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Water Meter going a bit mad?

AeroFX
Posts: 4 Newbie
Water Provider: United Utilities.
Location: Tameside - Cheshire, Manchester
According to my Water Meter - since it was installed on Friday 4th at about 1pm, my understanding is that it's saying i've used 938 Litres?? - can someone clarify that is what the Red Digits are saying. 00000,938
My 3 young children were here Friday from 3pm until 9am Saturday Morning. Of course they used the Toilet (i'd say at most about 12 times for all of us) Brushed their Teeth, Washed their hands but nothing excessive and i've even made sure that they don't leave taps running while brushing teeth and what not.
I was out Saturday from 12pm until 1am Sunday Morning.
I last had a shower friday (i'll have one tonight honest!) - less than 10 minutes
I've made some cups of tea, cooked and washed up too. Washed my hands, used the toilet when i've been here but basically in 2 days it's saying i've used almost a cubic metre of water if as i say i've understood the red digits correctly?!?!
Washing Machine not been used. No Gardening or Car Washing. Don't own a dishwasher. Heating not been used due to warm weather - other than for hot water for dishes of course.
Note: Despite no water being used at this moment the little spinning thing inside is moving, albeit slowly.There has been a small drip coming from the water metre which was fixed yesterday before 12pm.
Also the pipe to the cold water tap on my bathroom tap is dripping (getting fixed tomorrow hopefully) but very slowly and the toilet seems to often be making a small trickling noise - apparently it may be a washer that's failed. Perhaps these small things are what pushed my water usage right up.
Location: Tameside - Cheshire, Manchester
According to my Water Meter - since it was installed on Friday 4th at about 1pm, my understanding is that it's saying i've used 938 Litres?? - can someone clarify that is what the Red Digits are saying. 00000,938
My 3 young children were here Friday from 3pm until 9am Saturday Morning. Of course they used the Toilet (i'd say at most about 12 times for all of us) Brushed their Teeth, Washed their hands but nothing excessive and i've even made sure that they don't leave taps running while brushing teeth and what not.
I was out Saturday from 12pm until 1am Sunday Morning.
I last had a shower friday (i'll have one tonight honest!) - less than 10 minutes
I've made some cups of tea, cooked and washed up too. Washed my hands, used the toilet when i've been here but basically in 2 days it's saying i've used almost a cubic metre of water if as i say i've understood the red digits correctly?!?!
Washing Machine not been used. No Gardening or Car Washing. Don't own a dishwasher. Heating not been used due to warm weather - other than for hot water for dishes of course.
Note: Despite no water being used at this moment the little spinning thing inside is moving, albeit slowly.There has been a small drip coming from the water metre which was fixed yesterday before 12pm.
Also the pipe to the cold water tap on my bathroom tap is dripping (getting fixed tomorrow hopefully) but very slowly and the toilet seems to often be making a small trickling noise - apparently it may be a washer that's failed. Perhaps these small things are what pushed my water usage right up.
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Comments
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0.938 is indeed 938 litres, but was the reading zero when installed?0
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I don't actually know but i know for a fact it was less than 300 and at the moment it's already up to 00001,134 so i've somehow used another 200 Litres since my original post at 2:56pm today!0
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Well the first thing to check is to turn off the stopcock in the house and check the meter isn't moving. If it is moving you have a leak between meter and house.
If it didn't move, open the stopcock and ensure everything is turned off in the house and monitor the meter.
The commonest form of leak in the house is an overflowing cistern leaking silently into the toilet bowl.
A leak of approx 20 litres an hour in should be easy to find.0 -
I resolved the toilet cystern issue and it seems as far as i can tell to have stopped the little spinny thing from moving (technical term?) - still have a leaky tap (repair tomorrow hopefully) but as i mentioned earlier it doesn't seem to be impacting on the reading.
With the water off the meter does not move at all. Did that test for a couple of hours today
Question is, can an overflowing cystern = 20 Litres Per hour?
Thank you for your reply!0 -
Reading around the web it seems that 4000 drips=1litre which equals about 3 drips a minute to consume a 1 litre a day.
A trickling cistern could easily ramp up severals litre an hour or more.
Try reading the meter daily for a couple of weeks to establish your consumption pattern. You could save water by spending less time in the shower. You could halve your consumption by only spending 5 minutes instead of 10 in there.
Fit flow restrictors to the taps and shower head and if there's room fit a "hippo" (or house brick) in the toilet cistern to reduce it's volume if its not a low volume flush unit (your water company might give these free - have a shufti at their website for water saving devices).
Don't let water run down the sink when you are washing or rinsing stuff or when cleaning your teeth.
Only fill the kettle with as much water as you need. Use the washing machine & dishwasher with full loads, they use just as much water and energy when half empty as when they are full.
Saving water will also save you energy as you aren't wasting water that's been heatedNever under estimate the power of stupid people in large numbers0 -
You've been fantastic! I already started a log last night.
So far:
00001173 - 22:07 06/07
00001207 – 07:38 07/07
00001276 – 08:39 07/07
00001284 – 15:30 07/07
00001308 – 17:31 07/07
I've been out from 09 - 15:30 so it seems to have calmed down a lot now - Hopefully getting the other leaks fixed will make it right!0
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