On Twitter, a pair of tweets called attention to the upcoming section.
A second tweet indicated that it will be really, really easy.
Maybe they are doing some extraordinary conservation things to do that, but it must mean that just about anybody who even half-tried should be getting bills under the cap - even if not as much as €220 under. Ammirite?
This is going to be interesting.
Up comes the program.
Sean O'Rourke: "Now yesterday, we heard from our reporter Brian O'Connell about how some protestors are stopping the installation of water meters in some areas".( sigh - yes we know - those strange leftie sinister people with their can't pay - while we are about to hear from someone who's annual water bill for a house full of people is going to be €40. And that's before we think about what to do with a €100 Water Conservation Grant. Two-pint man would die of thirst if that was his budget. )
SOR: "Today Brian is looking at how some households can lower their water bills. This stems, Brian, from a claim the Minister Alan Kelly."
BOC: "That's right. In late 2014, Minister Kelly had said that householders could save money by using less water. And he had said that basically that if you reduce water usage by between 10% and 15%, Sean, then approximately half of Irish households would be able to beat the cap and have bills lower than the amount that’s being currently charged for each house....
SOR: I think a lot of people would have b.. might have been quite sceptical about Alan Kelly’s claims but..eh..and we’ll be talking to a colleague of ours as well in a few minutes - a very thrifty woman telling us about her family’s experience. I’ll tell you now, Christmas is going to be well managed on the money she has saved, but ….. (some giggles about Brian’s being glad he’s sitting upwind of her ) … you met some people who’ve actually taken up the Alan Kelly challenge.SOR goes slightly negative with "would have been" morphed into "could have been skeptical". It implies that Kelly's statement lacked credibility.
But... it's OK. Somebody coming up soon who seems to have saved a lot of money.
In the meantime, we're to hear about people making whatever level of effort to beat the cap
BOC has found a water conservation expert named Martin Lane. ML runs a company named Water Save. He's also been looking very, very carefully at his own water consumption and his neighbours as well.
ML has beaten the cap in his house. He reckons his bill will be €50 under the €260 cap.
ML’s neighbours – 2 adults and 2 children under 17 and one over 21.
In the last 21 weeks, their meter read 85,000 litres
ML’s analysis: 578 litres per day for 3 adults and 2 children – which is under the average.
ML explains that the €260 cap equates to 70,000 litres of water
He reckons from his experience (working in this area a long time) that this family would use about 148,000 litres per year. More than double what the cap is at. They would need to reduce their water usage by 61% to level the cap
SOR: So Brian, that’s quite a tall order there
BOC: Yes, even if they do modify their behaviour
BOC asks ML what kind of things his neighbours could do to get down to the cap
ML: He’s going to spend at least a minimum of €1,000 to get thereDANGER WILL ROBINSON!!!
BOC: to get to €50 under the cap. 20 years before getting the money back …AND.. obviously maintenance and upkeep along the way
ML: “Yeah. You hit the nail on the head there. The figures just don’t add up. It doesn’t pay under the current water charges regime to save water”
We're supposed to talking about how easy it is to beat the cap. The above is waaaayyyy off-message.
BOC: “What kind of households will be able to beat the cap easier?”
Eh Brian…”easiER” implies that it’s any way easy to begin with before it can get easier. Martin has just told you that for most people it's not alone not easy, but impossible.
ML: The single person household. He estimates from readings and studies that they would have to reduce their water by 8.5%, so fairly easy for person living alone to equal the cap.((Note: I would take issue with that. It might apply for a single person who is out all day and evening, and therefore does not consume much water at home. A single stay-at-hime person would be a different matter.))
“Once you go above that, it gets harder and harder.” “Single occupancy, quite easy. Above that, No”
SOR asks BOC how ML can bring his bill in under the government cap (€50 under the €260)
BOC: He’s obviously an expert in this area, so he has access to the technology Sean, and the equipment. He reckons his bill will be about €213 ”
We then hear a description of the devices that ML uses:
Kitchen undersink instant water heater so don’t have to run hot tap for a while before hot water flows. ML estimates he was wasting 60 litres of water per day that way before the heater.
A-rated washing machine would only use about 21 litres in a full wash (Older version would use 70 litres)
A-rated dishwasher would only use about 7 litres in a full wash (Older version would use 22 or 23 litres)
Bathroom. Instant electic heater under the sink
Toilet. Standard empties whole cistern. ML's only flushes while the handle is held down
ML: Just the simple devices kitchen and bathroom you’re looking at between €1000 and €1200 for your average household.Ehhhhhhh. 'Beat the Cap'-wise, this is NOT going at all well.
BOC: So when Alan Kelly says if you’re smart about it, you can beat the cap ..is he being realistic?
ML: No. Not at all.
