No, we’re upgrading our customer’s meters to smart meters for free.

It depends on where your meter is. If its outside and accessible, then you don’t need to be home. If we can’t easily get to it or it’s inside your property, then we’ll need to book an appointment with you. If we’ve written to you about booking an appointment you can do that here.  

If you’re not at home when we upgrade your meter we’ll have turned off your water, so we’ll leave a card through your door with instructions on what to do next.

If you don’t currently have a meter at home but you live in a smart meter area and you’re interested in getting one fitted, you’ll need to be home when we do our initial survey to find the best place to fit it.

If we need to book an appointment with you, the visit will take no longer than 45 minutes with the water being turned off on average about 20 minutes.

We’ll install the new smart meter in the same place as your current one. 

For new meter installations rather than meter replacements, we’ll let you know after our survey visit where the best place to fit your new meter is.

We do offer a meter relocation service for a fee, however we put water meters in the best place to capture all of your household usage.

Nothing, but we’re moving to the new smart meters so that customers can be in better control of what they use, by having better information on what they’re using, and we can spot leaks and manage our network better to meet customer demand.

No. We have a legal obligation to manage and protect the water supply in our region. We’re upgrading meters to smart meters to help support our public interest obligations set out by our regulator which include finding leaks and helping our customers save water.

If you’re having a meter fitted for the first time and you live in an area covered by our smart meter network, we’ll automatically fit a smart meter rather than one we need to read manually.

Our smart meters transmit data in two stages. First the meter communicates with the nearby signal booster every hour. The signal booster is a small box close to the meter which has to be within 2 metres of it to be able to send us your readings. This then transmits the readings every 6 hours to the masts receiving the readings (so we only send information in batches rather than constantly transmitting information).

Yes. Public Health England has advised that the radio waves produced by smart meters do not pose a risk to health. Our smart meters emit fewer radio waves than Wi-Fi devices and are significantly lower than other common items in the home like microwave ovens or mobile phones. The radio waves from a smart meter would represent a very small fraction of the total amount of these waves we come into contact with each day and are well below the guideline limit levels set for the protection of human health.  Our flexnet system transmits on 2 frequencies – Meter to Smartpoint – very short rage 433MHz, then Smartpoint to Mast – long range ~7km on 412MHz.

No, you shouldn’t need to read your meter before or after its upgraded. But if you do need to, you can find out how here.

Once we’ve upgraded your meter, it’ll automatically send us hourly meter readings without us having to send someone to read you meter. 

We’ll use these regular readings to let you know if we think you have a leak at home. If water is being used every hour throughout the day and night, it usually indicates there’s a problem. If we spot this at your property, we’ll get in touch to let you know. And after the upgrade we’ll let you know when you can choose to see your hourly reading information in MyAccount.

Our Customer Privacy Notice has more information about the data we collect, what we use it for and how we look after it. We also have a Smart Metering Privacy Notice which provides more information about smart metering data. You can find both privacy notices here.

Our region is one of the driest and fastest growing in the UK and we have a statutory duty to make sure we can keep the taps flowing for all our customers now and in the future. Hourly readings from smart meters help us find and fix leaks and help our customers save water too.

No, you cannot opt out of the collection of smart meter readings. We automatically collect hourly meter readings because we consider it to be in the public interest, and in the exercise of official authority vested in us, that our water supply is managed in the very best way possible for our future. As the appointed water undertaker for the Anglian region, we are also under a statutory duty to promote the efficient use of water and our smart metering programme is one of the ways in which we do this.

We’ll only share your hourly data with you, as well as our Customer care teams if you choose to. If you choose this option in MyAccount, or over the phone you’ll see an hourly breakdown of your water usage once we’ve updated our systems to show this, which could take a couple of days.

No – unlike smart energy meters our smart meters don’t need a separate display to show the information of how much you’re using. You can quickly and easily see your information online through MyAccount on your smartphone, tablet or computer or through our app.

Yes, your meter is measuring water being used at your household.  You’ll able to see your own usage in a way that’s easy to understand, but you’ll also get personalised hints and tips on how you can use less and save money if you pay measured charges.

The metering data isn’t real-time therefore we won’t be able to know exactly how much water is used in your home for each activity, but you’ll be able to see how much you used hour by hour. There’s a home survey you can complete to help you estimate daily usage by activity such as flushing the toilet, using the bath/shower, using the washing machine etc.

No, the data is updated every 24 hours showing your usage from the previous day, rather than real time.

Yes, you’ll be able to choose between these options:

• The last 3 days hourly usage (if you choose to see hourly usage information)
• Last 28 days as daily usage
• The last 6 months as weekly usage,
• The last 2 years as monthly usage 
• You can also switch values between cubic metres and litres (1000 litres = 1 cubic metre)

Your meter readings will be updated in MyAccount automatically every 24 hours at the end of the day, so there’s no need to read your meter.

The information in MyAccount let’s you to compare your previous month’s usage as well as comparing to similar homes with the same number of people. So, you’ll know if you’re using more than the average in your area. Then we’ll give you hints and tips to help you use less.

If your meter readings show water is being used throughout the day and night, which is normally a sign something is leaking, we’ll get in touch.

Unfortunately not, if there’s high or low demand for water, it still costs the same to treat it and maintain the water supply. Water supply is different from energy where the customer demand for electricity means power stations need to increase output immediately at busy times to meet demand. Water is pumped and then supplied from local water towers and supply reservoirs; we pump water during the day to make sure enough is available locally for the peak demand times.

No, your current billing period will remain the same, but we’ll be able to collect your latest meter reading remotely via our smart network. You can still generate a bill as often as you like with MyAccount and it will automatically use the reading from your meter. If you don’t have an upgraded meter you can still submit a meter reading through MyAccount to get a new Bill.