The people’s outrage that they have to pay not only for the water consumed, but also for the water lost somewhere, has been going on for decades. Until now, operators and water companies have only been shaking hands, blaming rogue consumers and water meter verifiers. Consumer rights Protection centre (PTAC) found that “Riga waterThe installed meters show erroneous data and imposed a fine on the capital’s municipal company.
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At the beginning of this year, for the first time, suspicions were publicly expressed that “Rīgas ūdens” meters are incorrect in many homes. “Nekā personīga” reported that even in houses with meters in apartments that can not be interfered with, the total house meter shows higher consumption.
Baiba Vītoliņa, the director of the Consumer Rights Protection Center, told the program that for several years now the institution has had many consumer complaints about water losses, about what bills are issued and since we are also a metrological monitoring institution, we saw that one The objects of risk in this chain are, in fact, these meters, which determine how much the population will have to pay together, and they are the input meters for apartment buildings.
The Consumer Rights Protection Center found that 83% of Riga’s water meters show erroneous data. If the water flow is small, then less water is counted than the population consumes. If the flow is high, then the mistake is to the detriment of consumers and to pay more than is actually spent.
The Consumer Rights Protection Center removed the “Rīgas ūdens” meters from 28 homes for inspection, 23 of which showed incorrect data. The meters studied were both old and new. Two-thirds of inaccurate devices counted more water. The Consumer Center concluded that the problem was systemic.
“Rīgas ūdens” did not agree with the CRPC conclusions. Tried to question the meter researchers hired by the center and looked for legal arguments. The Consumer Center “Rīgas ūdens” instructed to solve the problem and imposed a fine of 1,500 euros.
“During these inspections, we found that the meter is very dirty, there is obviously a lot of physical dirt. This could be the main problem, the water is dirty and it is not filtered,” explains Vītoliņa. If there is a lot of solid particles in the water, the meter manufacturer recommends installing a filter. The CRPC study shows that the equipment counts more dirty water flowing into the pipes after repairs or extinguishing fires than it is. However, the company did not install the filters. That would be too expensive.
The CRPC discovery for “Riga Water” is not new. Of all the meters tested by the company last year, 34% were declared unfit for use. Almost a third of the meters were also rejected in 2017 and 2018.
The municipal company claims that the deviation of the readings is only a few percent. It refuses to disclose how often the error is more pronounced.
“Riga House Manager“is the largest apartment house operator in the capital. The company believes that more accurate total household consumption meters will not solve the issue of an additional column in the bill for the difference in water consumption. This can only be completely eliminated by installing meters that can not be distorted.
If residents suspect that the faulty “Rīgas ūdens” meter is to blame for the difference in water consumption in their home, they can request that the meter check and challenge the bills. However, the meter is cleaned before the test, so the evidence that the meter is faulty disappears. The Consumer Center has proposed to change this procedure.
The government already a year ago Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development asked to assess whether the installation of water filters in apartment buildings should not be made mandatory. The ministry promises an evaluation in two years.
This year, new ultrasonic meters have been installed in the water supply of the capital for 50 houses. They will soon be installed in 340 of the largest apartment buildings in Riga and next year for the remaining 19 thousand buildings.
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