There may be an underground leak. I'm not sure how you can find it short of doing a lot of digging. If you turn off all your water and monitor the meter for several hours or even one day, if you can do that. The small hand on the meter will let you know if you have a leak or not. If it moves at all then you have a leak somewhere. First make sure you have a leak then track it down through a process of elimination starting with the most obvious culprits first, toilet, water heater over flow
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valve, valve seat damaged (kitchen, bath, hose bibb, etc.) If you don't find a leak and you know for sure you have one then check all the pipes you can get to and if you can't find it there then it has to be underground. I wouldn't mess with the underground part unless you absolutely have to. Good luck!!
The same raindrops that fall on you also fell on dinosaurs. The amount of water we have does not go away. Unfortunately we are roped into paying for it. Believe it or not, the average water usage per person per day is 200 gallons.
Brushing teeth wet brush, rinse briefly, = ½ gallon
Shaving, fill sink basin = 1 gallon
Washing hands fill sink basin = 1 gallon
Tub bath minimal water level = 10 to 12 gallons
Flushing toilet using a smaller tank = 4 to 6 gallons
dishwashing washing and rinsing in the sink = 5 gallons
automatic dishwasher short cycle = 7 gallons
washing machine short cycle with minimal water level = 27 gallons
Outdoor watering average hose = 10 gallons per minute
leaks - even a small drip can add up to 25 gallons per day
To check for leaks, turn off all water faucets in the home and go to the meter outside. If it is spinning, you have a leak. If there is no indicator and the actual meter dial hand is moving, water is running somewhere in your system and you have a leak.
If the hand is not moving, note the position of the hand and wait 10 minutes. Check the meter again, if it has moved, you have a slow leak. Check out site at: http://www.lcra.org/water/utilities/waterlea...
We use about 18000 gal a year...Which includes two full time adults and 2 part time preteens...
One trick i have used in the past to isolate leaks is the Stethoscope trick...not a real one but a very long screw driver...I place the tip of the screw driver on a suspect pipe or line and place my ear tightly against the round end of the handle and listen...you can sometimes hear the "hiss" of a leak and the water flowing in the pipe make a subtle sound.
Teri, I also live in Powder Springs... Here is a thought.... Have the water department come and physically check the meter. There was a recent WSB TV story on a homeowner who had a leak & fixed it, yet the water department had not come to physically read the meter for months. They were simply reposting the amount from the month where usage was un-normally high. Tell them your rates have tripled and they will send somebody out. Good Luck ! I hope a refund is in order...
I have to agree with Amazing Improvements, get the meter checked by the water department. I have to admit this is the worse part of government to deal with.
You can also check your billing to see if they just copied the last month. I would also pay attention to the reading date and read it my self this next month.
Just some amplification on Paul's input for basic troubleshooting.Many homes have a main water shut-off valve somewhere in the structure. If you do, close that valve. Go in the house and open the highest cold water faucet in the house (i.e.: upstairs bathroom; you go upstairs so you don't have to wait for water trapped in the lines to drain out to make sure there is no water pressure coming
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in). Once you are sure that valve you closed shut the water off, go out to the water meter and see if there is any movement on the meter. For most meters, the most sensitive indication of water flow is that little triangle. That little spinner should be frozen still as opposed to rotating/spinning. If that triangle is moving, then you still have water flowing thru the meter which means you have a leak in the main supply line between the meter and the shut-off in the house. Call a plumber to get it fixed.
If a leak is not discovered there, then consider the other options our other Hometalk members have suggested.
One more thing. I know of a case where a widow ran her lawn irrigation system thinking it was on a well where in fact it was city water. To her defense, her former husband handled it previously. Needless to say, this was the cause of her horrific water bill.
I obviously don't know the procedures in Powder Springs, but here in Virginia Beach our waste water bill is based on our water bill/usage. I had a leak in my supply line for a good month before I realized it. The city actually credited me a part of my wastewater bill because of the leak. Keep us posted. Tim
I did shut off all the valves and the little red triangle was still turning. Then I shut off the water main by the water heater in my garage and the triangle stopped. So there's no leak between the street & the house. Must be one of the outlets inside. My neighborhood plumber is going to come & fix one toilet next weekend. Process of elimination... if that doesn't fix my skyrocketing consumption amount, we'll try something else. But thank you all for your responses! At least I learned
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something. In the 5 years I've lived here I've never looked at the meter thingy :-) (new homeowner - learning more every year).
