The last two months my water usage has increased by over 4000 gallons. Gotta be a leak somewhere, according to the water company.
I did the dye test on the two toilets and they look good. Turned them both off overnight and they were both still full in the morning. There doesn’t seem to be a visible leak anywhere I’ve looked–water heater closet, under washer, under sinks, near outside spigots.
I do have a sink faucet in the kitchen that’s loose (getting it fixed Nov 7) but again, I don’t see any water and there is no mildew smell, etc.
My house has a slab foundation. I suppose it’s possible that there is a leak beneath the slab, but I don’t know what would’ve caused it and I don’t have any obvious damp patches on the floor that I can see (I’m not sure that I would be able to tell, though).
So…where could it be? I don’t have trees within 50 feet of the lines…no recent construction, etc…I’m out of ideas.
I knew a guy who had the same problem in Washington DC. Turned out a local restaurant’s water usage was being added to his bill somehow. I can’t remember the details. I do know he solved the problem by buying a case of liquor for someone in the water department. I know that doesn’t help much.
4000 gallons sounds to me like something other than a small leak and government agencies have been know to make mistakes. I would ask for the reading from the meter. If the meter shows that kind of usage the you may have someone tapping your water. Any local construction going on? They sometimes need a lot of water and don’t have a free source.
4000 gal in 2 months - about 500gal/week, or about 66gal/day, 2.7gal/hr. You’re losing a large hot water tank’s worth of water every day. That should be noticeable.
I assume your water meter is inside the house or just outside? If so, the leak must be between it and the drain. Unless you have really sandy soil, if it’s leaking under the house there should be a subsantial puddle somewhere.
How do you know, other than an increased bill? Can you turn off water for the entire house for a day (or 8 hours while you’re out) just past the meter and see if it still counts up?
If you can’t see the leak, odds are it is under the house and you are SOL. That’s a lot of water to be draining away without being noticed. (I’m assuming this is a new phenomenon. I’ve heard stories of places like NYC which have no water meters, and problems like water pipes connected directly to the drain happen occsionally.)
Just watch the meter. If all the water in your house is turned off, and the pointer is spinning, you have a leak. Slab leaks are very, very common. Also, you might want to check if anyone is “borrowing” you hose.
Have you taken a meter reading and then left all the water usage in your house off to see if the meter is still showing usage when you aren’t using any water? That is the only real way to tell if you indeed have a leak or if some other factor is affecting your water usage rate. Quit using water for as long a period of time as you can, and see if the meter keeps moving. Even a few hours should tell you something.
Is usage being recorded when all usage is off? That is the first step.
Any lifestyle type changes over the summer that could account for 60-70 extra gallons per day? Adopt a teenager? That will do it.
Did you plant a garden or water your lawn this summer?
Help me diagnose a hidden water leak?
No thanks, I’ll pass.
Ditto on that. When I watched the water meter it turned out that I was using several hundred gallons to do load of laundry. It turned out that a valve was stuck open in the washer.
Did you confirm that the meter reads what they are billing you for?
I got a $600 water bill one quarter, where my bill is usually $50 per quarter. Someone had transposed a decimal point on the damn bill.
I’ll have to have the water company come out to check to see if the meter is running when everything is turned off. That’s the next step. It just seems that a leak that big should be noticeable somewhere, unless, I suppose, it’s leaking into the water system instead of puddling somewhere I can see it.
And unfortunately it’s not 4000 gal over a 2 month period; it was 9000 last month and 9400 this month. My usual usage is around 5000. I do a lot of laundry, some watering in the garden, etc…but nothing this substantial. I’ve always watered during dry seasons and never had a jump like this (plus haven’t really been watering at all the last 5 weeks or so).
I’ll make an appointment for them to come check the meter and see if that gives me any more info. I’m just flummoxed…I really thought a toilet would be the culprit.
Why have the water company check your meter? Can’t you get to it? If everything in the house is shut off, check the meter and see if it’s spinning. It should be in some kind of utility box probably set in the ground. There will be a valve to shut off the water to your property and a meter. You are responsible for everything downstream from the meter.
We have had a problem in our neighborhood in that the plastic water lines from the meter to the house have gotten old and started to fail. No one notices until they get a huge bill from the utility company. Depending on the soil, an amazingly large amount of water can run out underground and not make any kind of puddle or wet spot above.
Good luck.
