Anyone familiar with water meters ? UPDATE

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mbaird

mbaird

mbaird
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Our December waterbill was 3x normal so we asked the city to do a leak check. A guy came out and said our meter was showing .5 gals/min with our house main off . So I crawled under the house and found no leaks between the valve and the foundation where the main enters . Then I dug up the sprinkler valves and backflow ... no leak there. So we called a plumber to check for a leak between the house and street ....he opened the meter and had us shut the main off in the house again . Meter was not moving ! No leak ! Open the main and verify all faucets were off ... no movement on the meter ! The city swears the meter cannot be defective... We just got our new bill and its 2x normal !

Note : TDS Fiber has been laying lines right where our meter is and the cut our neighbors main which prompted the city to come out to repair the line .
They also replaced our meter just before the bill spiked.

Can meters give eronious eeadings ?
 
Ironracer said:
I'm not sure, but IT IS a Mechanical Gauge. And the City, Well, they caint be wrong now, can they?
Click to expand...

Its a digital readout meter that has some type of diaphram that sends a pulse to the gauge I am told .
They say it cant read in error .
 
Does it have a meter face that you can actually read? Shut everything off and then fill a 55 gallon drum or some other known valued item. Bath tub maybe, small pool, hot tub. something large enough to get a good spread. See if it matches your meter.
 
Those things seem to charge me every month. gets expensive every year for some reason.......
 
when was the house build?

and do you know what material the main is made out of ?

they used some black stuff in the 70s that generally lasts about 40-50 years

in the 80s the started using blue stuff which they claim should last longer


i had to have my water main replaced a few years ago because the line was cracked and it was leaking into the yard (not a ton, but enough to tell)
 
There was a horror story here a couple of years ago-= a family was being billed 5K a month for several months and finally a third party found an error in the way the remote, digital meter sent data to the receiver in the truck.

The water company offered the resident to accept $0 for the current bill.

WTF?

The are still on the hook for thousands of dollars in errors on the utilities part?
 
diymirage said:
when was the house build?

and do you know what material the main is made out of ?

they used some black stuff in the 70s that generally lasts about 40-50 years

in the 80s the started using blue stuff which they claim should last longer


i had to have my water main replaced a few years ago because the line was cracked and it was leaking into the yard (not a ton, but enough to tell)
Click to expand...

Home was built in 95
 
The odd part is that the meter was running at a rate of .5 gals/min with the water shut off in the house the first time they came out ... I watched it . But when the plumber checked it was not running . The city came back out and it was not running ! Even when we turned the main valve back on it was not running. Now I get another large bill..
 
If you had a city inspector come and tell you the meter is running when everything is off and no leaks, the meter is defective
The city has records of your bill and that type of increase in usage with no plausible explanation is unusual
Keep calling and keep protesting the bill until the city changes out the meter, have dates when inspector came out initially and statements of "licensed" plumber stating no known leakage found
Best of luck and I know how frustrating dealing with the city/utilities can be from personal experience
 
Water meters measure how much water flows using an internal impellor. When they get old, they will read "slow" meaning you bill should go down. Typically they are good for 10 to 15 years and the city should replace them.

As you saw, the correct way to test is to turn everything off in your house so there is no water anywhere, including toilets. A leaking flapper will cause your toilet to run constantly. Diagnose from there.

Honestly, by you're description, I'd say the old meter was reading slow.
 
Steve welder said:
If you had a city inspector come and tell you the meter is running when everything is off and no leaks, the meter is defective
The city has records of your bill and that type of increase in usage with no plausible explanation is unusual
Keep calling and keep protesting the bill until the city changes out the meter, have dates when inspector came out initially and statements of "licensed" plumber stating no known leakage found
Best of luck and I know how frustrating dealing with the city/utilities can be from personal experience
Click to expand...

The meter was replaced just before the bill spiked . They sais the old one was broken and had not been reading correctly. But our usage/ billing has been consitant for 7 yrs. And summertime usage is consistant ( higher) with using the sprinkler . We dont use much water.
I find it suspicious that the spike coincided with the fiber company work , the breaking of neighbors mian ( 2' away from our meter) and the replacement of our meter .
 
diymirage said:
when was the house build?

and do you know what material the main is made out of ?

they used some black stuff in the 70s that generally lasts about 40-50 years

in the 80s the started using blue stuff which they claim should last longer


i had to have my water main replaced a few years ago because the line was cracked and it was leaking into the yard (not a ton, but enough to tell)
Click to expand...
The main has nothing to do with it unless the meter is in a manhole at the curb and the water travels underground to the house
The only main id ever want and have is copper and lead free solder joints
God only knows what a plastic main for 40 years ago is made of
 
mbaird said:
The meter was replaced just before the bill spiked . They sais the old one was broken and had not been reading correctly. But our usage/ billing has been consitant for 7 yrs. And summertime usage is consistant ( higher) with using the sprinkler . We dont use much water.
I find it suspicious that the spike coincided with the fiber company work , the breaking of neighbors mian ( 2' away from our meter) and the replacement of our meter .
Click to expand...


