Very high water bill mystery!

[crowman]

Hi, hoping someone can help.

Recently received a water bill that was more than double the expected amount with no obvious explanation for the extra usage. Done some checks for leaks inside and out as per the water company advice but found nothing. Water company came out and did their own checks and said there was no leak and the meter was behaving as expected. However they decided to change the meter anyway as it was old. The new meter was installed yesterday at 2pm and by 8pm the reading was already 290 litres used despite no-one in the house using water and no appliances that would use any. Today at 6pm the reading has leapt to 810 litres used despite very minimal use last night and this morning only. With a volume use that high if there was an internal leak it should be obvious. The meter is specific for my house and unless someone has tapped into my supply I am puzzled how this could be happening.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

[Chuck]

My leak seems more obvious. With my stopcock off the little wheel still turns so my leak is between meter and stopcock. As the distance is some 30m I do not fancy digging up 30m of ground to find it, maybe in summer if we get one!
The problem quoted should be fairly easy to solve with a bit of logic as has been suggested by other contributors.

There are techniques for pin-pointing buried leaks where digging is going to be expensive, for example:

How to Find Leaks - Understanding Acoustic Leak Detection

What one often finds is that the leak is either withn a foot or so of the meter or stopcock. If not the pipe probably failed because it was an suitable type and/or was not buried correctly and so the whole lot needs to be dug up and redone properly anyway.

🙁

 

[Bogart]

Yes I was going to have a poke around the meter and pipe entry into the property. Somewhere I also have a tee off that feeds a garage and outbuildings but will start with easier ones as I know where they are.

 

[Darren Jackson]

Next time you hear your neighbour running a bath/shower,toilet flushing etc... run out to see if your meter is turning! (make sure your water is not running first).

 

[Bogart]

Nearest neighbour is 200M away highly unlikely to hear them flush the loo. 😀