Defective Pool Fluidmaster Fill Valve and HUGE Water Consumption

[observer53]

I was asking about the leak detector, not the meter itself, but I'm assuming your plumber looked at that. If you've agreed to the 200/mo, you probably are stuck with paying it. Based on what your husband has seen with the meter, usage seems to be normal now, so maybe the valve was the problem. I'd still like to know what some higher up in the water dept thinks about where that much water went out of that valve without it being noticeable.

[brightbutdownn]

Originally Posted by Endurance

Hello Everybody,
This message is actually a continuation of my previous question about how to dispute a $620.97 water bill in an uninhabited house for the period April 12 (when previous owner vacated the property) through May 5, 2011. Previous reading is 196, current reading (on May 5) is 338.
My husband and I went yesterday Downtown to Mesa Utilities Center to explain why we believe it would be fair to have the charges reduced to a normal consumption, say to the level of what the previous owner always paid even though we did not arrive here earlier than May 16. I left a detailed letter explaining our situation and attached copies of our flight tickets that prove we flew from Dulles International Airport to Phoenix on the 16th as well as the invoice of the plumber who, on May 17, for half day probed our property inside out to find some justification for the huge water bill. Well, the Dispute Manager told us that the old pool fluidmaster fill valve that the plumber replaced with a new one (indicated in the invoice) must have caused the tremendous water consumption.
So, as a Virginian who never had a pool, I ask each of you this-having a defective valve where did all the water go? Do swimming pools have a drainage system? In other words does the water in a swimming pool circulate, or it only sits there and evaporates? Because if the water in the pool is not evacuated then all the gallons mentioned in our bill as having being consumed would have flooded not only our yard but the park behind the property. Please explain in laymen’s terms if the Utilities Manager was right in what she said. The plumber told us plainly on the 17th that this valve does NOT explain the consumption of 142 gallons of water in 23 days. Thank you all.

If you want to try, you can try to get a paralegal to write up a support letter for the water bill. It will help show you are serious about trying to reduce the bill.

You will also want to hire a licensed contractor if you want your repairs to be verified by the city.

[observer53]

Originally Posted by brightbutdownn

If you want to try, you can try to get a paralegal to write up a support letter for the water bill. It will help show you are serious about trying to reduce the bill.

You will also want to hire a licensed contractor if you want your repairs to be verified by the city.

I think they have already shown they are serious. Paying a paralegal to write a letter??? An unnecessary expense.

The repairs so far have been done by their plumber, and right now it appears no other "repairs" are necessary.

[Endurance]

Thank you Observer. My husband says there is no leakage indicator on the meter. I will follow it up in written with the higher ups there asking for a logical explanation to our surreal situation.

[kdog]

Pools themselves don't typically have overflow drain systems. So unless you have another drainage system in your yard, all that water in such a short amount of time would have severely flooded the area. Somebody would have seen the run-off from the property, either in terms of a river flowing down the street, flooded adjacent lots, even to the point of erosion damage. I would ask a few neighbors. I say this from the standpoint of having seen pools drained for maintenance and it makes a real mess. And of course that's a pittance compared to the amount of water that the water company is implying you spilled out over the ground. So if you don't have drains in your yard and if they can't produce evidence of the flood or find someone who saw it, then it didn't happen.

I am curious about the pool fill valve replacement though. Why was it replaced? If it was replaced because it was stuck on, was the pool overflowing at that time? The plumber should be able to give a statement of how bad it was leaking. In order to leak that kind of water, it would have had to have been blown completely off and essentially been an open pipe. The plumber should be able to tell you that. The fill-valve is for maintaining the water level due to evaporation. Pool companies don't use it to fill a pool because it would take days to fill the pool and the plaster would dry out. Instead, they use multiple hoses or a water truck to fill a pool. The fill valve is not designed to flow that much water.

So unless someone can prove a catastrophic leak, a much more likely scenario is that what you have is a catch-up bill. For whatever reason, the water company wasn't keeping track of the actual water usage of the previous tenant and was letting them pay estimated bills. I would make the water company produce the actual meter readings and water bills so that you can verify that they weren't estimated bills. I agree with Observer that you're in a further disadvantage since you already agreed to pay the bill. If it were me, I'd take them to small claims court if necessary. Something is truly fishy there.

[kephartl]

Hey folks, I received the same type of bill from the City of Goodyear for April, showing usage of 99,000 gals for the 31 day period and the bill coming to $685. We did the same thing and got a plumber to the house because the City said there must be a leak somewhere. The plumber couldn't find anything leaking after a thorough investigation.

I believe this is a catch up bill as well since the City's replaced the meter in February because it stopped working a couple months before.

I have been trying to fight this with the City of Goodyear but they are saying the only course of action is to have the new meter taken off and sent to a third party testing facility for full analysis........at my cost of course. If the meter shows it is faulty then I wouldn't have to pay and my bill would be fixed. What do you think the chances are that the meter would come back from the "third party testing facility" showing any signs of fault??

This is an absolute cash grab and there is nothing I can do about it.

[ReadyFreddy]

I believe the homeowner was out of town the entire month in question, right? So if the pool was overflowing for weeks, no one (maybe) might've reported it? I wonder if it was flowing into the park and no one noticed or said anything. My father left a Leisure World house for a season and his housekeeper left the hose running in the pool for a week (or was it two?) It overflowed onto the golf course the whole time but no one noticed or reported it. She caught it herself when she went back next.

I have a house with a big school yard behind it. Occasionally a sprinkler line in the school yard breaks and water shoots out and floods the area and I'm always the first to report it. Sometimes it's been running for 12 hours or more before I notice it, but no one else in the neighborhood seems to think it's something that should be reported.