Probably got a leak

danlightbulb

danlightbulb

danlightbulb

Soldato
Joined
14 Jul 2005
Posts
9,247
Location
Birmingham
Moved in to my place in September, immediately had a water meter fitted. First bill came through today, over £550 for 6 months, 170 cubic meters.

Can't be right with two adults no kids. Must be a leak somewhere.

Can't see any evidence in the house of one. Could be external supply pipe or underfloor.

Gonna be a lot of hassle now trying to find it, repair it (I've got homeserve cover, hopefully helps me), then claiming back leak allowance from the water company.
 
Yeah that is a tonne of water. Dripping taps? F&E heating system? Leaking toilet?
 
Detached, semi or terrace. I went to a customer on Friday for "leaking washer" it was speed fit fittings not the appliance, kind of sorted it but they had to turn supply off for a bit.

Anyways chatting to them and the cut off in their house turned supply off for 3 properties, which they found out when they had a meter installed and had a huge bill.
 
At that kind of usage, I would not be surprised if they've metered a shared connection!

A neighbour where I used to live clearly had a big leak as his block paving drive used to "sink" like clockwork.

I'd have to have a look myself - the meter should flash if usage is being "felt"; go and turn off every tap in the house and start progressively turning things on IMO.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I'll keep shared connection in mind thanks. There are two stop taps close together outside the front of the house, so I'd assumed the supply pipes run together down the alleyway before entering the kitchen of each house.

I suppose it's also possible the supply lines cross over and they've metered the wrong one.
 
Last edited:
We're having a similar issue with Anglian water. They are trying to charge us £100 a month direct debit, and looking at our usage it's crazy high. I've done all the usual leak testing, both internal and external but everything is saying we have no leak.

Somethings not right, but literally getting no help from anyone.

I've switched the water off for an entire day and usage not moved. Switch it on, and goes up a silly amount. Where the hells it going lol Looking at the previous year, my house should be floating down the road at this point.

The graph indicates something happened in August '22 as consumption more than doubled.

Logically the only thing which would make sense is that water is going straight out the pipes into the waste, like the toilets constantly flushing but they aren't. I did explain that during one month we were away on holiday so couldn't have been using it, but they weren't interested.
 
Last edited:
TheOracle said:
We're having a similar issue with Anglian water. They are trying to charge us £100 a month direct debit, and looking at our usage it's crazy high. I've done all the usual leak testing, both internal and external but everything is saying we have no leak.

Somethings not right, but literally getting no help from anyone.

I've switched the water off for an entire day and usage not moved. Switch it on, and goes up a silly amount. Where the hells it going lol Looking at the previous year, my house should be floating down the road at this point.

The graph indicates something happened in August '22 as consumption more than doubled.

Logically the only thing which would make sense is that water is going straight out the pipes into the waste, like the toilets constantly flushing but they aren't. I did explain that during one month we were away on holiday so couldn't have been using it, but they weren't interested.
Click to expand...
Have you got access to manhole covers external to your property?

If so, I'd lift the covers and see what's going on underneath
 
The water board at my parents house keeps telling them they are going to install a meter on the shared stop tap supplying 3 or 4 houses.
 
I got a leak, look.

sEBVOTf.jpg
 
TheOracle said:
We're having a similar issue with Anglian water. They are trying to charge us £100 a month direct debit, and looking at our usage it's crazy high. I've done all the usual leak testing, both internal and external but everything is saying we have no leak.

Somethings not right, but literally getting no help from anyone.

I've switched the water off for an entire day and usage not moved. Switch it on, and goes up a silly amount. Where the hells it going lol Looking at the previous year, my house should be floating down the road at this point.

The graph indicates something happened in August '22 as consumption more than doubled.

Logically the only thing which would make sense is that water is going straight out the pipes into the waste, like the toilets constantly flushing but they aren't. I did explain that during one month we were away on holiday so couldn't have been using it, but they weren't interested.
Click to expand...

Sounds more like a dodgy meter
 
Unless in my area (Somerset) probably not very useful but there is a company near me who does leak detection, etc. and they were brilliant when we moved into a new place and discovered there was a leak - despite being quite a complex one in a hard to get to place they managed to figure it all out and come up with a genius way of bypassing it avoiding spending 10s of thousands and major rebuilding work to fix.
 
I think you would know where a leak of that size would be. It sounds more like the company messed up the initial meter reading, or something.
Anyway, that's a huge leak. It should be very easy to tell. Switch all water use off in the house and check the meter in the morning, then at night. With that scale of leak, you should be able to see the difference.
 
TheOracle said:
ah yeah maybe. I have taken a meter reading early in the morning before work and then when I get home. The numbers were the same, but maybe when we use water they are going up quicker than they should be. It's about the only thing which makes any sense.
Click to expand...

Well, it's easy to tell.

What I do with situations like that is place a measuring jug in the sink. Turn the tap on and adjust it to fill the jug in twenty seconds. Then leave the tap running like that, undisturbed, for one hour. That's 3L per minute. 0.18 tonnes in an hour.
 
Look like a definite leak.

I confirmed our meter was the right one. With no consumption in house, dial is visibly moving.

Isolated main stop tap in house. Dial still moving.

Now on a 3 hr countdown before taking a second reading to see how much is being used.
 
We had similar. It was a leak in the supply pipe under the wall where it entered the house.

It was a right mess of rusted metal and impossible (and pointless) to repair. So instead we had a new poly pipe fitted from the meter to our stopcock.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom