Hi all :
I just received a water bill ($864.20 one month) for a single wide mobile home I am renting to some tenants.
The bill says they used 93,820 gallons.
The home had a small leak in the yard which did not even run across the ground also I found a toilet that was leaking.
The place has a 1,000 Gallon septic tank so according to the amount of water used it would have filled it 90 times during the month.
No water ever ran out of the ground so I do not believe I used this much water.
The meter has a flywheel in the water stream which spins a magnet which turns the meter which is out of the water stream. I suspect that the pipes are so coroded that the water has to come through the meter at a much faster rate per gallon of water consumed which would spin the magnet faster and thereby give a falce reading. Is this possible?
If some of you know about these things and can tell me something I would like for you to reply.
Never say anything bad about a person untill you have walked a mile in his shoes, by then you will be a mile away from him and you will have his shoes.
Replies
What did the water dept say to this one. They have the history of usage and might offer up some ideas.
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The next-door neighbor's got to get water for his hydroponic MJ operation from somewhere.
>>The home had a small leak in the yard which did not even run across the ground also I found a toilet that was leaking.
The place has a 1,000 Gallon septic tank so according to the amount of water used it would have filled it 90 times during the month.
What do you mean by a small leak in the yard? A 2-gallon-per-minute leak can use 93,000 gallons in a month if you assume house usage also. If you have well-draining soil and a reasonably large drainfield I bet your septic system could absorb that water as well, but I think you'd know it. Still, I have heard of underground leaks that use hundreds of thousands of gallons undetected. There was one here in town, a cracked main, and they only knew it because they couldn't keep the million gallon tank full. It took an outside leak detection company to find it. All of the water was seeping away underground, nothing on the surface.
Can't answer your questions about meters. There may be some good discussion at terrylove.com
for years and years in Charlestown, RI... there was a famous spring that people would visit and fill their water bottles ( long before bottled water became popular )
then one year the water company was working on that line and discovered the "spring" was their water mainMike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
When I worked at the prison we had a 3" water main start leaking which was found by water coming up above ground. Once we dug down to it we found a large cave like area running to a storm sewer.
Upon further investigation we found the water main had been leaking for years but had tunneled its way to the storm sewer (which was maybe 20' away) and the water just ran and ran for years. Once the leak was fixed our water bill dropped $300 a month, about 50k gallons. Amazing what can happen. DanT
Shooter,
I had a 10,000 gallon/month leak in my yardline a couple of years ago and there was no sign of it anywhere. It is amazing that you can lose that much water and not be able to tell - but it happens all the time.
Does the water meter show that water is flowing when everything in the house is off? That would be my first step.
If the meter is still showing usage with everything off you will need to figure out if the problem is in the house or the yard. That will be pretty easy if you have a cutoff valve where the supply line meets the house.
It is possible that they made an error reading the meter too. Do they provide the meter reading numbers in the bill?
When you get the problem fixed the water company should give you an adjustment. Give them a call and find out what the process is. Around here you just need to send in a notarized form.
Steve
As long as you're checking the meter, why not run a known amount of water... say a 32-gallon trash can... and see what the meter registers.
Pretty much just seconding what others have said.
Easy to check the meter. Fill a trash can or drum. You'll find out quick if it's close.
The meter could have been read wrong,,,,maybe.
Most meters are pretty bullet proof.
It is often hard to get the utility as excited as you are about your problem, because they hear this all the time. And 99.9% of the time it is a leak, or someone stealing water.
I'm suprised you have that type of meter on a house ( if I understand you correctly).
Harry
Edited 12/12/2008 5:58 pm ET by inperfectionist
I can't really see that the meter would go that awry in a month's usage... But that said,
My first utility bill after getting a new service in my residential home was $3,685--to a 200a service in a 1400sf home.
When I pressed the issue--it was discovered that the new meter had one more digit than the old one.
Never know.
That's awesome...
Stupid cat...
Well, smart cat.
We had an Irish setter when i was growing up. That dog was really stupid. He would stand ankle deep in the lake, all day, staring down into the water. Fishing... I guess.
If youl eft the bathroom door open, same thing, he'd stand there and stare into the toilet for as long as you let him. Undaunted.
Bucket of water did the trick too. We'd do it just to put people in stitches when they visited.
Stupid dog.
From time to time, there have been 'seers' or 'soothsayers' who have seen their 'visions' while staring into water.Maybe your dog was a reincarnated soothsayer.Or even a reintarnated moonshiner.;o)
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Dog was a plain old idiot.
An Irish Setter my hippie parents had named "yosarian of peace" after the catch 22 protagonist.
"Yossie" was no seersayer, seersucker nor seer of any kind.
Persistent tho.
They named his sister irish setter, "blue."
Demand that they replace the meter.
Maybe DanH isn't far off the mark. I've heard that it takes a lot of water to 'cook' meth. Those meth and/or pot operations usually bypass a meter or use some other illegal method to get their electric or water...
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You didn't say what type of supply pipe that you have from the meter to the house. Also, how long is the run and what is the water pressure at the meter and at the house?
I had a property that I was working on that was empty. The water bill went from just a few bucks, to $300 one month.
The water department said their meter was fine and that I had a leak. I talked to a friend at another water department and learned a few things. First, the meters are pretty much accurate. They are of a design that it's extremely unlikely that they will read it wrong. BUT, if the water district is running an old pump and has "surge" in their pipes from inconsistent pressure in their lines, you can get a big water bill without using any water. The pump pushes the water past the meter if your line is long enough to absorb the additional water. The pipe gets bigger under pressure. Then the water is forced back through the meter in the other direction. The meter reads this water movement as it comes into the line, but doesn't un-read it when it goes back out.
To solve this problem, I had them replace the meter with a new one. They tried to tell me that it wasn't happening, but then I told them who I was talking to, and the next thing you know, I had a new meter!!!
The bill went back to normal. I sold the house and about six months later, the new owners called to tell me that they had a huge water bill.
The new meter was doing it's job and only allowing the water to come in one way, but it was now increasing the water pressure on the pipe. I sealed off the pipe and measured the pressure. It was over 100 pounds!!! Then it slowly dropped!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The pipe was thin wall. I replaced it with Schedule 40 and added a pressure regulator to the line that I set for 60 pounds.
Problem solved.
Eddie
Water does NOT compress much at all. So I cannot see a "pump surge" pushing much water beyond the meter to induce a usuage reading.
The water volume would have to "go" somewhere from the meter to the house.
"Maybe" if there was a pretty big extrol-type tank?
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?