Ever checked the calibration of council water meters?

[wotnot]

When we lived in town, every quarter we'd get hit with an excess water usage bill from the real-estate managing the property. Initially we kicked up a bit of a stink about it, because we couldn't reconcile that we were using as much water as claimed ~ we were harvesting rain-water for garden usage etc, always had quick showers (water reduction showerhead), and supposedly the council came out and checked the meter, claiming it to be good. As there wasn't a lot we could do about it, we just bit the bullet and paid the money, but in my mind I really suspected we were being screwed over on these water charges. We also checked there was no subterranean leak between the meter and the house, but nope, all good.

About 9months before we moved from that place, the washing machine threw a rod (actually the tub fell off spindle), and so we started doing all our clothes washing at the local laundromat --- would you credit, that our actual water usage went up!? This is when we became sure that we were being ripped off, but as we knew we were moving house soon (away from all this nonsense), we didn't chase it up ; we'd already tried to no avail.

Over a year later at the new location, and the house only has one 5000L water tank, and even after a long dry spell we didn't go anywhere near emptying the tank. I mentioned this to my housemate, and he realized what I was saying -- if we were using as much 'excess water' that the local council claimed, we would've emptied the tank in no time and had to call a water truck in. Then I got to thinking, this is much easier to quantify -- simply measure the diameter and height of the water tank, and fashion up a graduated dipstick (100 litre divisions), and quantify our water usage for real. We've got another washing machine about the same capacity, old'mate still harvests water off the shed roof into big carboys for the garden, and we still take quick showers (on pump pressure not mains water pressure), so our water usage is much the same as it always was. I'd dip the tank every fortnight, record tank full events, blablabla.

It just rained here this afternoon, and the tank is full again, so I decided to collate the year's worth of data I have, against the meter readings we got for excess water usage in town, and going by the numbers, we wouldn't have used ANY 'excess water' during our time living in town -- in fact, our actual water usage is about 80% of the 'allowable' water usage quotient in town....we were getting ripped off, no doubt in my mind about it now, the numbers don't lie.

It makes me wonder how many other folks living with town water & excess water usage charges, may also be getting bills they didn't accrue?

[VroomVroom]

was that first property in QLD ? cos up here you cant bill tenants for water unless the house has been confirmed as being water efficient. I own a house in the Bogan City Council area ( Logan lol ) and the water is shown as a separate spreadsheet on the rates notice. Tenants get a very large water allowance , i mean huge , and if they exceed a set point they can only be charged for the difference. in 20 years ive never had to bill a tenant for water. sounds like you were being ripped...

[Uncle Fester]

Meter was likely faulty although it is hard to explain showing too much. Usually blockage or something would result in a lower reading, hence the reason why meters are replaced on a regular base.
Pretty easy to check using a 10 litre bucket (with marking) of water that you can pour in the garden or the washing machine.
As they display 1 litre resolution(some even better then that) I would suggest 3 buckets is enough to capture a 3% error. Anything below that you would have hardly noticed.

Any chance that washing machine with the broken spider was from Bosch?

[wotnot]

was that first property in QLD ? cos up here you cant bill tenants for water unless the house has been confirmed as being water efficient. I own a house in the Bogan City Council area ( Logan lol ) and the water is shown as a separate spreadsheet on the rates notice. Tenants get a very large water allowance , i mean huge , and if they exceed a set point they can only be charged for the difference. in 20 years ive never had to bill a tenant for water. sounds like you were being ripped...

Yep, next LGA across (scenic rim), and I don't think we had as generous an allowance as over at Logan, but that said, we were still under that quota going by our reckoning ; yes, that landlord did have the plumber turn up to make the house 'water wise', but the real-estate said he did that purely so he wasn't accountable for the excess water usage charges (rather than siding with us and getting things checked out)

Any chance that washing machine with the broken spider was from Bosch?

Haha, yeah...one of those tragically designed front loaders, with aluminium alloy spider that liked to dissolve in the presence of alkali soap suds....what a stupid idea, glad I didn't buy it new =)

[wotnot]

Meter was likely faulty although it is hard to explain showing too much. Usually blockage or something would result in a lower reading, hence the reason why meters are replaced on a regular base.
Pretty easy to check using a 10 litre bucket (with marking) of water that you can pour in the garden or the washing machine.
As they display 1 litre resolution(some even better then that) I would suggest 3 buckets is enough to capture a 3% error. Anything below that you would have hardly noticed.

Just about this, that's not a good test protocol -- for instance, what if the 10s/100s/1000s number reels were advancing erroneously? (physical failure of counting mechanism) I raised this exact same complaint when the council {ahem} 'tested' the meter using exactly the same methodology ; all they'd effectively done, was measure the accuracy of the least significant counter digit, nothing more, and it didn't prove the meter counter was working correctly across the entire measurement range..

[shred]

My old man had a few ripper incidents with excess water use.

His house was built on a 3/4 acre battle axe block in the early 1970s. There were no water meters then and the original owners planned to subdivide, so they put a 1 3/4 inch (IIRC) water main in. The neighbours adjoining their 100m driveway grew carnations as a commercial operation and their house had been built in the 1930s (ancient water pipes). We suspect that they put in a connection to the water pipe with the knowledge and permission of the original owners.

About 20 years ago, the elderly neighbours passed away and their grandson moved in. He took quite a bit of pride in his large (1/2 acre) garden… and suddenly my father’s water use skyrocketed. Long story, but there was a connection between my father’s water pipe and the neighbour’s place. No wonder his water bills were massive and their garden was the greenest in the street. There were quite a few give-always - like my father’s water pipes clanking and banging when nobody was turning taps on and off at his place. One day he turned his water stop tap off at the street… and a bit later, his water came back on. His stop tap was still off! The water thief hadn’t realised what was happening and was supplying the Old Man with water via his meter.

Some time after that was resolved, his water use went through the roof again. Cue much dark muttering about that bastard in the other house. It turned out that the water pipe had a leak and it was right next to a broken clay storm water pipe, so his water was just disappearing - no boggy patch or anything like that.

[Uncle Fester]

I have taken quite a few of these mechanical reel counters like this apart, be it in automobile speedos or even reel to reel tape machines and they all suffered from not advancing enough because the teeth are worn so that it advances sometimes only half a digit or the small carry over cogwheel is broken or fallen out. In that case then next wheel can not advance at all.
I can not see from the construction that it could ever advance 2 or more digits per revolution of the former wheel which has only one indentation to turn the carry over cogwheel.

Have you ever considered that somebody might have been stealing your water for their garden or something?
Where you aware of any outside taps near the property border?

Edit: like shred mentioned and I didn't see when I started writing this post, there can be a lot of reasons for unexpected water usage or loss.

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

Here in the US, the meters are two piece, modular. There is a bronze casting which houses the impeller and fittings to match the service line. And the meter itself which might be mechanical or electronic.

They need to be paired. That is each will be marked with the pipe size, say 3/4 inch. But if you have a 3/4 inch meter and a 5/8 inch casting, the meter will think more water has flowed than actually has.

This has happened here during transition to electronic meters where only the plastic meter part was swapped without regard to the pipe diameter.

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