I have just found out that all the water from my roof goes into a soak away.

[rpjjuk]

I am on a water meter, should I contact the water company and advise them.
Should I be paying less payments?
Should I be getting some sort of discount?

I have been at my house for over five years. The house was new when I bought it.

[des8]

If you dispose of surface water other than via a connection to the sewers of the sewerage company you should have a reduction in your water rates.
At least Dwr Cymru give one, (backdated for a year I think)

tell your sewerage company if none of your surface water is disposed of by them

[meellis]

Most brown water (rain & surface water) goes through soak away's. Grey water (waste water) goes through drain system's to the sewage plant to be treated by water companies. This is to enable as much water as possible to go through the planets natural cycle than by-passing it straight to the sewage plant. Most water companies levy the waste water charge against the water usage so if your meter says you have used 100 litres of water then they assume there would be 100 litres of waste to deal with.

[ostell]

Untrue that MOST brown water goes to soakaways. Most older houses take it to the sewer. It is only recently that soakaways were required.

[meellis]

Its a technicality using the word most so I apologize for using it. I do not have the figures for the country and it is so variable. I have worked in both new and old properties while in the plumbing game and come across both new and old properties that have either method and in various ways. Some appear to discharge into main sewers but actually feed into storm drains for an area, some do discharge into main sewers because that is all that is possible but if possible into a soakaway is the preferred method. When we talk about older houses we then get into the realms of what could be considered as old. I am 54 and when I work in properties from the seventies I don't consider them old until I do the maths. That said though a lot of these properties have soakaways in the areas I work. The village I actually live in is now experiencing issues with sewage discharging from the manholes when the water table is high. The local people believe this is due to over development in the area and it is difficult to explain to them that sewage systems are designed to deal with sewage discharge and can easily become overrun if excess water enters the system be it from rain water discharge or ground water or, as in this case, the water table entering the system either from leaks in the system or through someone trying to alleviate there land from flooding. Sewage systems aren't made watertight to just stop the sewage leaking out but also to stop ground water entering. But aside from that my original post was really to highlight that most water companies levy waste charges in line with usage charges and don't include any waste from other sources so if you are on rates they charge on average usage for the size of property and if you are metered then waste water is calculated against water used. This is why if there are only two people living in a 10 bed mansion it is more beneficial for them to be metered and if there are 14 people living in a two bed terrace they would probably be better off on the rate system because the rate system believes it is only a two bed house so low water usage as opposed to a house with 14 people using the water. The opposite is true for the mansion because the rates would assume that there are 14 people using water in there when in truth there are only 2.