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 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.

If you write to complain about the services we provide for you, 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. 

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. 

What you may experience

We calculate eligibility for compensation based on data from pressure monitors within our network which is combined with property height data for each individual property.  

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. 

As each property will have different internal pipework configurations and fittings, this may lead to the water pressure taking longer to build up for some customers.

Our calculations work out how long the interruption is deemed to have lasted based on modelling of water pressure at the property boundary at ground level, as this is where our pipework responsibility ends. 

At the point where our water leaves our pipes and enters your property, 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. You can check this by turning your cold kitchen tap all the way on and time how long it takes to and fill the one-litre jug with water, it should take around seven seconds.

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 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.

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 (minimum of £150 and 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 within your property boundary, from one of our sewers, you can claim back half the cost of your wastewater charges for that year (minimum £75 and maximum £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. 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.