Water meter at curb or at home entry?

curb. In the space between curb and sidewalk.

Well, make sure no water is running in the house and take a look at your meter. There is a little indicator in the center of the dial and, if you have any leak at all, even if it's just the equivalent of a dribble, the indicator will be spinning around. If it is, then you have a leak somewhere. I once got a similarly high bill for water and checked and saw the spinner was whizzing around. I finally figured out that the leak was not in the supply line from the meter to the house or anywhere in the house, but was a split in a pipe in the underground irrigation system for my yard. If you have no irrigation system of any kind, I would suspect you have a leak in the piping from the meter to the house.

Take a look at your meter and report back, please.

Not spinning. Couldn't detect any movement

Take a picture of the meter and come back in a few hours or next day to read again. Then calculate what total usage would be based on that short term use and compare to your bill.

Lisa-

No rotation in the very center, even? Sometimes the leak indicator is on another part of the face of the dial. But if you see no movement anywhere, that's totally weird because you would only have outrageous water usage from:

1) a leak somewhere...and it would be continuous, or

2) if someone left a hose running for days and finally turned it off, or if you had a toilet running for days.

If you do take pictures of the meter a couple of hours apart to check for a leak, you can't be running any taps or flushing a toilet in between or you won't have an accurate result. But if the leak indicator spinner is not doing anything, you won't see any movement in the needle.

The only thing I can suggest is to get the utility to come out and take a look. Something is not adding up here.

My usual usage is 1k.

A month? Are you sure about that?

Here is a short video on leak detection from my water utility:

http://www.nud.net/how-do-i/find-and-fix-leaks

Typical water usage is about 70 gal per day per person.

So 1 person would be 2100 gal a month. 1000 gal seems low unless it's a not occupied full time.

Also, are you sure your meter is measuring gallons or is it cubic feet of water?

I barely register 1k a month in usage. During the summer, maybe more with additional laundry and showers, but otherwise very little water. I have no kids at the house and you'd be surprised what a difference that makes!

On the other hand, 30k gallons in a month would be 1000 gal a day. You would notice that "leak". Any chance they were estimating use and then actually read the meter?

kudzu: thanks for the video. I'll have to ask one of the neighbors to help me with the meter again because that concrete cover is too heavy for me to lift.

Has your meter been changed recently? They changed my water meter once and it was replaced with a meter that read usage differently and they didn't account for the change. I had to argue with them, but eventually got it corrected.

Less than 1000 gallons in a month for a single person is quite realistic for household use. Our average use is 1500 gallons per month for a two adult household. Another bill I pay is for four single adults sharing a house and that usage is usually double ours. Those figures work out to be about 25 gallons per person per day and I can't imagine an average use of 70 gallons per day.

I think it is time to check in with the water supplier.

Lisa -- Give the water company a call. They deal with this stuff daily and can probably provide you with some sort of assistance.

"Less than 1000 gallons in a month for a single person is quite realistic for household use."

I don't think so!

Average 8 minute shower uses 17 Gallons... thirty days times 17 = 510 Gallons. Don't even flush the toilet and lawn watering is out of the question...

Estimates vary, but, on average, each person uses about 80-100 gallons of water per day, for indoor home uses. Are you surprised that the largest use of household water is to flush the toilet, and after that, to take showers and baths?

Can you be sure that a toilet was not continually running sometime during the month? A flapper that doesn't close can send a lot of water down the drain in just one day.

Have you had either a plumber or the water company check water pressures? If there is a leak between the main and your home, water pressure coming into your home would be decreased. If you really can’t find a leak, insist that the water company change your meter. There is a good chance the meter is the problem.

Lisa-

My concrete cover is also heavy, but there is a little metal door in mine that can be flipped up with a screwdriver to simply look at the dial on the meter...maybe yours, too? Please post back as this proceeds.

(mechanical) Meters typically run slower if they wear-out/go bad, not faster. The city here is prepping to replace their meters which are 15+yo, many of which are running slow causing loss of revenue.

When we had a leak in our slab I could hear water running when I put my ear on the water faucet in any bathroom and kitchen faucet in my house, louder in the bathroom close to the leak. You might try that to see if you hear any water running

OK. Now I am totally confused. Kudzu thank you. I used a screwdriver and looked at the meter Tues evening. I checked again this morning. Same reading. It is NOT running continuously. also, in terms of thousands of gallons, it is the same reading that the water company had on its meter-reading day on 2/21. No appreciable increase in the last week and one-half. The water company insists there is nothing wrong with the meter - they won't even come to check. They contend that whatever leak I must have had, has been fixed. They are insisting I pay the whole water bill. They will only make an adjustment if I can prove I had the "leak" fixed. I have a plumber coming this afternoon test for leaks. But since the meter shows no appreciable usage since 2/21, I doubt there is anything to fix.

dadoes: the water company said that if there is a problem with their meter, it automatically resets to zero. Specious argument. if a meter is broken, they cannot be certain that it will reset.

