Water leak

tribetown

I went away to see a relative on 24th December ( I turned the water off at the stopcock in the kitchen) and came back today.

There was a letter waiting for me from the Water company dated 29th December telling me there is a suspected leak, about 2 litres per hour, 24 hours a day. I signed into my account and can conform that I was using 56 litres per day while I was away with the water turned off.

Tomorrow, when it is light I will turn the water off again at the stopcock and go to the meter at the end of the drive, on the pavement and try to see if there are signs of water usage.

Who is responsible for the leak if it is from the water meter on the pavement to the stopcock in my kitchen?

Baldytyke88

tribetown said:

There was a letter waiting for me from the Water company dated 29th December telling me there is a suspected leak, about 2 litres per hour, 24 hours a day. I signed into my account and can conform that I was using 56 litres per day while I was away with the water turned off.

Thats great if your water meter is a smart meter, I didn't realise they did that. Surely they didn't know that you turned the water off?

p00hsticks

My understanding is it's the householders responsibility from the point at which it crosses the property boundary, unless it's a shared supply (which it won't be if that's just your property's meter in the pavement )

Peter999_2

I'm afraid that you are responsible from the meter to the stopcock and are liable for it all.

However, this happened to me in January 2025.  I received a phone call from Yorkshire Water to say I owed about £800 on my account after the smart meter had submitted a reading.   It was a shock to me.    However, they said they were willing to put a stop on the money owed to allow me to investigate and they would give me x amount of weeks to resolve it.

Fortunately, Yorkshire Water will send people round to attempt to fix the leak free of charge.   It was made clear to me that if they couldn't fix it then I was responsible and would have to go thorugh my home insurers.    
It took me over 6 weeks to finally get engineers round (they literally gave me 45 minutes notice, haha).   

They could see that it was wet in the hole where the meter was.   Within a couple of minutes they had identified the cause which was the connection from the meter to the pipes leading to my house.   Turns out the developers had used cheap connectors and they had failed after 30 years.   The engineer then told me he'd been out to my street various times over the last 18 months to perform the same repair on other houses.

Yorkshire Water then credited my account and put it back to sensible amounts.    They got me to read the water meter and then read it again a month later - using this they estimated how much I had used.  I thought this was very fair and I was happy with the resolution as I was fully aware it was my issue and not theirs.

The first thing I would do if I were you would be to : 

1.   As you say, turn off the stop clock and look at the meter.  Mine was still whizzing around with the stopcock stopped.

2.   Check to see if it is wet at the meter.  It should be bone dry - if there is water there then you could have the same issue as me.    With mine, there wasn't much water at all but the engineer said that it would have soaked into the ground (there was about 60 litres an hour lost).   He insisted that it would be bone dry if there wasn't a leak.

I really hope you get it fixed and it isn't too stressful for you (I really did worry about it but I needn't to really - but being worried did make me keep on top of it and chase them a lot).


EDITED TO ADD - I forget to mention that I bought a device called a LeakBot which is great.   It goes on your pipe after the stopcock.   If you have a constant trickle of water all the time it sends you an email to warn you may have a leak.     I think it's a great device and seems to work very well.    I was pretty confident it wasn't a leak after the stopcock thanks to this device.

Peter999_2

Baldytyke88 said:

tribetown said:

There was a letter waiting for me from the Water company dated 29th December telling me there is a suspected leak, about 2 litres per hour, 24 hours a day. I signed into my account and can conform that I was using 56 litres per day while I was away with the water turned off.

Thats great if your water meter is a smart meter, I didn't realise they did that. Surely they didn't know that you turned the water off?

Yes, that is exactly what the smart meter is doing.   However, my only issue with it is that it only sends a reading once every 6 months.    We think that I had a leak for about 5 months before the smart meter sent the reading.