ML: “Absolutely not at all, but it’s not possible. I know what we’re talking about here, and believe you me, it can’t be done.Ehhhhh, Make it stop. Make it stop! The message is not just "off". It's somewhere on a far distant galaxy.
This is the person that RTE brought in as an expert to talk about beating the cap. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
SOR: “So, Brian, all sorts of little tricks and gadgets there…(talks about instant water heater)BOC then mentions that Martin also has a system for his shower. It takes the cold water initially running and diverts it back into use for flushing…
((Note: I've completely replumbed two fixer-upper houses in my time. In the current one, I put in a second water tank in the attic. It feeds the toilet cisterns and a washing machine only via dedicated pipes. It can be filled with rainwater. That pipework is straightforward in a rebuild. In a retro-fit it could involve significant disruption. It's nowhere as simple as installing undersink instant heaters and buying new A-rated appliances.))
BOC: “It’s like walking into McGyver’s house. He’s got all the gadgets in the house, but a significant investment of about €1,000”Yes. €1,000 to €1,200 - which probably does not include his very non-standard shower arrangement if it's a retro-fit.
After that investment, he achieves €50 off his annual capped bill. 20-year payback at current charges.
He's also very insistent that Alan Kelly's claims on beating the cap are not realistic.
ML: Absolutely not at all, but it’s not possible. I know what we’re talking about here, and believe you me, it can’t be done.
Houston. We've had a problem here.
Did nobody check in advance of broadcast what BOC was bringing to the 'Beat the Cap' party?
Send for the cavalry.
SOR: Also here in the studio... Assistant Producer Elaine DevlinED has good news about her water bill. She says she’s one of those “outlier cases” that has an incredibly low water bill. She's done this without making any particular effort to do so.
“In essence, we wouldn’t be particularly good on the conservation stuff. I would have run around the house for the last few months shouting at the kids ”
She got a bill in June for €10
That's for 2 adults and 2 children.
She was a bit suspicious of the €10 bill and she rang Irish Water to check . They said “Don’t worry about that. If it’s low in the next quarter, call us back.”
Her next bill was for €11.54
Astounding – when it should have been €64.
SOR: “So what are your doing?”So she called Irish water again. She didn’t want a huge bill on Christmas week ‘This is the real bill. We’re sorry we got this wrong. Here’s a bill for €300
ED: “Nothing – honestly – apart from the odd shout at the children”
So she told them
This time they said they would send out an Irish Water Engineer to have a look .
ED: So out he arrived and he had a look. And he ran a very simple test and .. in essence when I turned on the tap, the meter was turning over. When I turned off the tap, the meter was stopping.This Irish Water Engineer was probably on his first day or so of JobBridge placement. He gets paid €50 a week on top of his dole to work at whatever. He gets promised a mentor and will learn all about being an Engineer. He does appear to have had a small amount of mentoring. He seems to know how to open the cover of a meter box and look down. He seems to have a grasp of the basic concept of digits on the meter changing when water flows through it. What he does not seem to have been mentored about is that the function of a water meter is to actually measure the volume of water flowing. It's not there just to indicate that some water is flowing.
ED: So we’re going through, to give you an idea, our quarterly volume is 3,119 litres, Now that should be 32,000 litresSOR’s only reaction to this is to mention that the news gets better.
SOR: So it’s a tenth, but you’d hardly make yourself a cup of tea or coffee with that …….
ED: Irish Water admitted to me it was a little on the low side , but they kind of wished me well with my lovely meter and didn’t ask me if I was doing any amazing conservation tricks, and to be honest, I’m not. It is standard fare in our house as regards water usage
ED gets her €100 grant. She describes the water conservation grant as “getting my €100 back” and “thanks to Alan Kelly am now effectively €78 up as a result of Irish Water.”
SOR: “Maybe you need to organise a counter protest. Water charges for all so we can get money from the government.” (laughs)That’s it. They all end in fatuous giggles and thanks for joining in. End of.
It should be obvious to even to the most stupid person that the meter is seriously faulty. It's not "a little on the low side". It's effectively paying the Devlins a nett €78 per year to use unlimited quanties of water.
There is no "therefore" - either from RTE or Irish Water.
It's Kildare Village Lite in that studio.
This is completely insane
To illustate just how incredibly broken that meter is, consider the situation if the readings were even close to being accurate:
Devlins apparently used 3,119 litres in 91 days
That’s an average of just over 34 litres per day
A standard shower alone uses about 49 litres.
Devlins don’t use water for anything but showering. They shower once a day, but it’s all four of them together in it – and it’s shorter than average shower.
They don’t drink, cook, wash clothes, dishes, floors or teeth.
A standard washing machine would drink about 70 litres per wash. Their clothes stink.
And ........they don’t ever flush the loo.
All of their water is used for quick communal showers.
Ah now! .... Here!