Teri, we had the problem with a leaky toilet at our vacation home during winter months and accumulated a $700 bill over 3 mo period when we were not there. We repaired the leak and the water dept. credited the sewer portion of the bill with the receipts/proof of repair. You may want to contact your water dept to inquire whether any portion is refundable w/repair of the leak. Good luck.
We too had a major leak in our waterline away from the house after turning off the water over the winter as we were in Tucson for 6 mos, but we failed to blow out the pipes to rid them of the water. The winter was extreemly cold and our pipes were about 20 years old....... go figure it for an opportunity for the pipes to break unknown by us until the bill arrived!!
We had to replace all the pipes outside and as a bonus, decided to replace them all under the
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house as well. A wayward leak is a big money sapper!! for sure!!
have you tried the "dye" test before you just start replacing toilets willy nilly. Flush the toilet normally then let the tank fill back up. Then add a few drops of food coloring to the tanks water...then wait.....this may take an hour or so..... if there is a leak in your flapper valve the tinted water will show up in your bowl. There are "ready made" dye kits which consist of a tablet...but the food color trick works just as well.
check out the ground outside maybe you have a leaking pipe outside i did and bill is now 5000.00 but the watershed dept is going to reevaluate the bill
I'd double check that toilet. A toilet that doesn't shut off can use alot of water. Do you have to jiggle the handle to get it to stop? You can buy new guts for the tank pretty cheap (called flowmasters I think) Pretty simple fix if this is the problem. Just a thought
Do you live in a home with an irrigation system? I recently found that debris in my sprinkler valves was causing them to leak. Once they were cleaned out the leakage stopped. Also, it could be that water line. My home was built using "Blue Poly" for the water supply. After roughly 20 years it started leaking.
Joe, Blue Poly = DANGER.... I just had one burst (In my storage room) and they are all ticking time bombs at this point. I was lucky and caught it soon after it burst. Hudson Designs and I will be doing the replacements within the next few weeks.... Who knows... maybe we'll post some pics....
Here's how...
Showering wet down, soap up, rinse off = 4 gallons ...»
Brushing teeth wet brush, rinse briefly, = ½ gallon
Shaving, fill sink basin = 1 gallon
Washing hands fill sink basin = 1 gallon
Tub bath minimal water level = 10 to 12 gallons
Flushing toilet using a smaller tank = 4 to 6 gallons
dishwashing washing and rinsing in the sink = 5 gallons
automatic dishwasher short cycle = 7 gallons
washing machine short cycle with minimal water level = 27 gallons
Outdoor watering average hose = 10 gallons per minute
leaks - even a small drip can add up to 25 gallons per day
To check for leaks, turn off all water faucets in the home and go to the meter outside. If it is spinning, you have a leak. If there is no indicator and the actual meter dial hand is moving, water is running somewhere in your system and you have a leak.
If the hand is not moving, note the position of the hand and wait 10 minutes. Check the meter again, if it has moved, you have a slow leak. Check out site at: http://www.lcra.org/water/utilities/waterlea...
One trick i have used in the past to isolate leaks is the Stethoscope trick...not a real one but a very long screw driver...I place the tip of the screw driver on a suspect pipe or line and place my ear tightly against the round end of the handle and listen...you can sometimes hear the "hiss" of a leak and the water flowing in the pipe make a subtle sound.
You can also check your billing to see if they just copied the last month. I would also pay attention to the reading date and read it my self this next month.
Just some amplification on Paul's input for basic troubleshooting.Many homes have a main water shut-off valve somewhere in the structure. If you do, close that valve. Go in the house and open the highest cold water faucet in the house (i.e.: upstairs bathroom; you go upstairs so you don't have to wait for water trapped in the lines to drain out to make sure there is no water pressure coming ...»
If a leak is not discovered there, then consider the other options our other Hometalk members have suggested.
One more thing. I know of a case where a widow ran her lawn irrigation system thinking it was on a well where in fact it was city water. To her defense, her former husband handled it previously. Needless to say, this was the cause of her horrific water bill.
I obviously don't know the procedures in Powder Springs, but here in Virginia Beach our waste water bill is based on our water bill/usage. I had a leak in my supply line for a good month before I realized it. The city actually credited me a part of my wastewater bill because of the leak. Keep us posted. Tim
We had to replace all the pipes outside and as a bonus, decided to replace them all under the ...»