Unusual High Water Useage

JohnB47 · 1 March 2019 at 5:58PM

You are doing some excellent detective work.

The only question I have is, are you absolutely sure that there is no tap available for anyone else to use? e.g. an outside tap, to which someone could have connected a hosepipe, to water their garden or fill their massive garden pool? They may have done this quite innocently of course.

Just a thought.

saintscouple · 1 March 2019 at 11:21PM

Cheers JohnB47,

We do have just the one outside tap, but it is isolated from the inside and hardly ever used. (i have double checked it has been turned off on the inside, and that there is no flow from the tap)

The only other thing which i've gone back on my calendar to find out, is on the 12/13th Sept last year, the housing put a new base unit under the sink - they had a plumber out who had to alter the pipework. This is quite loose, even the pipe above and below the internal stopcock is loose.... yet there are no visible signs of a leak.

These dates fall inline with billing period for the increased usage - no other work has been done, no appliances changed. So perhaps the increased usage relates to the work done then.

Fingers crossed I get some answers on Tuesday when the housing come out.

Either way i still say we are not using this increased recorded usage of water, but worry how I stand and what my options are in proving this.

JohnB47 · 2 March 2019 at 12:04PM

saintscouple wrote: »

Cheers JohnB47,

We do have just the one outside tap, but it is isolated from the inside and hardly ever used. (i have double checked it has been turned off on the inside, and that there is no flow from the tap)

The only other thing which i've gone back on my calendar to find out, is on the 12/13th Sept last year, the housing put a new base unit under the sink - they had a plumber out who had to alter the pipework. This is quite loose, even the pipe above and below the internal stopcock is loose.... yet there are no visible signs of a leak.

These dates fall inline with billing period for the increased usage - no other work has been done, no appliances changed. So perhaps the increased usage relates to the work done then.

Fingers crossed I get some answers on Tuesday when the housing come out.

Either way i still say we are not using this increased recorded usage of water, but worry how I stand and what my options are in proving this.

Hmmmm. Well the timing of the work might make you suspicious but it's hard to see how a plumber could have run off such a quantity of water in, say, a few hours work. I don't think its possible.

Other thoughts - what sort of heating do you have? Do you have a loft tank supplying cold water to a hot water tank below (or maybe just feeding the loo)?

I suppose a loft tank ballcock could have jammed open and let more water flow up and out an overflow pipe for a period, then corrected itself.

saintscouple · 2 March 2019 at 7:52PM

Thanks JohnB47, but that's a negative - no tanks in the loft.

These are the facts -
1. The meter is recording a high level of water usage, in the last 6 months+ 4 x normal usage and is continuing to record higher than used water usage.
2. There has been no change of habit, or change of appliance.
3. There is no sign of any appliance working incorrectly.
4. When there is no water running, the meter correctly shows no water being used.
5. Engineer reports no leaks.
6. There is no sign of any leaks or drips around the taps, washing machine, toilet, or shower.

With this in mind, my only conclusion is that the meter is incorrectly recording the amount of water drawn.

I suggested to Thames Water this, and suggested as Cardew recommended to draw out a certain amount of water and see if the meter reads the same amount.

But their reply is to another meter read - I guess a 2nd meter read again showing a higher usage shows the problem is ongoing, and simply wasn't down to a one-off incident.
But also to test the meter, they won't do as suggested, but will swap out the meter and send it to an impartial party for testing - if it comes back as normal we will be charged £70+ vat which we cannot afford.

Although we should get an answer within a few days - as the current meter shows us using aprox 2,000 litres within a few days, if faulty the newly placed meter will show a far less usage within that time.

I really need to find a 5 or 10 litre container and to do this test myself i think

saintscouple · 3 March 2019 at 10:14AM

Well found a 20L container, draw out 100L of water from the outside tap and meter recorded exactly that - so now I am confused.