Flushing loos is a very heavy water usage activity. On average, one third of water used in a household is used for flushing. On that basis they would use 11.5 litres per day for flushing loos and 22.5 litres per day for everything else.
A standard flush is 6 litres. That’s 2 flushes per day. Shared between 4 people.
A typical dual-flush uses 4 litres for a #2 and 3 litres for a #1
If they have a dual-flush, they could do two big flushes (poo&pee) and one little flush (pee or OMIGAWD it's still there) per day.
That’s between 4 people, each of them pooing and peeing as people tend to do around everytime.
You've maybe heard that conservation advice:
“If it’s yellow, let it mellow.
If it’s brown, flush it down.”
In the Devlin house, they’ve created a new one:
“If it’s brown, don’t look down.”
They maybe do the two big accumulated household flushes to coincide with the Angelus at midday and 6PM. Make a ceremony of this rare event. This would also reinforce their prayers that it all goes down.
You think homeless people have it hard?
You know nothing! "Hard?" You can’t take “hard”
Try sharing a home with the Devlins :(
Have you ever tried a winter with all the doors and windows wide open?
Have you ever tried to take a dump while wearing a full HazMat suit?
The Devlin water meter is very clearly malfunctioning, and is doing so very significantly.
Two important questions arise from this.
- Why have Irish water just left it there as is?
Leaving it there is losing them about €53 per quarter in billing revenue. About €210 per year just for one house. - Why has SOR just laughed it off?
It's blatantly obvious that the readings are very seriously wrong. They are not merely "a little on the low side"
There's a major question as to why Irish Water are doing nothing about it.
He's ignored the obvious problem and questions.
He pre-announces and presents this as someone beating the cap.
Options for answers:
Answer 1.a
Irish Water see the losses due to meters under-reporting usage as a marketing/PR expense. If a sufficient number of faulty meters result in bills under the cap, they can use these to spread a "Calm down - bills will be lower if you conserve a little bit" message. "We have X number of people who are beating the cap."
Answer 1.b
Irish Water might prefer to keep a low profile on the question of faulty meters.
People benefiting from artificially low bills might make noises when the real bills arrive.
People might start to query readings as overstated. That gets into a world of pain and expense.
Answer 1.c
Irish Water are simply grossly incompetent. They have no procedures in place to deal with the situation. They have no employees/agents whose brief includes calling attention to what could be a major revenue loss if numbers of meters are similarly broken. They have no employees/agents with the motivation to raise a flag. They send out an 'engineer' whose competence/training leaves them with the idea that a meter test involves checking that the numbers change if water flows.
Answer 2.a
SOR is a vacuous twat. Someone had fed him a line that 'Beat the Cap' is a runner.
He pimps this in advance - e.g. those tweets quoted above.
Presented with ML telling BOC that "Absolutely not at all, but it’s not possible. I know what we’re talking about here, and believe you me, it can’t be done", he just moves on to ED and all the good news of money saved for Christmas shopping.
He has the concept that "You couldn't even make a cup of tea or coffee" with the volumes reported by the meter readings, but he does not follow through with the glaring obvious question that arises.
ED seems to have some inkling that the Irish Water Engineer test was less than exhaustive, but seems happy to be off the hook. She tried twice to flag the situation, but Irish Water didn't care. SOR doesn't question it at all.
Answer 2.b
SOR is not a vacuous twat. He is consciously feeding the audience a load of spin. He has the arrogance to stay with the spin even if the content he's overlording shows the spin to be be ridiculous.
Answer 2 with Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
Later in the program, SOR uses a break between features to inform the audience that Irish Water have been on to him. They say that 4(?) out of 10 customers are beating the cap.
Despite what ML says and despite ED's 'beating the cap' being transparently bogus, he simply regurgitates what Irish Water PR have fed to him.
Take the expert ML's assertions on percentage reductions and costs of tech required to even meet the cap. Take the water volumes per household profile (agreed by CER) that I quote in earlier November/December 2014 posts further down this page. Take that Irish Water refuse to do anything about a meter giving stupidly low readings.
If any significant numbers of 'Beat the caps' are claimed, the very strong odds are that those people have faulty meters.
SOR doesn't exhibit the remotest glimmer. He just regurgitates the spin.
Answer.2 with therefores
How much is SOR being paid? Most probably "a lot" - for his few hours on the air. There's no great evidence of real off-air research.
Another way of putting that would be "What is he on?" - but that would be ambiguous.
His sorry ass on a chair in Montrose is being paid out of TV license fees. Public service broadcasting y'see.
Whether he's just a vacuous twat stupidly blindly regurgitating someone's spin or he's a conscious sock puppet, it still remains that his program is trying to infect the audience with the Stupid Virus.
You don't like paying for this? Don't pay your TV license. Then you go to jail.
