Shock Letter from Water Authority

Cardew

rollon65 wrote: »

He said that there did appear to be a leak of some kind between my stopcock and the meter and has made me an appointment for Wednesday of next week for someone to come and try to actually locate the leak.
I tackled him about the cost implications of remedying it and he said (quite categorically) that if the leak was in the section of the pipe between my stopcock and the meter, the water authority would repair it for free. I looked at my wife and back at him and asked him to re-iterate that - which he did.
Why then do I receive those quite intimidating letter from Domestic & General acquainting me with the dire consequences of not having some kind of specific insurance in place for such situations?

We should clarify something. There is no question but that any leak after your water meter on(under) your land is YOUR responsibility.

However most(all?) water companies will carry out a one-off repair as a goodwill gesture. There is often some caveat that this will not apply when the leak is under buildings/extensions/patios etc.

So you have been assured that the normal goodwill gesture will apply, but further leaks are down to yourself.

It might be an idea to find out the position on leaks with your normal household insurance.

rollon65

Hello once again Cardew,


Appreciate your views here once more.
Yes, indeed – it was my view that leaks on my property were down to me.
On the insurance front; in the 42 years that we have lived at our address, we have previously had two water leakage incidents inside the bungalow that necessitated insurance claims.
A minor pinprick of a leak back in 1981 looked like it had been going on for some considerable time and rendered the under-floor timbers and all the floorboards in need of replacement. Those were the days though – all that work for the then princely sum of £1,100!
More recently, in May of 2012 the union between the lead (as in metal) water inlet piping and the inside copper work failed. This time it was picked up more quickly, but it had damaged the vinyl floor-covering and the carcass of a kitchen unit, as well as the floor boarding, so that was nearly another grand.
We have only recently changed our insurer on the grounds that the previous appeared the be trying to get the outlay back by hiking our premiums very substantially, so I guess another water related claim wouldn't go down too well?

Best regards - rollon65.

rollon65

Back again - apologies for absence,

I have now had TWO visits to assess our situation - the second contradicted the first!
The first was adamant that there was a leak between my stopcock and the water meter and that the water authority would detect and repair it for free.
The second said that there was no leak between the stopcock and the meter and so the "creeping" of the meter must be down to a leak or unintentional wastage inside.
Our water usage was interrogated and on that basis he reckoned we were using twice as much water as we should be.
Checks were made on all cisterns first and he recommended that the ballcock arm on our main water tank should be bent down a bit to lower the level of the water which was nearing the overflow point.
I had already checked that there was no dripping from the outlet - and there never has been, so the issue re the arm wouldn't have lead to any excessive water consumption.
He then commented on the length of piping between the tank and the hot water outlets, that might lead us to run wasteful amounts of cold water before the hot came through. Possible: but the pipes within the roof space where the tank for my condensing boiler lives, are heavily lagged - granted, thereafter they are not.
He then switched tack to the meter and suggested that it might just be worth asking for it to be replaced.
I asked to be called back about that, but so far no telephone call.
Meanwhile, we have trimmed our routine indoors to take into account the potentially water saving issues.
So here we are - none the wiser, so far really.
The scenario continues therefore, without any resolution.

Regards -rollon65

BargainJunky

This may not help but have you checked that your toilet is not dripping into the pan after flushing? My mum had nearly £200 credit on her account when she moved house and after replacing the bathroom the credit disappeared between moving in and the next bill - we could find no leak apart from a little trickle/drip into the toilet pan which was resolved by tightening a screw in the cistern.

Cardew

BargainJunky wrote: »

This may not help but have you checked that your toilet is not dripping into the pan after flushing?

It isn't a long thread(nine posts), but it might help to have read earlier posts:

With regards to a possible internal leak, the usual culprit is a cistern leaking water(silently) back into the toilet bowl. The trouble is it can have a leak but after one flush it can reduce as the mechanism(plunger) has moved slightly.

With regard to the leaking cistern, tomorrow will tell I hope, but to date I have checked for that kind of leakage by holding a piece of absorbent paper against the back of the bowl and to date there as been no sign of any water traveling down it between flushes. I do take your point though that it may be an intermittent thing and I just haven't been testing at the right time.

rollon65

Hello All,

Nothing really new to post at this time - my dedicated contact from the water board is away from her desk until 11 February and is slated to call me then.
Reading some of the related current postings, I note that there are quite a few folk out there with similar situations; i.e. reasonable perceived usage and bills that appear to be far from reasonable.
Whilst this offers us some small comfort, getting to the crux of why the bills are high seems like a task similar to pinning the tail on the donkey!
I really don't know what to do on our own behalf now, as I doubt whether your average plumber would have the kind of kit to come up with a definitive answer that would solve the water over-consumption once and for all.
I am just about to go out to my water meter, take a reading now and then without turning off my stopcock, and not use any water for at least three hours.
I then propose to re-read the thing and see how the numbers sit after the interval.
I have been acquainted with the possibilty of overflows that occur in the night, on the basis that during that time no water is drawn off, so that might be my next move, to turn the water off all night. That will not be a lot of fun as there will be no hot radiators or bath water in the morning (or perhaps there will - not sure on that one?).

Regards - rollon65.

rollon65

Hello All,

I did the test that I have described in my previous posting.
I set the hot water and heating controls on my boiler to off (just in case), left the stopcock open, waited 10 minutes, then read my water meter (taking a photograph, so as to record the exact position of all dials).
After 4 hours without drawing any water, or flushing the loo, I then took
a further photograph of my meter reading.
You can see the type of meter that we have by using the attached link:

http://arad.co.il/products/dialog-3g-registers/dialog3g-register/

After the 4 hours - if I understand the meter correctly, it showed some 6 litres of water consumption
There is (as I interpret it) a "reel" of black numbers (like a car mileage recorder) that indicates cubic meters of water and one red number at the end that indicates 1/10 cu.m. (100's of litres), underneath which is a black/gold dial that shows 1/10th litres, to the right of that there is a black dial that shows 1 litre divisions and lastly to the very right there is a similar dial that also shows 10 litre divisions.
I cannot account for the "used" 6 litres and any way, a leak (if there is one) on such a small scale is hardly going to account for the amount of consumption that is attributed to us.
As a precaution against any unnecessary work and expense, I have asked about replacing the meter and found them willing to do that at no cost to ourselves, which is to be thoroughly applauded..


Regards - rollon65.

rollon65

Hello All,

Did the same test yesterday and recorded 6.5 litres of unidentified water movement.
Have started looking under floors, cutting new traps in the least disruptive positions to avoid wrecking the floorcoverings. Dry bathroom and hall underfloor so far.
It's not a lot of water that I'm looking for and cannot account for the consumption that we are being billed for, but back in the 1980's I discovered the smallest of leaks under the kitchen floor - about water pistol scale - that had been running for ages undetected and I had to have the entire floor, including joists replaced, so bad was the deterioration.
Waiting for a call that's promised for Tuesday 11 February, to see what the water authority are making of things.

Best regards - rollon65.

Cardew

If you need help with submitting your reading, watch our short how-to guide on finding and reading your water meter:

Cardew

The above shows the most common meter.


The red numbers indicate litres - i.e. 601 litres


A leak of 6 litres a day has plenty of potential to cause damage. However surely if leaking into the house structure would quickly become apparent.