Thames Water bill high- no sign of leak, suggestions?

35 Posts

Good morning all
I've recently moved into a flat with a water meter, having spent my past years in unmetered houses, so this is all a bit new to me.
I've been taking meter readings and they seem unusually high. There's myself & my partner in the flat- he works from home and I am out all day. We don't have a dishwasher, use washing machine once a week, no garden sprinkler, both only shower but not every day etc, but it showing that we're using 1m3 of water nearly every 2 days. I've checked and I'm reading the meter correctly. I've done the toilet food colouring and tissue paper on pan test and there's no leak. Yesterday when we were both out for a walk and no water was used the meter didn't move. Last night I turned off the internal stop !!!! and again this morning it hasn't moved. This would indicate there isn't a leak, but I can't seem to make sense of the water useage.I have a dual flush toilet- when I press the small button both buttons go down, but surely this wouldn't mean I'm getting doubly charged for both "flushes"? Only being able to see 2 x red digits on the meter I can't work out to the exact L, but it seems it's taking about 10L per flush. I've been watching our water consumption and really can't think we're using that much... could it be possible that we have a leak that only appears when water is being run?
I've recently moved into a flat with a water meter, having spent my past years in unmetered houses, so this is all a bit new to me.
I've been taking meter readings and they seem unusually high. There's myself & my partner in the flat- he works from home and I am out all day. We don't have a dishwasher, use washing machine once a week, no garden sprinkler, both only shower but not every day etc, but it showing that we're using 1m3 of water nearly every 2 days. I've checked and I'm reading the meter correctly. I've done the toilet food colouring and tissue paper on pan test and there's no leak. Yesterday when we were both out for a walk and no water was used the meter didn't move. Last night I turned off the internal stop !!!! and again this morning it hasn't moved. This would indicate there isn't a leak, but I can't seem to make sense of the water useage.I have a dual flush toilet- when I press the small button both buttons go down, but surely this wouldn't mean I'm getting doubly charged for both "flushes"? Only being able to see 2 x red digits on the meter I can't work out to the exact L, but it seems it's taking about 10L per flush. I've been watching our water consumption and really can't think we're using that much... could it be possible that we have a leak that only appears when water is being run?
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2.72kWp PV facing SSW installed Jan 2012. 11 x 247w panels, 2.5kw inverter. 28MWh generated, long-term average 2.6 Os.
If its yellow let it mellow, if its brown flush it down!
If you've confirmed that there's no water used when the internal stopcock is turned off (which eleminates leaks between the meter and the stopcock) do the same test with everything shut off, except the internal stopcock - read the meter and go out for the day. If the meter increments then you must have a leak somewhere.or someone else is using it.
It really is a process of elimination, isolating parts of the system until you find out where its going.
2.72kWp PV facing SSW installed Jan 2012. 11 x 247w panels, 2.5kw inverter. 28MWh generated, long-term average 2.6 Os.