Since we've lived in Wales, we have never had to pay water rates, as we have always been on a private (own spring at Ynyswen, shared one here) water supply. Here it runs through a UV system. Every year we have to replace the UV bulb, and every couple of years, the glass liner it sits in. The filter gets changed every three months - although because of the sludge in the holding tank, it is full of mud after just a couple of weeks. When you get to 7 days, the wretched device starts to beep every couple of minutes to let you know it needs changing. I am always VERY glad when I have a new one installed.
At Ynyswen, we had water from a spring, which was stored in big concrete rings with a gravel filter, and then ran by gravity through a modern blue alkethene pipe, underground, to another concrete holding tank in the yard. From there it was pumped to the top of the house, but flowed readily from downstairs taps. It tasted wonderful. We didn't have a UV system (incoming people insisted on one, which they put in). The spring was marked on the map, and on our land . . . The plonker sold us the field with the spring in . . . We were very glad to get it all set up because before we had to share his water supply which was in a leaky ancient tank on his land, and when it ran low in dry weather, he would top it up with river water - transported in his rinsed-out-once (if that!) slurry tanker. Needless to say we couldn't drink it, bathing in it was far from ideal (leading to feminine infections) and all the washing came out smelling like slurry. But it was our sole water supply for years and we got through a lot of bottled water . . .
Here I share my water with the cottages below me, and again it is from a spring, and this one has a name, it has been in use so long, but that is a MILE away, and uphill again, on a neighbouring farm. It flows through 200 year old earthenware pipes to the reservoir, which is about 1/4 mile away and was built at a similar time and is on another property. Sometimes the pipes become blocked with tree roots . . . The reservoir has a roof, but also has about 5 feet of silt in the bottom, which our water runs through and although it is sterilized by the UV filter, there is still fine residue in the water. Not ideal, but if we were all to go on the Mains, that would run through an ancient asbestos pipe (WHY did they use that?!), pressure is awful and will get worse because a housing estate of 40 houses or so is being built and that will have to have its supply from the same system/pipe.
I paid around £150 a couple of weeks back for the replacement UV bulb, new glass and two filters. I've just paid the plumber £40 for the changeover, but that included unblocking two U-bends too. He needs to drop off some eco-friendly drain unblocker though as he said the problem is further along the pipes. Needless to say, we have private drainage (a septic tank) too.