MiMi: I don't hear any water running any where in the house. I even put my ear to the floor. Nothing.

Stax: I truly use very little water, especially during the winter. I have all my past water bills to prove it. My highest monthly water usage ever, was 3k gallons during the summer when we had a "permanent" guest who took showers as long as a teenager.

Regarding my personal hygiene and showers, about half my showers are at the gym, not at home. Any more comments about bathroom usage would be TMI. ;- )

I'll update as things progress.

I tried. I find the info you are providing to be suspect and am not sure what is going on. I've left the thread.

Goodbye. Just an aside, why would any of this be suspect? This isn't a right or left wing conspiracy. Just trying to get information. And many people were helpful. I now know that my meter is registering the same reading (in thousands of gallons) as yesterday and as of 2/21. There doesn't appear to be a leak, at least not anymore. I'm having a plumber check the house for leaks. I know that won't be cheap. And the water company is refusing to consider whether they might be at fault (although I will revisit this once the plumber is finished). I think we can all agree that we're not sure what is going on.

I'm married to someone who runs a municipal water system. So that doesn't make me an expert in any way. (Ha ha....)

What I can tell you is that he would say there is no way an "old style" meter can ever run high. Dadoes alluded to this above. It's just the way the meters are functionally built - they may indeed under capture usage, but they can't over-calculate it.

Many utilities are upgrading to smart meters. The technology there is amazing. My location can give you a chart showing your real time usage over whatever period of hours, days, weeks you want. They run a "continual usage report" every day, which picks up every customer who has registered continuous water usage over a 24 hour period, which almost always means a leak somewhere. They then call those customers to alert them to the reading. Also with the new smart meters, they can always go back in time and find all these "I have no idea when this may have occurred" situations. It's eliminated this kind of situation from happening here now, because they're catching continuous reads every day and they can produce a chart showing when the spike started and ended (if it did).

(Best story to date - they called one person to say they were showing a huge continuous usage of water over the past day. Person said thank you and the water people thought that was the end of it. When the bill came due, the person wanted to contest that there was no way they used that much water and they didn't find anything leaking or running in the house when they were called. So the water people pulled the usage chart. The continuous usage ran at the same level for hours, until literally 5 minutes after the water department had called the person. So they sent her the usage chart and said look at this - it appears when we called you, 5 minutes later whatever had been running stopped. Are you SURE you didn't find something leaking or running? Ha. She paid the bill......)

One toilet running can go through thousands of gallons of water. Sometimes the flapper gets stuck only on an intermittent basis. Sometimes it's an outside hose bib. If you're on a slab or crawl space, sometimes lots of water gets dumped before it's found.

If you were in my location, I can promise you that you'd be getting better customer service. If you're on an older-syle mechanical meter, it's possible you may never know what caused that higher reading. But I know they wouldn't "forgive" payment for its usage here either, because they stand firm on the statement that old style meters can't over-calculate usage. That water flowed through that meter and went somewhere.

I think that's tapped out any useful info I have about this. LOL.

patriceny: yeah, they certainly are not customer focused here. I do have an old meter, the water company said they can't read it other than the monthly bill calculations. I can't detect any leaky toilets or faucets, but I am having the plumber come today just in case I'm wrong. I certainly don't want to waste water. Nor do i want to continue to pay a monthly water bill of several hundred dollars, as opposed to the normal bill of $60 that I had been paying. I wish the water company could tell me when this excessive consumption started and when it ended. But alas, they can't. So all I can do is see what the plumber has to say. I think you are right: I'll have to pay the high bill and never know what happened.

Lisa- Glad to know usage at least seems normal now. Because of the billing cycle, it was almost 2 months before I knew I had a major leak. All that wasted water, plus a $900 bill.

You’re right that you might not know what happened ever. But please report back if you find out anything useful. Good luck.

Lisa, the last property I lived in I also used 1 CCF (per the city) each month. A CCF is equal to 748 gallons. Each month was 1 until the final month and they showed 2. Initially, when I first moved in, it was much higher and I brought a plumber in to test every possible source of leaking water. He found a leaking shower cartridge and changed it out. There was no visible water leak that I saw, but the usage went way down to the 1 CCF after he changed out the shower cartridge. And yes, I lived alone and only did laundry once a week and watched my water usage. I wanted to make sure my bill didn't go back to the huge amount that it was when it was leaking.

Plumber came and went. No leaks. Turned off water. Checked water pressure and all toilets. Meter barely moving. He says there must have been a problem with the meter that has now fixed itself. I doubt the water company will give me any relief on the water bill since they said that I had to furnish an invoice showing the leak was fixed. If there is no leak, I can't show that I fixed what never was. That's almost $300 in water usage and $125 plumber's fee "down the drain". Thank you for all the good advice I got here.

More the this saga. Spoke with water company and got a much nicer person. I told her what the plumber said no leaks and (miracles of miracles) she is sending a tech to my house to do an "in-depth profile". Not sure what that is, but sounds good!

