Faulty Valve causing HUGE water bill

aguynameddarryl

Hello!

Mother in Law has brought me this one - she's apparently got a dodgy valve in her water system somewhere which has caused her to receive a £2,000 (TWO THOUSAND POUND!) water bill from, I think, Thames Water.

She's living in a new-build flat, been in there about 18 months I think.

Anybody got any idea how best to proceed or is she bang to rights?


Thanks!

iancrt

£2k worth of water is a fair amount of water! where is it? Where has it gone? Was there a flood? Is an overflow constantly running?

aguynameddarryl

No, no flood, just a trickle drip over God knows how long.

Haven't got the full details just yet though, just a phone call from a scared 60-something lady with no idea what's going on.

matelodave

If its a leak outside the prpoerty then she'll have to get it fixed and she may get a credit for lost water, likewise if its a leak somewhere inside the property the insurance might help.

However if it's a dodgy valve or tap left running as you say then it can only be a toilet cistern or header tank and any running water should be visible, either through an external overflow pipe or running down the toilet bowl - in which case there is no excuse for not getting it fixed so you won't easily be able to get any form of recompense.

The first thing is to identify where all the water is going (or coming from) before you can go much further. If it's not obvious, try turning the internal stopcock off and checking if the meter is still running - if it is then the leak is somewhere between the meter and the stopcock.

Did she move in when the flats were completed, if so did she register with the water company and give them a reading. has she been getting regular readings (or doing it her self) or have her water bill meter readings been estimates and she's now just got one after a proper raeding.

Without a bit of background it hard to know if there has suddenly been an increase in her water consumption or if she's been paying the builders use before she moved in or even a previous tenant or possibly the whole block.

Does she even know where her meter is and are they reading the right one. You need to do a lot of investigating to get to the bottom if it all.

aguynameddarryl

In that case then, as Arnie once said - I'll be back.

Cheers!

Cardew

If we take the price of a cubic metre of water/sewerage as £2 that means approx. 1,000,000 litres.

Her consumption in 18 months would be about a tenth of that amount - assuming she lives alone.

So the 'leak' would be about 1650 litres a day over 18 months or nearly half a litre a minute; that ain't a 'trickle drip'

If there is such a fault, it must be down to the builder/developer to take responsibility.

aguynameddarryl

Right, i've been told its a defective expansion relief valve. Was installed when she moved into the flat.

Apparently all the waste water is not visible or noticable to her because of the way it's removed.

I'm no expert, but is this part of her boiler?

macman

That would normally discharge from the header tank in her loft through the wall and be extremely visible! So where and how is the pipe routed? Combi boiler or conventional?

aguynameddarryl

Haven't a clue what sort of boiler and it's in a flat, so I presume that that complicates matters somewhat.

aguynameddarryl

All she can tell me is it's a water tank with an immersion heater.

I'm going over there this evening.

macman

Then it's not a combi if she has an immersion heater.
I don't understand why it's take 2 years to pick this up. When did she last read her water meter, or when did the supplier last read it?