HELP - 3million gallons of water gone through my watermeter!

[globalste]

Wasnt sure where to post this, had a water meter reading on Saturday and the guy said we had a leak. We turned off our house stopcock to check it wasnt in the house but the meter was still turning.

The house is only 18mths old and we moved in November 2007. It doesnt have NHBC guarantee. The pipework i believe is plastic and is housed in another plastic tube together with the gas and electric (this is what i believe, not fact). The water meter has a stopcock between itself and the main supply, there is then ~25m of pipe to the house.

When i converted the m3 reading on the watermeter into gallons i get 3million gallons, this is a volume of 23m x 23m x 23!!!

The crazy thing is, we have had absolutely no pressure loss and we even got a letter in June from Sutton & East Surrey water saying that they were reducing our monthly dd to £5 a month bc we hardly use any water. So this has happened between June and Saturday when the guy came to read the meter again.

We have called Sutton & East Surrey to get them to come and look at the problem as they issued us with a 14day notice to get it fixed. Guess what - they cant come out until next Tuesday!!!

We've contacted the insurance company as well, but we're just not sure what to do. The quantity of water that has gone "missing" is over £15,000!!!! There is no sign of flooding anywhere at the house and as i say, no pressure loss.

THe only thing we have had was a mains water burst up the road which shut off our road for 4days, this was middle of May.

Any advice is warmly welcomed bc as usual, everyone we call is pointing at everyone else. We couldnt believe Sutton & East Surrey dont class this as an emergency considering the quantity of water involved...

 

[doitall]

So how many Ms have you used

 

[doitall]

Unless me brains gone completely 23m³ is approximately 5000 gallons or £30.00

 

[grahamderek]

23 cubic metres is around 5500 gallons.
23 metres cubed is a different number.

 

[doitall]

23 cubic metres is around 5500 gallons.
23 metres cubed is a different number.

Water meters measure in cubic meters, methinks the op may have his sums wrong

 

[globalste]

meter reading in June = 32m3

meter reading at weekend = 13,100m3

cubed root of 12,100m3 is 23m. Therefore volume of water is approx 23x23x23m.

13,100m3 = 13,100,000litres = 2,977,272gallons

did i do my maths wrong?

 

[WDIK]

meter reading in June = 32m3

meter reading at weekend = 13,100m3

cubed root of 12,100m3 is 23m. Therefore volume of water is approx 23x23x23m.

13,100m3 = 13,100,000litres = 2,977,272gallons

did i do my maths wrong?

23 cubic meter = 5 059.292 710 9 gallon [UK]

1 cubic meter = 219.969 248 3 gallon [UK]

but according to your figures you have used 13,068 cubic metres since june

so thats

13 068 cubic meter = 2 874 558.136 8 gallon [UK]

what you got your own private reservoir

 

[doitall]

What is the reading now.

 

[globalste]

cheers WDIK, so 13,100m3*220 = 2,882,000 which is around 3m gallons.

So back to my questions,

is it possible to have this volume of water leak in such a short space of time and not have any reduction in volume flowrate/pressure to the household supply and no evidence of leaks outside eg soggy grass etc and more to the point, the water board not notice the huge demand?

is it possible for the meter to be faulty and read high?

if a pressure test of the line shows it is leaking, my theory was to dig halfway for the pipe (still in the front garden) and pressure test from there. If that bit of pipe is ok, then it means its the pipework underneath the drive and the other part of the garden. So am i then best just laying a new pipe with an easier route to the house (avoiding drive and side garden) rather than finding the digging up the drive etc?

 

[doitall]

If you have a route that that is all soil then go for it.

Once the pipe is exposed you should know if it's leaking or not.

 

[globalste]

Sorry WDIK, didnt see you comment about the reservoir!! Thats my exact point though, where the hell has all this water gone to and why havent we had a drop in domestic volume flowrate?!?!

I checked the meter yesterday with my household stopcock closed and calculated that it was spinning at 2m3 per day.

So this means that it has blown a huge amount of water out at some point between end of June and has now (comparatively) slowed down although it is still technically leaking at quite a rate.

 

[WDIK]

you originally started off by saying you had used 23 cubic metres

2m a day is still 438 gallons a day
big bath?


so whats the reading now?

 

[JohnD]

or else the previous meter readings were wrong.

which I think is quite likely

 

[globalste]

not checked the meter today yet, its right next to the road with no paved access and is pretty dangerous to read during peak travel hours.

Maybe i should have just given the meter reading instead of the number of gallons to avoid any confusion. I was just stating the volume that the amount of water would take up (23m*23m*23m - not 23m3), its bigger than the house!

As mentioned before, the house is quite new and we are the first people to move in. There is only two of us and we have things like rainsaving waterbutts with a pump to wash the car from, and conciously try and save water any way we can. We're actually really suprised that considering the amount involved (even though we know it isnt their pipe) that the water company dont treat it as an emergency.

 

[D_Hailsham]

meter reading in June = 32m3

meter reading at weekend = 13,100m3

did i do my maths wrong?

No, but you may have read the meter wrongly

Did you read the meter on both occasions?

Are you reading just the black numbers or have you included the red figures and the dial (if there is one)?