Recent content by Nigel A

Just for closure (as I owe a reply to many of you that offered advice!): The issue was with a badly 'sealed' lead pipe that used to feed water in to the house (kitchen) but was replaced with a synthetic pipe to allow greater pressure to the cylinder. The water was being pushed back out of said...

Hmm, not sure. The literature from the survey says that our 'surface water is fed into the mains sewer'. But particularly what is connected to that I don't know (presumably the downpipes from the rainwater gutters.) The bathroom plumbing is fed into the main waste down pipe on the side of the...

Hi BlueLoo, THanks for the suggestion! Is it safe for me to close the valves to the heating, to the underfloor heating, and to the cylinder? (I suppose so, as the stopcock has the same effect). Apologies - I'm more of a numbers person than a pipes person! At this point I might call upon a...

Meter does not increase when stopcock closed. Meter racks up 44l per hour when stopcock turned on, even when toilet isolators are off, no taps were run, no waste going down under the manhole cover. All external taps turned off. Presumably if there was a 44l per hour leak in the floor between...

I have isolated the toilets for 30 minutes just now, and took a meter reading before and after. The difference was 23l which (almost too much so) correlates with the 44l per minimum usage that I'm seeing.

Hi Harry B, Thanks for the reply. Garden taps are off. I checked yesterday to be sure. The only pipe under the ground floor is the pipe between meter and stopcock which is one of those blue flexible synthetic pipes. It was installed at the same time as our cylinder. An given that when I close...

From having examined under the manhole, there's absolutely nothing flowing out of the waste over the space of a few minutes, I couldn't even notice a trickle. And the meter ticked up a few litres in that time.

Thankyou for these ideas too. I will double check the toilets again, maybe even close the isolator vale for the toilets see if that stops the meter racking up

That's a good idea. I can open up and take a look. Let me check and report back!

Hi flameport, Thanks so much for the reply. The filling loop is closed if I read this correctly:

SORRY! That was a terrible typo. 44L per hour, not m3 as you say :) When the stop valve is off, the meter stops. So the 'leak' is in the house - but I'm at a loss as to what I can check beyond toilets and taps, which I've checked.

OK I just checked the bill. I can't see any indication of a 'notional charge' - aside from the flat 'service charge' which is minute in comparison. The 228m3 indicates consumption.

I know, right?! That's why I just don't get it :) 44l would hardly be un-noticable, as you say. It's thames water that is reading the meter (smart meter). The readings on their website correspond to the reading on the device itself. I suppose the meter _could_ be broken somehow? Depending on...

Hi polesapart, Thanks for the reply! Yes we have one of those next to the cylinder but no it's not wet - it's completely dry.

The chart is from Thames water's website. As far as I can tell, the brown 44L/H is highlighted to indicate to the user the minimum hourly rate for the day. I don't think it's the notional charge, though I'm going to go and check the tariff right now.