Ok, so I opened our water bill this month and Yikes!!! Over $1000!!!
(This bill typically runs about $150 and includes garbage removal, and various utility taxes, but the water is typically the largest chunk of it. This $1000 bill included $800 specifically for the water, the rest of the overage had to do with taxes that were higher because of the higher water consumption.)
Immediate actions taken:
1) Checked our water meter to see if there was an active leak. Nope. It wasn’t moving. I checked back a little later after I had used the toilet and it showed about 2 gallons used.
2) I checked the current reading of the meter and compared it to the reading of the last date of the last billing period. Yikes! It still looks like we are consuming water at a great rate …. but again the meter isn’t moving. There doesn’t seem to be an active leak. ?????
3) I went in person to City Hall (our city is our water company) and asked what I should do to figure out what the problem was and whether or not we really had to pay the entire bill. Answer: 1) A technician from the city would be sent out the next day to take a look at the daily and hourly records of our water consumption. 2) I would be eligible for a bill “adjustment.” We would still have to pay for all the water, but we would be able to pay for all the excess consumption at the lowest, not the highest rate. I didn’t have to pay the entire bill right away. I could pay a “good faith estimate” of what we owed and pay that. I paid $450, erring on the side of not causing problems for myself with the city. (We typically owe about $150/month.)
Subsequent actions:
1) On the way home I remembered that a while back we had had problems with leaks in our sprinkler system causing higher than average water consumption. So, that evening I had my husband check the sprinkler system and sure enough one head was broken and water was gushing. I called the sprinkler people and made an appointment to get it fixed.
2) The technician from the city came out the next day (his official title is “Water Conservation Coordinators: Utilities Division”). He looked at our usage records and told me that we had had a continuous leak from Dec. 13th to Jan 1st. I thought that was odd because it corresponded mostly but not completely with a vacation we took — we were away from Dec. 15th to Dec. 30th. We had no awareness of anything leaking before we left and did nothing to stop the leak after we got back. The technician said he was sure it wasn’t the sprinkler system, as it had been continuous. Beside, one broken sprinkle head wouldn’t lead to that much consumption. It also wasn’t a burst pipe (he would have seen a huge pool of water somewhere) or a “slab leak” (our house is new enough not to be at risk for this problem). So, he thinks the most likely culprit is the Water Softener system. He said that it could have gotten stuck in “Regeneration mode.”
I told him that I had looked at how much our meter had run since the end of the last billing cycle, did the necessary calculations and it seemed to me that water was still being consumed at a great rate. The technician denied this and said that our consumption has been within normal limits since Jan. 1. I asked if I could get a copy of the report he was looking at. He agreed, got my email address and sent it to me while we were still talking.
3) I took a look at the salt tank for our water softening system and it looked like a mess. Just a big solid block of salt. Maybe that could be the problem?
4) I called our water softening equipment company and asked them what they thought. The person I spoke with on the phone sounded defensive. They couldn’t imagine that the water softener would get stuck in rejuvenation mode, but conceded that it could have been a “salt bridge” that led to a “back flow.” I set up an appointment for someone to come out next week and service our equipment.
5) I realized that I never got the email from the technician with the hourly/daily record of our consumption, so I emailed him asking for another copy.
So this is where I am now, but …
Questions
1. I am still concerned that our consumption is still way over normal. I am pretty good with numbers and calculations and it seems to me that we should already have an additional $600 owed for this month. The technician denied this and said he would send me the records. I haven’t received any records. I am going to wait to see if I get a response to yesterday’s email, but if I don’t get a response, should I: 1) keep asking until I get a copy of the report? 2) Do some more analysis on my end — check the meter more often and see if anything weird is happening from hour to hour and day to day? (Of course I have lots of other things to do and this will be a hassle. I didn’t expect this huge issue to be suddenly dumped on my plate). 3) Just trust the technician and go about getting things repaired?
2. Does anyone know anything about water softeners? Is what the technician said plausible? Could the water softener have gotten stuck in “regeneration mode” for 2+ weeks, then snapped out of it by itself? Could it have been the “salt bridge” and the “back wash” as per the water softener company?
3. Is there anything else it could have been? We didn’t notice any leaking inside or outside the house. All the toilets seem to be functioning normally. The technician said that he didn’t see anything outside the house and that the water probably “leaked” down the drain. So anything else?
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
