wild with all the house taps turned off. Turned out to be a leak in the plastic pipework somewhere under the house. The water company do not have the equipment to locate the leak without digging out all the pipework.

Problem solved by re-running the pipework round the house and by-passing the area where we suspected the leak to be. Fortunately this worked as there was no obvious sign of leakage and it would have been a very big job digging up under the house to find the leak.

Hear similar stories about water leakage in plastic pipes under houses quite often. Guess plastic is not the best material to be buried in concrete.
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Re: Querying Utility Bills

Post by richard »

PJG wrote:We had the same problem a couple of years ago. Meter was changed but problem still remained as the meter was running wild with all the house taps turned off. Turned out to be a leak in the plastic pipework somewhere under the house. The water company do not have the equipment to locate the leak without digging out all the pipework.

Problem solved by re-running the pipework round the house and by-passing the area where we suspected the leak to be. Fortunately this worked as there was no obvious sign of leakage and it would have been a very big job digging up under the house to find the leak.

Hear similar stories about water leakage in plastic pipes under houses quite often. Guess plastic is not the best material to be buried in concrete.
Had exactly the same problem a few years back and solved by overland piping. No recourse from the water authorities
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Re: Querying Utility Bills

Post by charlesh »

Yeap cheap plastic piping with dodgy glue compounded by uneven pressure put in by untrained workers, air "embolisms", dirt and other suspended matter can all lead to the dodgy meter going haywire then of course there are the bivalves which seem quite contented living in the system. The overland piping suggestion has its problems with the possibility of inadvertent cracking from hits and the degradation from UV however at least you can see and repair.
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Re: Querying Utility Bills

Post by Big Boy »

To put closure(ish) on this one, my neighbour kept hammering away at the water company, and they eventually agreed it was 'probably' a faulty meter. They replaced it for 1500 Baht and scrapped the 'crazy' bill.

I took a look at her new meter yesterday while she was out because I could hear her water pump going crazy. It was doing a good helicopter impression again. My conclusion - definitely not the meter.

However, TIT - there's a man installing yet another new meter as I type :?
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