Well, here's some food for thought.

A typical 3/4 water line, free flowing moves about 3 or 4 gallons per minute.

gpm x ( minutes in a day) x 30 days
3x(60x24)x30 == 129,600 gallons.

That's the equivalent of 12 average pools.

I've seen this kind of leak and it ends in your yard looking like a swamp after just a week or so.... Further, if the city busted the main anywhere near your house, by now it would have sunk.

I'm not suggesting you'd have that sort of gusher since you'd have NO pressure and you would have the swamp. You don't have a leak (unless it's a leaking toilet or something) and more likely DID have a bad meter.

You're old meter was reading slow. If you want, you should be able to request a calibration test. A properly calibrated meter is one which measures between 98.5 and 101.5 percent of actual flow.

The test of turning off the main is wrong. All that tells you is there ins't a leak between the meter and your house. You need to leave everything in tact and after ensuring all of the water faucets are off, watch the meter for at least 15 or 30 mins to see any movement.
 
mbaird said:
The meter was replaced just before the bill spiked . They sais the old one was broken and had not been reading correctly. But our usage/ billing has been consitant for 7 yrs. And summertime usage is consistant ( higher) with using the sprinkler . We dont use much water.
I find it suspicious that the spike coincided with the fiber company work , the breaking of neighbors mian ( 2' away from our meter) and the replacement of our meter .
Click to expand...
You did not mention replacement or I missed it
Your old meter was running slow and hence your bill was lower. The new meter reads as it should
How low your meter was reading would be determined by your new bill if your water usage is the same, something only you would know
Honestly consider yourself lucky your not getting a estimated bill for those past years
 
Steve welder said:
The main has nothing to do with it unless the meter is in a manhole at the curb and the water travels underground to the house
The only main id ever want and have is copper and lead free solder joints
God only knows what a plastic main for 40 years ago is made of
Click to expand...

Our main is in a little man hole next to the sidewalk and our neighbors is right next to it . The feed to the house is only about 35' long.
The thing is why would the meter run with the house valve shut off then stop running the next time its checked ?
 
mbaird said:
Our main is in a little man hole next to the sidewalk and our neighbors is right next to it . The feed to the house is only about 35' long.
The thing is why would the meter run with the house valve shut off then stop running the next time its checked ?
Click to expand...

Unless there is/was a leak, it won't

Water has to flow through it to register a reading. They do on occasion run backwards when you have a main bust down the line. but water has to be flowing..
 
mbaird said:
Our main is in a little man hole next to the sidewalk and our neighbors is right next to it . The feed to the house is only about 35' long.
The thing is why would the meter run with the house valve shut off then stop running the next time its checked ?
Click to expand...
That changes the story completely. The leak if there is a leak would be between the sidewalk and the house
 
When my main stated to leak underground, eventually the ground water sump pump started to run and it hadn't rained
I knew I had a leaking main
The first bucket of dirt the backhoe dug which guessing would be 18'' down, the ground was saturated with water. By the time they dug down a few feet, the pumps were needed and mind you this was with a leak not a complete failure and only after a few days
 
Steve welder said:
When my main stated to leak underground, eventually the ground water sump pump started to run and it hadn't rained
I knew I had a leaking main
The first bucket of dirt the backhoe dug which guessing would be 18'' down, the ground was saturated with water. By the time they dug down a few feet, the pumps were needed and mind you this was with a leak not a complete failure and only after a few days
Click to expand...

yeah, it doesn't take much. One of the two "swamp" leaks near our house almost sunk a tractor. It was not a small tractor and needed another to pull it out.

In this case, I'm sticking with the old meter was bad...
 
I dug a 4' hole thinking it was my sprinkler junction that was leaking and found no wet soil or leak .
I did have some water in my crawl space but it had been raining and snowing hard for a few weeks so it was difficult pinpoint the cause . That is what prompted me to dig up the sprinkler feed . It is right next to the foundation where the main lin enters the house. I will go back under the house and check it again today. But at a rate of .5/gals per minute I should have 4' of water under there after 2 months !
 
Our water meter is in the basement. We had a leak in our line between the shut off and the house which is our responsibility for repair but the leak didn't go through the meter so we weren't responsible for the lost water.

Keep bugging the water works to replace the meter. If you have a licenced plumber that says there are no leaks they should listen.
 
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