Shock Letter from Water Authority

rollon65

Hello km1423,

Aplogies for my delay in replying. Tried earlier but the forum was down for maintenance.

[My original response]
No further progress as yet, but neither has there been for my next door neighbour who gets an honourable mention in respect of his identified leak, earlier in my posting.
His water meter cover has the designated blue cross on it and has had that for three to four weeks now.
Despite being told that their second attempt at my direct debit amount was also incorrect, there has been no increase, even though I have agreed to the revised sum of £31 per month.
I note that about 100 metres down the road, a meter appears to have been replaced or some work done on it. All the meters in the vacinity were installed at the same time, back in October 2012, but I noted in passing that you can see that the original groundwork has been superceded by futher digging and resurfacing.
I e-mailed the water authority about a week ago with my resume of events to date but so far have had no response.
I have the two main concerns: the way the carelessness in billing us has allowed the indebtedness to accumulate; and the amount of water that we are (or aren't) consuming.
The mystery of the daily "lost" water remains unsolved. Even if the source is indeed our hot water tank - where is that water going, if it isn't issuing from the tank overflow?
If it is being run off as part of our general hot water consumption, I could maybe understand it, but if there is no visible underfloor leak, then I just can't imagine how much more frugal we would have to be to achieve the average annual water consumption for our situation.

[Further developments]
I have today heard back from my water authority, who say that they are not prepared to take any further action unless I furnish them with a "Plumbers Report".
I have responded by saying that I have no desire to pay £50 - £60 for a plumber to tell me what I already know: ie, that there are no visible signs of any leakage under the floors of any room in the dwelling place; that there is an occasional drip that can be heard from the hot water tank in the roof space.
They are adamant that "company policy" is that they can do nothing further for me at this juncture.
If the reason for the "lost" 6 - 7 litres of water across a 4 hour period is related to the hot water tank drip, then there are two resulting scenarios.
Either that specific delivery of water has to produce an overflow to account for that amount;
or that water is being consumed by our household, and as far as my water bill is concerned, the water comprises part of our legitimate consumption.
As I see it, there is no third option, where there is a theoretical alternative tank of unlimited capacity that his holding all this additional water, so that it is registering on my meter but not being used in the household.
Where else could the accumulation of a dripping hot water tank end up?
Do I have a central heating system that responds to the additional supply of water by determining that it will consume more?
Do I have a hot water supply that provides heated water at a greater volume at the taps than it otherwise would do?
I fail to see how the average trade plumber could do any more than I have already done.
I would be the first to concede that there may be something that I have missed, but with my hand on my heart I don't know what that could be and two leakage detecting personnel from the Water Authority have noted nothing more than a slight drip in the hot water tank that does not result in the issue of water from the tank overflow.
I have today also pointed out the the further failure to perform by the Water Authority in not yet raising my direct debit amount as I had previously agreed to 4 - 5 weeks ago.
This will obviously have compounded the "arrears" situation through no fault of my own.

Best regards - rollon65.

Cardew

rollon65 wrote: »

Hello km1423,

Aplogies for my delay in replying. Tried earlier but the forum was down for maintenance.

Good job you didn't post yesterday!

brewerdave

....just a thought..do you have a combi boiler....my daughter had a small mystery water loss finally traced to a pinhole leak in a heat exchanger in the boiler -the lost water was leaking into the condense water which was routed direct to the foul sewer...so out of sight,out of mind!!

rollon65

Hello brewerdave,

Many thanks for your post, that is indeed worthy of investigation.
Apologies for the time taken to respond, but I have been away for the last week.
To make matters worse, I had managed to get quite a lengthy response typed up, only to crash it and lose the lot! (Serves me right - I usually type it in MS Word, then copy and paste in anticipation of such events, but this time took the direct approach! More haste = less speed, eh?)
I do have fresh material to post, but having just got back home there are other matters that "she who must be obeyed" says need my attention first!
Will try again tomorrow.

Best regards - rollon65.

rollon65

Hello again all,


Rejoining the plot then . . .


