Water meter over reading?

[Mr. Dazzle]

I think my mains water meter might be over reading. Or perhaps more likely, I've got a leak

Reason I say so, is because we have a water softener which treats the water as it comes into the house. The only water which doesn't go through it is the garden hose and a separate drinking water tap (I much prefer the taste of hard water). Said softener keeps a minute by minute log of the water use. The main water meter is an online jobby out in the street that gives daily readings.

My water meter and the softener disagree to the tune of 50-100 litres per day. I can't imagine I'm using that much drinking water! I can see the days where I wash the car, which is the only major use of the garden tap, but other that I can't account for those extra 100 litres.

Short of poking around trying to find a wet patch ( ) is there something I've missed?

[Mr Moofo]

Good luck with trying to approach the water companies

[Rockburner]

I can see the 2 meters being calibrated differently and producing different readings, but that does seem a little high.

[Horse]

With all taps off, check the meter a couple of times, see whether the reading increases.

Water flowing = leak

If flowing, you may be able to hear it.

[dern]

My answer to this sort of this is to start putting your measurements in a spreadsheet and see if you can correlate it to any use of the garden and non-softened tap. 100l is a lot to be leaking under or in your house so I'd want to find that leak as quickly as possible.

We recently moved to Norfolk and have found the water company extremely keen to help with things like this so I'd give them a call to explain the situation. If the problem is on their end then they will fix it for free and if it isn't at least you then know you'll have to get someone in to find the problem.

[demographic]

As I understand it, if its between the street stoptap and your house its your problem but if its their street pipe its there's although there are grants available to help with the cost of replacing lead pipes.

[mangocrazy]

What is the distance between the mains meter and the meter on your softener, and is the pipe work accessible (I'm guessing it's not otherwise you would have checked it) ? And does the softener meter measure at the inlet or the outlet? Water softeners do use a fair amount of water in their purging/regeneration cycles and the difference could be accounted for by that, especially if the softener is regenerating daily (or nightly, more like).

[Mr. Dazzle]

Stop tap is outside under one of those tiny little manholes, meter is there too.

The incoming feed is actually in my back garden, the pipe goes underground the whole way AFAIK. The whole estate is post 2005 so it won't be anything lead.

Good point on the regen though, I'll look up whether that's part of the figures it quotes.

I think I'll keep a log like dern says.

[mangocrazy]

Yes, keeping a log is the first step. It's 'proof' if you need to talk to the water company. We have water softeners in Stafford and also in France and both work on volume of water used to decide when to regen, but neither have any kind of visible meter the customer can access. In Stafford the water supply is unmetered, so no real incentive to know, but in France the water is metered.

I can understand your concern if 50-100 litres of water per day is unaccounted for on a metered supply. I presume the underground pipe between meter and softener runs through the garden and not <shudder> under the house?

[Mr. Dazzle]

It takes a weirdly out of the way but also understandable route.

Our garage is part of a shared courtyeard/mews sort of thing behind the house. The pipe goes around into that and then into the back garden. So it goes around the house.

[MingtheMerciless]

What @Horse said. Turn off the stop cock in the house and see if the water meter in the street stops spinning/reading. Might need to do it whilst you're out for the day. If you get an increase that'll be the pipe to the house leaking but if that shows no flow then turn stop cock back on with all taps off and softener off and see if the meter starts moving again, if it does then that points to a leak in the house.

[Mr. Dazzle]

So having read the manual of my water softener cover to cover I can't find out if it includes the regeneration water in its logged total, or how you find out how often it regens. We do live in a very hard water area though, hence the softener.

Google reckons it uses around 50 litres to regen.

Email to the manufacturer pending!

[mangocrazy]

So having read the manual of my water softener cover to cover I can't find out if it includes the regeneration water in its logged total, or how you find out how often it regens. We do live in a very hard water area though, hence the softener.

Google reckons it uses around 50 litres to regen.

Email to the manufacturer pending!

When I installed the softener in the house in France I had to work out thr hardness of the water and input that to the softener so it 'knew' how often to regen. The harder the water, the more often it regens, all things being equal. It could be that you have too high a value coded for your water, or it could just be that with a young daughter you're using a lot of water. The capacity of the softener will also dictate how often it regens.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Yeah done all that, it's got an app and evryfink. It's supposed to smart regen based on learning your use profile.

ISTR it can soften about 500 litres of water before regen on the current settings, which would be about 3 days.

[mangocrazy]

Await response from softener manufacturer and start looking for damp patches, then. If your weather is currently like ours it may be some time before the ground dries out enough to detect any leaks...

But Horse's suggestion of turning off the stop cock and seeing if readings rise is worth doing (assuming you can persuade the wimmen of the house to do with water for a while)

[Mr. Dazzle]

I was gonna wait for a period when we're away for a couple of days (which is soon) and turn it off before we go.

[David]

I assume you mean that you will turn off the stopcock in the house?

[Horse]

I assume you mean that you will turn off the stopcock in the house?

... Which should identify any use (as recorded by the meter). If so, it's then determining where the leak is.

My mum's mains supply leaked it was on the inside of the property boundary. Literally just inside the garden wall.They presented her with a £1400 bill. However, due to a cock-up of some sort, it was repaired and the charge written off

[Mr. Dazzle]

I assume you mean that you will turn off the stopcock in the house?

Yes, and fortunately I know where it is 'cause I had to have it replaced When the guy did our bathrooms he had to turn off the 'master' supply, but the value was seized stuck - so he had to go outside and turn it off in the street, then replace the stopcock in the house too.

So now I know where both are

[Rockburner]

I assume you mean that you will turn off the stopcock in the house?

Yes, and fortunately I know where it is 'cause I had to have it replaced When the guy did our bathrooms he had to turn off the 'master' supply, but the value was seized stuck - so he had to go outside and turn it off in the street, then replace the stopcock in the house too.

So now I know where both are

That reminded me of my parent's old house: large-ish Edwardian home-counties pile (actually a weekend house built by and for a London architect who specialised in hospitals), the stopcock was "somewhere" under the gravel parking/area, which measured something like 50x40 metres. My Dad once took great pleasure in telling the man from the water-company who came out to turn off the water one day that the stopcock was "Somewhere under there, feel free to try and find it, I've no idea where it is."

(Due to oddities of Edwardian builders, the stopcock actually controlled the water for about 4 houses, so the water company couldn't just turn us off anyway).