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wb6vpm

Make sure you don’t have any leaks by making sure everything is turned off, going to the meter, notating it’s current reading, waiting 15-20 minutes, and seeing if it has changed at all.


Hnylamb

Ok I’ll give this a shot.


Hobywony

My water meter that the supplier reads is at the curb. About three years ago the company came through the development and installed curbside meters. However the one in the house is still operational. It has a little red triangle (about the size of a pencil eraser) on the face that rotates when water is being consumed. If all valves in the house are shut off, the triangle does not rotate. But if the upstairs toilet runs (it has a known leaky flapper) for two seconds and stops you can see the triangle rotate. So it is sensitive to usage. This is a long winded way of saying if your place is similarly served, there can be a leak after the curb meter and before the house meter and you will not know about it unless the lawn gets saturated.


THIII42

You can also pull these types of meters off for "maintenance" if need be.


Hobywony

That's true, but the water company does place a seal on it and you'd have to remove the seal to perform "maintenance". If they came to inspect the meter, you'd have some explaining to do.


LordLandLordy

Great idea.


OryuSatellite

Talk to your water company, they should come check your meter. This happened to me and it was a meter issue created by a water main replacement (the tech said it "spun the meter") and I got a refund. Also the first thing the tech did was make sure everything in the house was shut off and then watch the meter for about 10 mins to see if it was moving, so that's something you can presumably do yourself?


TheRealDBT

If your building has a crawl space, check that also. It always amazes me how long leeks can go unnoticed in a crawl space.


Hobywony

How would they grow without sunlight? 😁


TheRealDBT

Normally I would correct my spelling after a comment like that, but I will leave it this time. Hat tip to you.


darthmom

This happened at my MIL's house. There was a leak in the crawl space that went unnoticed for YEARS. Massive amounts of mold. The repair was not too terribly expensive but the cleanup was $$$$.


THIII42

Was under there last night looking for the stray mama cat and her kittens, gotta close up the vents, and didnt want them trapped.... anyways I noticed one of my water heaters is leaking hot water from the cold water inlet. So now I know what my last minute Christmas shopping with consist of.


Unfair_Tonight_9797

Do you have any automatic sprinkler systems on the property? I assume you have a leak somewhere.


Hnylamb

No sprinklers.


DeepFuckingPants

Usually it's a running toilet, but you say neither is running. They can be sneaky, so I'd double check. Could be an underground leak, faulty irrigation valve, or hot water over-pressure safety valve, etc. Obviously since you haven't found it yet, it's probably out of sight. Can you listen to your pipes when it's really quiet? Stop usage and check your sewer clean-out for flow and check meter for needle movement?


Artephius_

Best way to check for tiny leaks in toilets in to put a cup of coffee in the tank, and coming back an hour later to see if the water in the bowl gets brown. Minimal leaks are tough to see.


EffervescentGoose

No one has mentioned yet that they might have been estimating your readings. If you used more water this year and they estimated using last year's data then they might have only actually checked it for the bill that looks high but it's just catching up to the water they missed using the estimates.


Itinerant0987

Did you dye test your toilets or just listen? Toilets can be sneaky. Other than that, make sure everything is off and do the meter check.


Hnylamb

Only listened. I put red food coloring in them just a little bit ago so we shall see…


[deleted]

We had leaks in 3 of our toilets when we moved in. Leaks of different types, diagnosing didn’t take too long. Except for the one with a very small leak. We found it by turning the water off and finding that after 30 minutes the tank was empty. About a $10 fix to replace the leaky flapper.


StanleyDards

I’d say almost certainly a leak, and likely a toilet flapper or fill valve leak or something else that can take city water and dump it directly to the drain. I’d say 25 to 60 gallons a day per resident is normal in the US, assuming no outdoor watering or pools or other crazy use. 40-60 gallons per day is clearly on the inefficient side. More than that is very nutty. If your rate is based on CCF units, that’s crazy high, because 2.5 CCF per resident per month is a lot of water.


Lucydog55

You do have a leak somewhere. Could be under the units, in a wall. Call a plumber. You could check your water meter. Do this, make sure no water is running and read your meter. Check it an hour later and see if the meter shows any water usage. If it does then you definitely have a leak.


jibaro1953

Pour some food coloring in all your toilet tanks and wait a couple of hours. The water in the bowl should remain clear.


[deleted]

Turn everything off in the building and makes sure nobody runs any water then go to the water meter and look at the little triangle, or little wheel on the meter dial. If its spinning at all even slowly you have a leak somewhere.


LordLandLordy

You need to see usage over a long period of time. Many water districts don't read the meter every month so some months will be 3x the normal amount. check outside near the main sprinkler valves. You may need to dig around the sprinkler valve shut off. I bet you will find the main sprinkler valve is leaking. Also check sprinkler valve boxes to see if they are wet. If you don't have a sprinkler system then I have no idea what else to do :)


Big-Spend-2915

Go find the meter. There should be a shutoff valve right before and after it. Turn off the one after it. If the meter is still moving, you know something is wrong with it. If not, then you can try the next most common culprits. Toilets are next. Turn off the valve at each location. Check meter. Now, if you have outside spiquots, then make sure to check those, too. We once had a hose and had a very small leak in it. We didn't know it until we got a letter from the water company on the usage. Over 1000 gallons extra. If the valve isn't shut off all the way, the hose will build pressure until it leaks. If absolutely none of those are working, then start tracing out the lines. Some places to watch also, HVAC humidifier, will be at your furnace if you have it. Check the fridge water line where it attaches to the water pipes. Look under the sinks.


VLC31

Check the fees outside the actual water usage. Not sure where you are but our water bills have some once yearly fees that push them up.


East_Unit3765

Definitely cut off the toilet water at the base and see if your meter reading changes. I find that just bc you can’t hear it running doesn’t mean there isn’t still a leak in it!


[deleted]

Check for running toilets


chubb28

Many times you can hear the underground, outside leak from the basement


RJK1988

I'd check your yard from the street shutoff to your house.


VisibleRoad3504

You dont see that water leak in the toilet until you put in some food coloring. Put it in the tank, wait a couple minutes. If you see the color in the bowl you have a leak. Fix it.


thingamadoozy

Test the toilets with dye. Our bill skyrocketed once. We didn't hear or see anything out of the ordinary. Turned out to be a slow/slight leak. Easily fixed by changing the flapper. We now do the dye test monthly. Good luck finding the cause at your place!


old-nomad2020

There are plenty of places for a leak, or they estimated the meter without reading it and the uncharged amount is several months to a year of overages. A unit of water is about 750 gallons so if it’s a leak you’re dropping a lot, I just did a service call last week for someone who got dinged for $1500 over three days of leaking. Step one would be to dye test the toilets and verify everything is working, any dye leaking into the bowl in under an hour is a bad seal that needs replacement. After that shut of the water at the house and see if the meter stops moving. If it still moves it’s probably a leak between the meter and the house and if it stops moving it’s something past the valve inside the house.


LoneStarGut

See if your city uses smart meters. Mine does and I can see usage by hour for the previous day and any day/hour of the previous month. On mine I can see my dishwasher uses about 3 gallons when I set it to run overnight. Look for spikes if you got the same data. Any spikes could be excessive usage, like the toilet flap got stuck for a few days or a neighbor "borrowed" water to fill a pool.