As others said, it is a simple task to check the meter at the main valve, which should be near the street. Once you’ve turned off all your inside valves, check to see if that red arrow is still spinning. If it is you have a leak outside the house. Then turn off the main valve. You can buy a tool at Lowe’s or Home Depot that turns off the main valve with little exertion. If that stops the red arrow, then the leak is between the main and your house, and that’s your responsibility. If the arrow continues to spin, the leak is outside of the line from the main to your house, and that’s the water company’s responsibility.
I had a similar problem a few years ago. The water company could not find the leak. I had to hire a professional, who found the leak (with some difficulty) beneath my front patio. It was caused by a tree root invading the pipe.
Maybe not.
Most municipalities take the position that everything from the street tap in belongs to the homeowner. The few others most often take the position that everything downstream from the meter is the responsibility of the homeowner.
The fact that it is going through the meter is enough for almost all municipalities to maintain that it is the homeowner’s problem.
If the arrow is spinning, it’s going through the meter.
[anecdotal] 15 years ago I came home and there was a 7 x7 X7 deep hole in the parkway in front of my hose. The city worker explained there was a leak, and it was my leak. I said no. He said, “It’s a safety issue. You’ve got 72 hours to fix it, or we’ll back-fill the hole for safety reasons. Then the city attorney will sue you to open back up the hole and repair it. You can’t waste water.”
*
This was upstream of my meter.* The city’s policy is: Anything after our street tap is on private land and is the responsibility of the homeowner.
ETA If the arrow is spinning, the water is going through the meter. IOW, If your meter is inside the house and the leak is outside, the meter won’t spin, because the leak is before the meter.
If your meter is outside in a meter pit, and you turn off all the water in the house and the arrow is still spinning, then the leak is likely between the meter and the house.
In any event, if it showed up on your bill (assuming the meter reading is correct) its certainly going through your meter. And in most cases will be your problem.
Start by checking the basic water meter reading. The usage must be coming through the meter. Maybe they have billed you wrongly. Check you history and see where it went up. But at least start from now with the reading. Turn off every item that uses water. Then see if the meter is moving. If it is, you must have a leak under the slab, assuming the water goes there. If water is leaking under the slab, you will experience damage to the slab and foundation eventually.
PS. I have to constantly check my electric utility readings when a bill looks high. They have the bill marked “actual” meaning they have physically checked the meter. They obviously have not in these cases. I call. They change the bill and we go forward
Note that if the leak is before the meter, you would not be getting billed for it, so it’s not before the meter. QED.
The house I rent had a severe water leak over the summer. The number the landlord mentioned was half a million gallons inside a month, but in hindsight that can’t possibly be right. At any rate, we never saw any of it, inside or out. The property must be sitting on gravel.
Our house had a water shutoff valve where the pipe enters the house, so we closed that. The meter continued to spin, so the leak had to be between the water meter and the wall. Rather than trying to find it, the landlord brought his backhoe out, dug a trench, and installed a new pipe. The meter readings went back to normal, and the water company graciously waived the bill.
I hope your situation resolves well! What very little I know about under-slab leaks is very unpleasant.
I looked in the manhole cover over the meter. There are two houses attached to it (two separate meters) and I’m not sure which is which. If there is anything readable in that pit it’s so covered with grime as to be unidentifiable to me. So the water guy will have to come look at it and explain what’s what before I can do anything more with that.
I’ll call my house repair guy tomorrow and see if he can help. If I have to do any major repairs I’m screwed.
Three stories to tell.
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A couple of years ago, my usage spiked. Turning off the valve in the house did not stop the leak, so I knew it was between meter and shutoff valve. I asked my local pro plumbing supply for help and they got me in touch with a guy who came out (for a couple of hundred bucks) and hooked up sensitive microphones to the meter and the shutoff valve - and could locate the leak by the difference in volume of the leaking water. Turned out to be directly under the house. Had to run a new supply line into the house - brought in via the closet ceilings to the existing shutoff valve to avoid digging up the slab. Cost - about $5000 (they could not find the original line and had to trench all the way to the street).
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A few years before that, neighbor out back had a leak (in my driveway), again they trenched all the way to the street. Both that home and mine were built in the mid-80’s and used some sort of blue plastic piping - which clearly failed for both of us. It was replaced with copper in both cases. I have no idea what they spent.
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Ten years ago, a lighting strike at my parents house fractured a pipe in the slab. They had to replace the entire piping system in the house. It was done via the attic and the plumbers did an amazing job of dropping new supply lines down to bathrooms and kitchen. It was a company that specialized in that type of repair. Again, a couple of thousand when all was done.
Do you have a sprinkler system in your yard?