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Compare NowBusiness Water for Hotels & B&Bs
Hotels run hot. The kitchen is open at 7am, the laundry is wet by 9, the pool needs topping up before lunch, and somewhere on the third floor a guest is taking a 25-minute shower because the rate includes it. All of that water shows up on one bill, on one tariff, and that tariff was almost certainly set the day the property opened a current account with a retailer. We’ve seen the same default tariff applied to a 40-room hotel and a 4-room B&B because the retailer never asked.
You can switch retailer. Hotels and B&Bs have had that right in England since 2017. Most never have.
This page covers what hoteliers actually pay for, where the bill quietly drifts away from real occupancy, and the three procurement routes most operators use to bring a sharper contract in. It also covers laundry, pool makeup, and the awkward question of whether your standing charges still make sense for the way the property runs today.
- England’s non-household water market opened to competition on 1 April 2017 under the Water Act 2014.
- Around 20 retailers are licensed by Ofwat to supply hotels, B&Bs and serviced accommodation.
- Wholesale supply still comes from regional water companies (Thames Water, Severn Trent, Yorkshire Water, and others).
- A typical 40-room mid-market hotel uses around 1,800m³ a year. Roughly 150–180 litres per occupied room/night, with laundry and F&B sitting on top.
- Linen-laundry, pool/spa makeup and kitchen prep usually account for more than half of total volume, but most hotels never see that broken out.
- The three biggest savings levers: getting laundry priced as the hot/soft-water heavy load it is, reconciling bill volume against occupancy, and stripping retailer margin sat on default tariffs.
Why hotels pay more for water than they should
The five places hotels overpay
Hotels are billed as if they were a single flat-volume site, when in practice they’re four sites stacked on top of each other: rooms, kitchen, laundry and (often) a pool. Each behaves differently. The retailer rarely separates them.
Take linen alone. A single double room produces around 4–5kg of laundry per stay between sheets, towels and bathmats. At 10–15 litres of hot water per kilo on an in-house industrial washer, a busy 40-room property pushes 600–900 litres of laundry water through the meter every day before anyone has eaten breakfast. That tonnage is usually billed at the same unit rate as a guest filling a kettle. Outsource the laundry and the volume drops, but the standing charge doesn’t, and the wastewater banding rarely follows occupancy down.
| What’s going wrong | Why it costs you money |
|---|---|
| Linen and laundry on a generic tariff | In-house laundry is a hot-water, soft-water heavy load. Retailers default it to standard commercial volume bands rather than the high-tonnage tier it qualifies for. |
| Pool and spa makeup billed as foul return | Evaporation and splashout never reach the sewer but go out at full clean + wastewater rates because the bill treats clean water in as foul water out. |
| F&B kitchen mixed with rooms on one tariff | A busy hotel kitchen has its own load profile (steamers, dishwashers, ice machines). Folded into rooms volume, it inflates the per-room average and locks in the wrong tariff. |
| Occupancy reconciliation against bill volume drift | Bill volume should track occupancy month to month. If December’s bill matches August’s, something is estimated, leaking, or both. Most properties never compare them. |
| Landscape irrigation on full retail margin | Garden taps and irrigation on the main meter pay clean and wastewater rates on water that goes into the soil. A separate sub-meter or non-return rebate fixes this. |
Can hotel groups and independent hoteliers switch water supplier?
Yes, and the mechanism is different depending on who’s signing the contract.
An hotel is its own legal entity, so it can enter a water contract directly — no council approval needed. Multi-academy trusts can contract centrally for every hotel in the chain, which usually unlocks better volume pricing. Independent operators sign for their own site, with the contract in the trading entity’s name.
The 12 retailers below are all licensed by Ofwat to supply non-household water in England. Pricing, service, and hospitality-sector experience vary — most trusts shortlist three and go to a simple comparison exercise.
Routes to procurement
Three ways operators in this sector typically bring a new water contract in. Each comes with its own trade-off between control, effort and how sharp the price lands.
UKHospitality and the larger hotel-group buying clubs aggregate utility procurement across hundreds of properties. The unit rate is usually competitive on volume. The catch: these deals are written for an average member, and a property with heavy laundry, a pool or unusual occupancy patterns often does better on a tendered deal than the framework rate.
Hotel water FAQs
Should an in-house hotel laundry be on the same tariff as the rooms?
Almost never. A busy laundry can move 1m³ of water before lunch. If it’s billed at the standard small-business unit rate that the rooms are on, you’re paying retail for industrial volume. The fix is either a sub-meter on the laundry feed or a renegotiated unit rate that reflects the actual load profile.
How does hotel occupancy affect what we should pay for water?
Bill volume should rise and fall with occupancy. If your December bill looks like August’s, something is wrong: a stuck meter, an estimated reading, a leak running, or a tariff that’s no longer fit for purpose. Occupancy reconciliation just means matching volume against rooms-sold for the same period and asking why they don’t move together.
We refill our pool every spring. Is that volume billed correctly?
Usually no. A typical hotel pool holds 80–150m³. A full refill spikes the bill, and because clean water in is automatically billed as wastewater out, you pay sewerage on water that went into a pool, not a sewer. A non-return rebate stops the wastewater portion being charged.
Do B&Bs and small guesthouses count as business water customers?
If the property has a separate non-domestic supply or is registered for business rates on the trading element, it’s a business water customer and can switch retailer. The grey area is when a B&B operates inside a domestic property on a single household supply.
What about surface water drainage on the car park?
If your car park, terrace or driveway drains to a soakaway or a watercourse rather than the public sewer, you should not be paying surface drainage on that area. Hotels with large car parks routinely pay for drainage they don’t actually use. The rebate is backdatable up to six years.
What does a free audit actually look at?
Three things at the same time. We compare the unit rate against the live market across all 12 retailers. We audit surface drainage, trade effluent and standing charges for historic billing errors that can be backdated up to six years. And we check whether the contract structure fits your actual usage profile better than the default. If we don’t recover anything, you don’t pay a fee.
How do I get a quote without committing?
Send a recent water bill. The SPID, annual cubic-metre volume and current retailer are all on it. We come back within two working days with a like-for-like alternative quote and a flag if anything looks worth auditing for historic refunds.
