Christchurch high user water charges 1 July 2022

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1692 posts

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#3050729 16-Mar-2023 11:26

Silvrav:

and I am still thankful the previous owners didn't connect the house and we will keep it this way - I hate dealing with council and the less I have to the better....even looking at now going solar and bin free.... anyone know how I can get them remove rates from my property 🤣

As a free human person living as a sovereign being you could declare your home to exist under admiralty law, then you'd just need to pay a mooring fee for it.

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Scott3

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#3050730 16-Mar-2023 11:48

[edit] - didn't notice this was an old thread, will leave my post below anyway.

For OP, sound clearly like there is either a metering error, or you have an undetected leak.

In additon to the toilet's, find where the drain for your hot water cylinder (if you have one) is, and check it is not leaking (ours is a copper pipe running into one of our waste traps). Can also read the meter, go out for a few hours, and see if the meter is reading the same when you get back.

I assume you can ask the council for the actual meter reading's. If they are no where near the current reading in your meter, that would flag an issue.

tdgeek:

A bit of pushback here in the media

https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/131482567/definitely-not-residents-refuse-to-pay--stupid-excess-water-charge-in-christchurch

My opinion, and yes I'm ChCh based:

We have no lack of water issues, we can have reduce water pressure when too many use water in high Summer so we have had alternate day restrictions.

Water rates here are just a revenue exercise

Shared meters while a valid issue is a very small number

So gardeners and those that like a nice lawn are penalised. I expect vege gardening is on the rise these days due to inflation/storm affected vege prices

If the excuse is a need to add more water revenue for water works, well, all of us use water, so add a water levy on everyone

That article feels like it is satire.

Even has a photo of the subject holding a hose with an extremely lush lawn in the background.

The excess charge they have been hit with is comically small. $45/ quarter, especially given they are operating commercial accommodation (via a short stay website)

The demand for the money to be refunded when they use less in winter is amusing two. It is use at peak times of year that is the key cost driver for water utilities.

The shared meter complaint seemed fair, until you hit the bit of the article where there is going to be targeted replacement with individual meters for the 194 properties who were spared an excess charge due to the presence of a shared meter.

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As somebody who has had metered water for as long as I cam remember (and metered from the first liter, no free allocation), this seems comical. In Auckland (a less drought prone city than Christchurch), we pay per liter substantially more than the Christchurch overage rates.

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As a bigger picture thing, Having metered water absolutely makes sense. As noted in the article, water consumption has going down by about 10%, as residents change how they use water. Given the very low cost of excess water charge's, I think there is a decent change these changes are things are not things that have an impact on quality of life, and instead are just people stopping using water trivally. I.e. turning the water off when doing the soap bits of washing the car, rather than leaving the hose running on the ground.

ockel

2031 posts

Uber Geek

#3050731 16-Mar-2023 11:51

$1.35 for a 1,000 litres of water. Complaining about something that is vastly undervalued. Aucklanders pay $1.825 per 1,000 litres. Subsidising your neighbours garden and lawn through bulk water charges hidden in your rates makes no sense. There are plenty of compelling studies that show usage charges change behaviour in positive ways - if you know the cost of something (and most people dont) then you actually consider its value.

If the couple quoted used all of their 1,000 litres of water a day just to water their plants it cost them $1.35 to water them - think about that. Only $1.35. Its not going to stop people from planting veges (consider the alternate cost of buying them first). Its not going to stop people from washing their house or having a swimming pool. Flushing the toilet will cost 1.6c (for an older toilet). Are you really going to not flush the toilet after finishing that coffee you paid $5 for???

And anyone thinking that water charges arent going to increase (either under Three Waters or any other alternative) is dreaming. Even if they doubled in 10 years (thats 7% pa) its still only $2.70 for a 1,000 litres. Maybe you'll not buy bottled water at the supermarket this week to pay for your months water use.......

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rugrat

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#3050732 16-Mar-2023 11:51

I was meaning to update council came around in December.

They found I was right and meters have changed over.

So in some cases people could be paying other peoples bills. Most three month periods my neighbour is below $25 so won’t be charged but one was over 1000 litres a day so would be in the low $40.

Depending on the period averaged can effect the average usage.

If they can have the Chinese taking millions of litres a day, then I believe the whole thing is just revenue gathering.

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2022/07/court-of-appeal-overturns-consent-allowing-bottling-companies-to-extract-millions-of-litres-from-christchurch-aquifers-to-sell-to-china.amp.html

The above article says it has been stopped by a court decision but I note it wasn’t the council that fought to protect Christchurch water.

”Environment Canterbury had allowed Cloud Ocean Water and Rapaki Natural Resources to extract 8.8 million litres of water each year.”

“

There has been a small but active group called the Aotearoa Water Action group that took the battle right through the courts.

They lost in the High Court but now have won in Wednesday's Court of Appeal decision.”

And it says most of the water was bound for China.

