Leaking valve is part of water meter unit but on my side, who is responsible?

rhedyn

Does anyone have experience with this situation?  I don't often look at my water meter as it is buried in the ground under a metal cover up the hill in my sheep pasture next to the road, but last week I needed to shut my water off at the meter in order to fix pipe at the house.  When I put the water back on, I saw that the valves on either side of the unit were both leaking as a slow dribble.  I reported it to Hafren Dyfrdwy (Severn Trent pretending to be Welsh) and they took my report but I haven't heard anything more. 

The leaky valve on the mains side obviously doesn't affect my bill, but the one on my side does.  Technically what's on my side is my responsibility but these valves seem to be part of the meter unit so I am hesistant to mess with them.  Should I chase Severn Trent, or get a plumber in? 

rhedyn

Also, after skimming some more of this forum it sounds like there should be polystyrene under the metal cover for frost protection, but there is not -- nothing for frost protection aside from being in a hole in the ground.  Should that be something Severn Trent should see to?

MattMattMattUK

rhedyn said:

Also, after skimming some more of this forum it sounds like there should be polystyrene under the metal cover for frost protection, but there is not -- nothing for frost protection aside from being in a hole in the ground.  Should that be something Severn Trent should see to?

You can ask them, the reality is that the conditions required for an underground/in manhole meter to freeze are rare with weather in the UK, when did the ground last freeze down half a meter? Now in theory with sustained cold weather over many months, heavy snowfall and the cover left open there is a risk, but in general you will be fine. 

With regard to the meter leaking, is the valve part of the meter, eg. where the supply pipe exits the meter? If so then it is down to them.

rhedyn

Thanks MattMattMattUK, I'm playing phone tag with their meter team now, but so far it sounds like the policy is if it's inside the box with the meter then it is their responsibility, as you say, so hopefully they will come sort it soon.  We'll see what they say about the insulation, I do feel in this case the meter is not very protected as it's up on top of a hill, not that deep in the ground and the cover is rusty and far from airtight.  We had a hard cold snap earlier this year that froze a lot of people's pipes and I suspect there was damage to the washers in the meter valves from then.

Swipe

I had the same problem, a slow leak on my side of the meter connection and the box was filling up with water. I can confirm that Severn Trent fixed it for free by digging down and replacing the coupler. The short pipe that connects to the meter is part of their responsibility as a household's private mains pipes is not permitted to be directly attached to the actual meter but only via the short connecting meter pipe instead. Ask them to bring one of those polystyrene bungs with them when they book the repair. They gave me a new one when I first had a meter fitted.

rhedyn

Swipe said:

I had the same problem, a slow leak on my side of the meter connection and the box was filling up with water. I can confirm that Severn Trent fixed it for free by digging down and replacing the coupler. The short pipe that connects to the meter is part of their responsibility as a household's private mains pipes is not permitted to be directly attached to the actual meter but only via the short connecting meter pipe instead. Ask them to bring one of those polystyrene bungs with them when they book the repair. They gave me a new one when I first had a meter fitted.

Many thanks Swipe, very helpful.