My next door neighbour has finally had his acknowledged [meter] leak attended to and whilst the contractors crew were in attendance, I took the opportunity to quiz them about my own situation.
They too asked me to turn off my stopcock for the first test and registered nil flow at the meter.
After that, they asked me to leave the stopcock open, then they marked the position on the x 0.0001 dial.
The crew continued with the work on my neighbours installation and returned to my meter after an hour, whence they took a further reading.
They continued with their work and in a further hour came back to my meter noting yet another reading of the
x 0.0001 dial.
Their conclusion was that at the rate they had observed, whilst there was indeed some meter “creep”, by their observations the water passage for the duration was on a much lesser scale than I had been recording myself.
This just might have been as a consequence of the manipulation of the ball valve in my hot water tank that had taken place earlier, I suppose.
I have been away for a week and before I left I set up a 7 days duration test, with the internal stopcock open, to get a better picture of the rate of “lost” water consumption, with no household water consumption over the longer period.
Unfortunately, on the day that we returned home, my well-meaning daughter let herself in unannounced and used some water in having a hot kettle for a “welcome home” cup of tea ready for Mum and Dad, and preparing a meal for my two grandsons who accompanied her – after which, she washed up, consuming more water. Thus, my rare opportunity for an extended test was rendered invalid!!!
A visit to my hot water tank in the roof reveals that the dripping sounds are back (or at least were at the moment of my inspection). I am seriously thinking of asking my contact who installed the central heating system to come and adjust/replace the ballcock, to see if there is any difference after, but even though I'm confident that he will do it just for a pocket money sum, I am reluctant to throw good money after bad if it will not see an end to this situation, once and for all.
I have no idea if the water authority can be appeased by that course of action and will recind their requirement for a plumbers report. Since I started this post, the waters have become so muddied (not literally, of course), that I'm fast losing the plot!
There is still the matter of the arrears to be dealt with, whatever the outcome of any efforts to reduce our ongoing water consumption.


Best regards - rollon65.

km1423

Thanks for this rollon65,

It seems you are no nearer to the resolution of your problem.

Shame you don't know somebody who is a plumber and ask them for their knowledge, in exchange for a beer (if you know what I mean).

I doubt your WA would take the report seriously, and thus you'd be out of pocket, when it could be put towards paying your arrears.

rollon65

Hello again km1423,

I have now contacted the very guy who installed my central heating system once again and although his expertise lies a little west of mainstream plumbing, he is very knowledgeable.
Unfortunately, as he would be do the job for me for the price of the proverbial pint, as you say, his personal submissions could not be backed by his company and would therefore be inadmissable.
I am planning to do a very thorough water meter log for the next seven days to see if the issues have remained constant or not (due to his original hand manipulation of the hot water tank ball valve, AND the fact that my next door neighbour has now had his supply patched up), then I propose to replace the ball valve and see where things sit then.
I don't know what the reaction of my water authority will be to that. I suppose it all depends on the eventual outcome, but I'm still wanting to stick to my guns and not add a plumbers bill for a further £100 to the cost of the episode.

Best regards - rollon65.

Pincher

Embarrassing but true, diabetics wee more, so need to flush more. Just one possible factor for higher than normal consumption.

rollon65

Hello Pincher,

Thank you for your observation. My wife was diagnosed with kidney cancer two years ago and the affected kidney was removed as part of her treatment.
She does indeed have to drink copious amounts of water every day to avoid overloading her remaining kidney with toxins, but as I have mentioned earlier, we are now not flushing the toilet after every (liquid!) use, to reduce our consumption anyway.
That factor is certainly worth bearing in mind with regard to overall usage though and it hadn't occurred to me previously.
I am proposing to change out the ball valve in my hot water tank after the bank holiday weekend, having failed to completely eliminate the dripping sound from within.
Either my mans' manipulation of the float arm, or the repair of my neighbours leak, seems to have brought down the amount of "lost" water the meter is now registering.
I am still baffled however as to why there was no emission of water from the overflow during my test when I bought the water level in the tank right up to overflowing level and then retired for the night.

Best regards - rollon65.

rollon65

Hello All,

Not much progress to report as yet as I am awaiting a date to have my central heating engineer do the work on my hot water tank.
However, there has been some digging up of the water meter installations three doors away today.
The local grape-vine has no word on why at this time, but the premises are a shop with a flat above it and I'm on good speaking terms with the occupant of the flat, so I might get to find out. This is in the opposite direction to the next door neighbour that had a leak at the meter detected, so it could just have some related implications to our own situation perhaps.

Best regards - rollon65.