Where is my water meter?

In most homes it is outside, under a small round or rectangular cover set into the path, driveway or pavement near the boundary. In a good number of homes it is indoors instead. In flats it may not be in the property at all.

Outside: the boundary box

This is the usual case. Look along the front boundary of the property — the path, the driveway, the grass verge, or the pavement directly outside. The cover is typically a small plate about the size of a hand, often plastic and dark, sometimes cast iron on older streets. It usually carries a "W" or the word "Water", which is what separates it from the gas and electricity covers nearby.

Under the outer plate there is often a second, inner lid — a foam or plastic frost cap sitting on top of the meter itself. It lifts out. Beneath it the chamber is frequently full of soil, leaves or standing water, and the meter face needs wiping before anything can be read.

Inside: under the sink and beyond

An internal meter is fitted on the incoming main, which means it is wherever that pipe enters the building. The usual places, in rough order of likelihood:

• Under the kitchen sink, close to the stopcock
• In a downstairs cupboard or utility room on an outside wall
• In a garage, cellar or basement where the main comes through the wall
• In a purpose-built meter cupboard in newer houses, often beside the front door

The reliable trick is to find the internal stopcock first — the tap that shuts off the whole house. The meter, if it is indoors, is almost always within a foot or two of it.

Flats and shared supplies

A flat may have its own meter in a communal cupboard on the landing or in a basement plant room, usually in a bank with the other flats' meters and labelled by number. Some blocks are on a single shared supply with one meter for the whole building, in which case an individual flat cannot be metered separately without work that is the freeholder's decision rather than the occupier's.

If it cannot be found

Two possibilities are worth ruling out before searching further. The property may not be metered at all — a bill charged on rateable value has no meter behind it. Or the meter may be fitted at the boundary of a shared access road some distance from the house.

The supplier holds a record of where it was installed and will say. Identifying the right supplier is straightforward: it is the company named on the water bill, and it is determined by where the property is rather than by any choice the household has made.