I appreciate that the battery will only last a certain amount of time and they obviously think that a reading every 6 months is the best level of value/convenience.      In my opinion this was fine while water was very cheap - however, now it is incredibly expensive it doesn't wash anymore.     I think it should take a reading every month, produce a monthly bill with the amount you have actually used and then bill you monthly for that.  Therefore you would never be in credit or debit and only pay for what you use.

Gas smart meters also use a battery and send a reading every 30 minutes to the electric meter (well mine does anyway).  I therefore think it's unacceptable that the water meter doesn't send it once a month.

tribetown

Thanks for the replies.

My meter was replaced about 18 months ago, many in this area were too.
I did not know it was a smart meter at the time, still not sure but it seems to be as when I sign into my account I can choose to get hourly readings to see when the water is being used.

baldytyke88, no, they did not know I had turned my water off.

p00hsticks, I thought that maybe the case.

Peter999_2, thank-you for the detailed reply. Looking at my usage the leak seems to have started the day I went away, the 24th December.
I will have a look in the hole where the meter is tomorrow to see if it is wet in there.

Farway

Peter999_2 said:

Baldytyke88 said:

tribetown said:

There was a letter waiting for me from the Water company dated 29th December telling me there is a suspected leak, about 2 litres per hour, 24 hours a day. I signed into my account and can conform that I was using 56 litres per day while I was away with the water turned off.

Thats great if your water meter is a smart meter, I didn't realise they did that. Surely they didn't know that you turned the water off?

Yes, that is exactly what the smart meter is doing.   However, my only issue with it is that it only sends a reading once every 6 months.    We think that I had a leak for about 5 months before the smart meter sent the reading.

I appreciate that the battery will only last a certain amount of time and they obviously think that a reading every 6 months is the best level of value/convenience.      In my opinion this was fine while water was very cheap - however, now it is incredibly expensive it doesn't wash anymore.     I think it should take a reading every month, produce a monthly bill with the amount you have actually used and then bill you monthly for that.  Therefore you would never be in credit or debit and only pay for what you use.

Gas smart meters also use a battery and send a reading every 30 minutes to the electric meter (well mine does anyway).  I therefore think it's unacceptable that the water meter doesn't send it once a month.

May be company specific, here, Portsmouth Water, it is transmitted hourly to their "communications device" 

This device transmits the hourly readings  in batches every four hours back to HQ

But, billing is every six months, using readings six months apart, but hourly readings a can be seen online, with a 24 hour delay

That do say if they notice high readings they will inform customer, which seems to have happened to OP

tribetown

I followed the instructions and turned the stopcock off, ran the kitchen sink tap to check the water was off.

Looked at the meter, there was no pulsing + sign. I turned the stopcock back on, looked at the meter and there was still no pulsing + sign. When I ran the bathroom basin cold tap the pulsing + sign did appear.

The water company says to call them if there is a pulsing + sign when the stopcock is turned off. There was not.

So, you would think the leak was inside the property. It is a bungalow, The loft tank water level is 6 inches below the overflow and the tank is dry underneath.

The loo cistern level is about 1 inch below the overflow, no water is escaping into the loo either, I dried it and kept checking to see if there was any moisture.
The basin and bath taps do not drip and kitchen towel placed below them stays dry.

Same in the kitchen, no drips there. The outside tap is isolated and wrapped up and dry.

Looking on the water company site it does show 56 litres a day used when I was away with the stopcock turned off. Apparently they can see the hourly use, over 2 litres.

Not sure what to do next.

tribetown

I want to add to my last post, with the stopcock on, the + sign is pulsing on the meter, it used 5 litres in 2 hours and I did not turn on any taps or flush the loo. No drips from taps or the loo.

When I turn the stopcock off, the + sign stops flashing on the meter but I am still apparently using water as it was turned off for 7 days while I was away.

Swipe

As you've ruled everything out, it's likely a slow leak somewhere on your mains pipe, most probably at the connector that joins the pipe to the meter box tail. You'll have to get someone out if you can't persuade the water company to dig down at the meter box. It's a pity there are no signs of water below the meter or they'd book in a free job to inspect it.