Scott3

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#3050733 16-Mar-2023 12:06

Silvrav:

We live out on the banks of the peninsula

we have a septic tank that's a pain sometimes

we have spring water feed with a feed tank behind our house on stilts

we have low water pressure inside the house

have to replace 3 filters every 6 months

there is a water and sewer connection right outside our property convenient installed for us by council

and I am still thankful the previous owners didn't connect the house and we will keep it this way - I hate dealing with council and the less I have to the better....even looking at now going solar and bin free.... anyone know how I can get them remove rates from my property 🤣

The typical dealing with the council for water is minimal. My water bill is on autopay, and I have only had to contact them once in the last decade (discharge pipe on the meter came off, seen as it was in the meter box, they fixed for free within hours).

But having an onsite spring is awesome, so I can see why you would want to use that.

Regarding power, this is nothing to do with the council. You can phone your power company and asked to be disconnected at anytime. Decent off grid solar power setups can be quite expensive though (and mean that power will be in short supply in bad weather in the middle of winter, unless you have a genset too), so the vast majority of people with solar go grid tie. Obvious exception is where a new build house is going to cost say $100k to get power run to it. Can buy a sweet off grid setup for that.

On bins, my council splits out the cost of these from general rates, so I assume it could be canceled, and rates reduced by that amount (around $300 per year). But I find the service great value.

Oblivian

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#3050734 16-Mar-2023 12:12

I'm guessing a few hadn't considered the water sources before comparison and mentioning their costs to other regions etc.

North island. Rivers, containment, storage, movement, processing, movement, piping, house.

Canterbury. Mountain aquifer, Borehole in suburb, monitoring plant (chlorination check), house.

We don't have the similar infrastructure and accounting going on you may expect.

Scott3

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#3050737 16-Mar-2023 12:20

rugrat:

I was meaning to update council came around in December.

They found I was right and meters have changed over.

So in some cases people could be paying other peoples bills. Most three month periods my neighbour is below $25 so won’t be charged but one was over 1000 litres a day so would be in the low $40.

Depending on the period averaged can effect the average usage.

If they can have the Chinese taking millions of litres a day, then I believe the whole thing is just revenue gathering.

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2022/07/court-of-appeal-overturns-consent-allowing-bottling-companies-to-extract-millions-of-litres-from-christchurch-aquifers-to-sell-to-china.amp.html

The above article says it has been stopped by a court decision but I note it wasn’t the council that fought to protect Christchurch water.

”Environment Canterbury had allowed Cloud Ocean Water and Rapaki Natural Resources to extract 8.8 million litres of water each year.”

“

There has been a small but active group called the Aotearoa Water Action group that took the battle right through the courts.

They lost in the High Court but now have won in Wednesday's Court of Appeal decision.”

And it says most of the water was bound for China.

Good to know the situation is sorted.

On water bills, Better to consider that you are paying for the service of having the water treated, delivered to your house via a large network of pumps and pipes.

Yes, water bills are revenue gathering, but the service need's to be paid for somehow. Alternative is to include unlimited water in rates, but that leads to a lot of wastage.

In terms of allocating scarce natural water resources, this country does have a lot of room for improvement. Bottling operations get a lot of hate, but they are fairly small fry in the scheme of water use.

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tdgeek

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#3050965 16-Mar-2023 19:24

It does seem to be:

1. Being precious

2. Valid

k1w1k1d

1519 posts

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#3050971 16-Mar-2023 19:57

Looks like we have used 981 litres/day for 105 days according to council web site. Haven't received the bill yet but expect it to be about $38. Not worth worrying about and will just pay it when it arrives.

I now take a photo of the meter every Sunday and enter the reading into a spreadsheet to keep track of our usage. I keep the photo to use if the council meter reader enters the wrong number into his device. I believe there used to be errors when power meters were manually read.

The council have said that there are about 25,000 shared meters but only 194 would have resulted in a bill being sent out. The 194 would be when the average daily usage for all the properties on the shared meter was above 900 litres. I wonder how many high users got a free ride because their low usage neighbours brought the average usage down?

tdgeek

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#3051021 16-Mar-2023 20:39

I might grow my veges on the berm and let the rest go brown!

On a serious note ive mitigated what I can, lawns, gardens and vege gardens. Bill of $83 or so, who cares. Its the principle. If ChCh was fed by lakes and dams all which had to be highly processed then fine.

Charge all ratepayers a solid separate bill, and the horrible exceeders more. The fact is we have no water supply issues, nor complicated and expensive ways to extract it

boosacnoodle

963 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3051024 16-Mar-2023 20:50

Around 4% of households in Christchurch are using close to 25% of the water by volume - this is just not sustainable. In our household we use very little water - despite watering our lawn and vegetables - well under the chargeable threshold. It is absolutely possible to do so. Nothing to do with revenue gathering.

We have areas of our city that routinely lose some of their water pressure on hot days. The worst case scenario is there is a fire near your house and they simply can't pump enough water to be able to extinguish it or perhaps we get another nightmare scenario where water pressure drops so low that water starts to back flow and the supply becomes contained causing thousands to get sick. Would you reconsider then?

