Compensation

If we need to meet you at your home, we’ll agree a morning or afternoon appointment with you. In some cases, you may be able to request an appointment within a two-hour time period. If we need to cancel or reschedule, we’ll give you at least 24 hours’ notice.

If we don’t meet this standard, we’ll automatically credit your Thames Water account with £50 within 10 working days.

If you write to us with a question about the accuracy of your bill or account, we’ll reply within 10 working days from the date we receive your letter or email.

If you ask us to change the way you pay, for example paying by instalments, and we’re unable to agree to the request, we’ll reply within five working days from the date we receive your letter or email.

If we don’t, we’ll automatically credit your Thames Water account with £20 within 10 working days.

If you write to us with a question about the water or wastewater services that we provide to your home, we’ll reply within 10 working days from the date we receive your letter or email.

If we don’t, we’ll automatically credit your Thames Water account with £20 within 10 working days.

Bottled water deliveries

If the water supply is interrupted for more than 12 hours, we'll provide bottled water to eligible Priority Services customers. We aim to deliver water within 24 hours of being aware of an incident. We'll prioritise customers who are:

• Water dependant

• Medically dependant on water
• On dialysis, feeding pump and automated medication
• Living with a chronic/serious illness
• On oxygen concentrator
• Using a nebuliser and apnoea monitor
• Living with heart or lung illness or ventilator
• Using a stairlift, hoist, electric bed
• Unable to answer the door
• Mobility impaired
• Living with dementia/cognitive impairment
• Blind
• Living with hand movement constraints
• Recovering from hospital treatment
• Aged over 90

You can make a claim if you have any of these conditions and did not receive a bottled water delivery. We'll pay you £40 per supply interruption within 20 working days of your claim.

Bill and PSR literature

You can claim if you're a PSR customer and haven't received a letter in the format you've registered for such as:

• Large print bill and PSR literature 
• Bill and PSR literature in coloured background – yellow, green, blue or pink
• Braille bill and PSR literature
• Large print bill and PSR literature in coloured background - yellow, green, blue or pink

You need to make a claim and we'll pay you £40 within 20 working days of your claim.

If you write to complain about the services we provide for you, and we haven't already given you our final response, we’ll reply within 10 working days from the date we receive your letter or email.

If we don’t, we’ll automatically credit your Thames Water account with £20 within 10 working days.

Learn more about our complaints procedure.

We’ll give you at least 48 hours’ notice if we plan to turn your water off for more than four hours. We’ll also tell you when we expect to turn your water back on.

If we don’t, we’ll automatically credit your Thames Water account with £30 in 20 working days.

If the water supply turns off unexpectedly, such as following a burst water main, we’ll always aim to have the supply restored within 12 hours of being aware of the issue. If we've informed you that we need to interrupt your water supply to do planned work, we'll turn it back on by the time we've stated in our notice.

If we don’t, we’ll automatically credit your Thames Water account with £30. If there are additional delays then we’ll pay an extra £30 for each further complete 12-hour period that the water interruption continues. 

We’ll automatically credit your Thames Water account within 20 working days.

How we calculate the duration of a supply interruption

We calculate how long a water supply interruption lasts using data from pressure monitors and the height of each property. 

We base our calculation on modelling water pressure at the property boundary at ground level. This is where our pipe responsibility ends.

As every property has different internal pipework, it may take longer for water pressure to build up than our calculations show.

For roads or areas on a slope or hill, neighbouring properties are likely to have experienced different interruptions. So, they may be entitled to different CGS payment amounts. 

At the point where our pipe responsibility ends, we aim to provide a minimum pressure of ten metres static head in the pipework serving your property.

If your pressure dropped lower than seven metres static head for at least one hour on two separate occasions within a 28-day period, we’ll pay you £30.

If we’re aware you’ve been affected by low pressure we’ll make these payments automatically within 20 working days.

Payment for loss of pressure is payable only once between 1 April and 31 March. If your loss of pressure relates to essential work on our pipes such as burst main or a drought, we may not be able to pay you. We’ll look at your case and let you know as soon as we can.

If there’s a problem with the quality of the tap water that we supply to you, we’ll do everything we can to fix it as quickly as possible. We’ll also put a ‘restriction of use’ notice through your door if you need to stop using your water temporarily.

If we issue a 'restriction of use' notice, and it's confirmed that the problem was within our water supply pipework, we’ll automatically credit your Thames Water account with £30 within 20 working days.

In the home

Flooding inside your property is especially distressing. Each time we’re aware of sewage entering your home from one of our sewers, we’ll pay you the cost of your wastewater charges for that year (subject to a minimum of £150 and a maximum of £1,000).

If we visited you after you reported the flood, we'll automatically credit your account, or send you a cheque, within 20 working days. If we weren't notified of the flood at the time, you'll need to make a claim within three months. You must provide details of any losses or damages, including photos, so we can assess the claim.

Outside of the home

If you suffered from severe sewer flooding outside your home (within your property boundary), from one of our sewers, you may be able to claim back half the cost of your wastewater charges for that year (subject to a minimum of £75 and a maximum of £500).

You'll need to make a claim within three months of the flood, and provide details of any losses or damages, including photos, so that we can assess the severity of the flooding and determine if you were materially affected. If eligible, we'll credit your account, or send you a cheque, within 20 days.  

Further information

See Section 7 of our customer guarantee scheme.

If your water supply is restricted by an emergency drought order covering:

• cooking
• washing
• drinking
• flushing the toilet

We’ll automatically compensate you with £10 for each day you’re affected. We’ll pay this within 20 working days.

We will only make this payment if we have not taken all reasonable steps to avoid the drought order.

This does not include restrictions on watering the garden, car washing or filling a pool.

In the first instance, you should call us on 0800 9808 800 and we will do our best to help.

If your hearing or speech is impaired, you can contact us using RelayUK.

Alternatively, you can write to us at:

Complaints resolution team
Thames Water
PO Box 436
Swindon
SN38 1TU

If you are still unhappy after we have had the opportunity to reassess your case, you can contact Ofwat for an independent review.

For more information, please see our complaints procedure.