Terrific!

@User

Given the information, I believe the only place that you could possibly move 1,000 gal a day and not be very obvious is the toilet. Even so, I think you would notice that amount of usage in a toilet over a period of time unless you weren't home.

The other option is a meter issue or a reading issue.

For obvious reasons, meters typically are reasonably accurate and not prone to really big jumps.

Most utilities are regulated and meter accuracy and reliability is audited and not taken lightly by manufacturers, utilities or regulators. Most utilities also have a scheduled meter replacement program to replace meters before they get to be end of life. Imagine the huge financial implications for a utility if the meters they installed weren't accurate or reliable (either under billing or over billing).

The water company is right, 99% of the time, to put this back on the customer.

That said, there can be issues such as misreading the meter, or doing estimates between actual meter readings, for example, that can throw things off (high usage that doesn't get found for 2 months, for example).

Having no answers isn't a great situation, so here's what I would suggest:

1. Ask the tech who comes out to replace the water meter. Also, before that happens, record the reading on the old meter and the new meter (take a picture with your phone) so you can compare it to your bill.

2. I would have asked the plumber to replace the toilet insides anyway. Much of the cost of the plumber is just showing up. I like Fluidmaster fill valves that will make it clear if there's a leak and will also prevent a bad flapper from using water. Replacing the insides to a toilet is often something a reasonably skilled DIY can do also.

You said, the meter is hard to read, I am wondering if they have been estimating it for a very long period of time, and finally did actually read it, and you are paying now, for what you used several months in a row, that you were not billed for.

cat_ky, I had those same thoughts. It happened to me.

If the meter is hard to read, I'll bet they just misread it and won't fess up.

@BT - that's easy enough to verify. Also, reading errors get caught on the next read - or the next - or the next.

I haven't heard back from the water company yet, but I checked the meter this morning (and took a picture, thank you Jake) and it's still reading the same as the company read on 2/21. So it looks as if I'm back on track for <1 k gpm.

Okay, so something isn't right if it hasn't moved in a couple of weeks and you have used a normal amount of water. I'm going to vote for a defective meter.

And now the rest of the story . . . Water company analyzed water flow and confirmed that there is no leak. All excess water flow was measured during a short period during the billing cycle. I was home and saw no water running in or out of the house. I am still convinced that the metering system is broken. But I cannot prove this. The company made a one-time adjustment in my bill and I will just have to hope that this doesn't happen again or when I'm away. The water company is in the process of replacing these mechanical meters with smart meters, but it is a multi-year project in my city.

And to those naysayers about low water usage, it is totally possible for a person to methodically conserve water and use less than 1k gallons a month. Maybe I'm sensitive to water usage from my camping days when I had to carry water. Once you have carried water, you are never, ever insensitive to how much you use!

Thank you for all your suggestions. I felt much more informed when I spoke with the water company.

Lisa-

Thanks for the update on this perplexing situation.

Lisa, even if you only use 1k, dont you have a minimum amount you need to pay for. Here the minimum billing is for 2k. I dont always use that much, but, I have to pay for it anyway. In the summer, I get very close to the 2k, since its hot here, and extra showers, car washing, and watering plants bring it up.

My 3yo son turned on the hose in the backyard while it was raining. We didn’t find it until the next day! Oh boy...I think that bill was $900! Do you have a garden service that comes by? Any chance someone left a hose on by accident and then remembered and came back to turn it off?

ct_ky: No minimum billing.

hemina: no garden services during that time period. No one was working at the house. Underground sprinklers are on reclaimed water (different meter system). And I can't (or don't want to) believe one of my neighbors came and used my water. The meter registered a continuous 300 gph for 4 days. If it were free flowing, I would have needed a boat to cross my front yard! This will have to remain a mystery.

300 gph is huge...about 3 times what comes out of a showerhead! What a weird situation...

Try turning off the water at the main for a period while measuring the before and after usage - maybe the leak is upstream but still on your bill. I had a leak that drove me crazy - turned out to be on a water feature pipe that I didn't know existed on the outside of my deck.

@User

Given that the meter didn't seem to be registering use over a period of time (wasn't it several weeks) I believe it was a meter thing also.

I'm really surprised they didn't swap out the meter though. Didn't have to be a smart meter - just a rebuilt mechanical meter until they move to smart meters.

Lisa, do you have sandy soil. If so a pipe could be leaking and the water is going "down" instead of pooling on top of ground. We had a water leak in sprinkler system near the meter and only found out when water flooded the meter area down the front bank and ran into the street. Soil on top of bank was dry.

krissie-

The issue seems to be that the meter isn’t showing usage like that, as one would expect with an underground leak like you described.

There is no leak. The excessive usage was during a single 4 day period. The meter is now registering normal usage of <1 k per month. (It appears not to move or move very slowly since it registers 1,000 of gallons.) The water company has agreed to adjust my bill. I just hope it doesn't happen again since I don't know what caused this to happen this time. thank you all for your comments and suggestions.