We have a Samsung Add-Wash washing machine, not 2 years old - I guess I could take a meter reading before and after a wash to see the water consumption, same as the Grohe thermostatic shower we have - Just checked the pressure on the condensing combi boiler but that's all ok.

Meter reading on 26th was 1496
This morning, 5 days later it's 1498

2,000 in 5 days = 400 Litres a day which although higher than previous billing periods is not that high, not when compared to last billing period which was 900 litres a day!

Something's just come to mind - firstly the water meter was in a pretty inaccessible place under an overgrown bush - it wasn't till late last summer that the housing cut the bush back so the water meters were accessible. Secondly, the engineer that came out and reported no leak, so when they read meters previously they could see previous readings and some engineers - instead of digging down to get to a water meter they would just add the average to the previous reading. Though the powers above caught wind of this, and have no wiped previous readings from the engineers consoles, so they can no longer see what the previous readings were.

This could it be, as the meters were pretty much inaccessible that engineers were just guesstimating the readings, until the bush was cut back, a proper reading done, and hence the sudden rise? As all readings that I've done since that last reading indicate a constant 400 litres a day average.

This would give a 6 monthly billing usage of 73,000 litres which is nearly inline with July 17 figure - which maybe was a correct meter recording.

If this is all the case, then we have been under-billed previously, so guess we just have to suck it up, pay what we owe a bit each month, over the new usage levels of 400 litres a day average.

kazwookie · 3 March 2019 at 10:47AM

We had a water leak between the meter and stop !!!!, after several visits from the water board etc, it turned out to be under block paving, a very small split in the pipe, which was solved in about 10 mins.
I had to pay for the work I think about £300, but got a credit from the water board of about £150.

Is there any wet patch in your drive way or garden?

I hope you get it sorted.

deanos · 4 March 2019 at 7:11PM

kazwookie wrote: »

We had a water leak between the meter and stop !!!!, after several visits from the water board etc, it turned out to be under block paving, a very small split in the pipe, which was solved in about 10 mins.
I had to pay for the work I think about £300, but got a credit from the water board of about £150.

Is there any wet patch in your drive way or garden?

I hope you get it sorted.

if there was a leak like that the meter would be moving

deanos · 4 March 2019 at 7:15PM

have you checked the toilets for intermittent leaks , as the push button ones can be temperamental

after flushing wait a few mins and put dry toilet paper at back of pan it should stay dry

saintscouple · 5 March 2019 at 2:37PM

Yeah, i'm pretty sure there is no leak.

Deanos, I tried the toilet test and paper was dry.

Got the housing coming out this afternoon, for them to do their checks, but as i say i'm pretty sure there are no leaks - even more so since i dissected the meter readings more, it becomes more obvious the 2018 readings are not accurate.

Due to those readings our monthly cost went down from £17.50 a month, to £5 a month - of course such a drop was welcome by us, but surely it should have sent alarm bells to them as to why our usage would plummet so much!

saintscouple · 5 March 2019 at 5:11PM

Resolved:

Thames Water phoned this afternoon, whilst the housing was here fortunately, so had them on loud speaker.
They admit the 2 x readings in 2018 were estimates, not actuals like the invoices state - this is an error. And they were estimates as they had no access to the meters.
Once the housing cut back the bush in Oct last year, they had access for the Feb reading - hence it was so high. They did another reading last week which confirmed out usage to be the same as the 2017 reading of aprox 400 litres a day.

So they are going to off-set the 'spiked' reading down to our normal usage level and phone back later in the week with the new figures. Which should mean we return to paying £17.50 a month rather than the current £5 a month.

The housing operative was happy he could hear the call, as no need to conduct any leak investigations - though i did get them to clip in a couple of loose pipes whilst they were here.

Thank you all for your opinions and recommendations, it was very much appreciated. I'm just glad Thames Water admitted they were at fault, to which they've apologised.

Update - Thames Water called today, they've applied a credit to bring the account in to credit, and new monthly payments will be £17 a month. Very happy with the resolution - case closed.

Unusual High Water Useage

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