Walk around anywhere at night and you will still see people watering their "lawns", but in reality most of this is going straight into the drain on the roadside. People even water their lawns at 1 PM - the hottest time of the day - so most of it evaporates. This suggests it is priced much too cheaply. Smart meters may, in the future, be able to allow for peak capacity charging but I would think this is quite some time away.

rugrat:

If they can have the Chinese taking millions of litres a day, then I believe the whole thing is just revenue gathering.

There are dozens of brands available in NZ, all using locally sourced water, but you chose to point out the Chinese one specifically? Not sure what them being Chinese owned has to do with anything. I would far rather not have Nestle taking our water, for example. Awful company.

In the case of most bottling companies, they used their own pumping equipment so don't have to pay for water (same as anyone else). If you had your own well / pump, you wouldn't have to pay either.

Oblivian

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#3051039 16-Mar-2023 21:59

In the case of most bottling companies, they used their own pumping equipment so don't have to pay for water

Tap the same aquifers as everyone else. But often use their own bore equipment, and obtain testing and permit or resource consent for metered use. And also costs for commercial premises

In the case of the aforementioned they moved into an ex wool scour and processing/Washing plant. Who happened to have their own onsite bore. And got the site, building and what they thought included said resource consent included.

When the consent was limited for permitted use. Which was washing wool. Not bottling and selling/exporting offshore.

Wheelbarrow01

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Chorus

#3051057 16-Mar-2023 23:38

tdgeek:

A bit of pushback here in the media

https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/131482567/definitely-not-residents-refuse-to-pay--stupid-excess-water-charge-in-christchurch

My opinion, and yes I'm ChCh based:

We have no lack of water issues, we can have reduce water pressure when too many use water in high Summer so we have had alternate day restrictions.

Water rates here are just a revenue exercise

Shared meters while a valid issue is a very small number

So gardeners and those that like a nice lawn are penalised. I expect vege gardening is on the rise these days due to inflation/storm affected vege prices

If the excuse is a need to add more water revenue for water works, well, all of us use water, so add a water levy on everyone

A small number of shared meters? Over 25,000 is not a small number is it?

They should have kept their mouths shut about the AirBnB thing - that has not helped garner them any sympathy at all. One would think that if they are paying tax on their AirBnB earnings, then the excess water usage becomes a tax deduction, along with a portion of their entire rates bill, insurance, power etc. End of discussion.

If anything, they've now brought their accommodation business to the attention of council (and/or IRD), and I am sure they will be looking into it now. Under Christchurch City Council bylaws, they need a resource consent if 6 or less guests occupy the entire property unhosted (ie if the owners vacate while guests are staying) - no matter how few nights per year they might rent it out for. If it's more than 60 nights/year or over 6 people then it's a discretionary activity subject to full audit of impact to neighbours, parking etc.

I would have thought that my house would be a reasonably high water consumer as I love my long showers and I empty/refill our spa pool once every few months. But the CCC website shows we average about 320-370 litres per day which is considered low use. Very surprised. We are on a standalone property so not likely our meter has been mixed up with the neighbours (who both show low use anyway). I must say I do not garden or even water my lawn so that must explain it. This also means I emit fewer carbons through less frequent lawn mowing. Doing my bit for the environment 😎

I don't disagree with you about it being a revenue exercise. As others have said, we have natural aquifers directly under the city so the costs for administering catchments, treating and distribution borne by other cities simply do not apply to Christchurch.

Handle9

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#3051060 17-Mar-2023 00:31

Scott3:

tdgeek:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/131482567/definitely-not-residents-refuse-to-pay--stupid-excess-water-charge-in-christchurch

That article feels like it is satire.

Even has a photo of the subject holding a hose with an extremely lush lawn in the background.

My very stereotyped reaction was that the picture of the people concerned looked exactly like the type of entitled dicks they sound like.

nickb800

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#3051066 17-Mar-2023 06:35

Oblivian: I'm guessing a few hadn't considered the water sources before comparison and mentioning their costs to other regions etc.

North island. Rivers, containment, storage, movement, processing, movement, piping, house.

Canterbury. Mountain aquifer, Borehole in suburb, monitoring plant (chlorination check), house.

We don't have the similar infrastructure and accounting going on you may expect.

I think you missed piping for Canterbury :)

There's a lot more to the comparison. While the raw water source is closer to the users in Christchurch, the decentralized nature of a bore in each suburb brings different costs.

Firstly, gravity is not on your side, so supply is pressurized entirely by pumping, which means your pumps and backup generators have to be sized to peak demand (e.g. summer evenings) - contrast this to say Wellington where pumps can be sized to average demand (e.g. 24hr average), and high reservoirs pressurise the final supply with gravity to even out fluctuations in demand through the day.

Secondly, economies of scale are not on your side - Christchurch has dozens of sets of pumps, monitoring equipment, backup generators, chlorine dosers. This costs a premium compared to say one or two large treatment plants. Compare to Timaru - they have a 37km pipeline to bring raw water into the town - while that pipe is expensive, it lasted 90 years so the cost per household per year ends up being pretty small.

Hard to make a precise comparison without crunching the numbers, but there are clearly unders and overs

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