Are you finding that you have an unusually high water bill? You may want to first want to do some investigation in your own home before making a complaint to the authority.
First make sure that all your water consumption or delivery devices are turned off. Usually there are main valves to do this for different areas of your household.
If you have a main water meter installed , go and see if the counter is still running.. You may have to wait some time to see if they are moving. |
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This is to check whether or not you have an undiscovered water leak and could be the main cause of your problem. Call a plumber and ask him to help you find where the leak is if you cannot find it yourself. Fix the leak and then go back to the meter and following the steps in the beginning of this article. If you have solved the leak problem, the counter on the water meter should no longer be moving.
You might also want to look at your billing history i.e. compare your current bill with others over a period of months. It is possible that a very high water bill could be caused by an innacurate water meter , some human error ( by the water council/provider )
If it is found that the water meter is faulty, you may want to get it replaced as soon as possible by the utility provider.
Something else you can do is to take a look at the water meter reading values compared with the values reported on the water bill you have received. It is likely that the bill/statement you have received has been calculated on an inaccurate meter reading if you find that the actual meter reading is lower than the number listed on the bill.
Do you know where the water meter is?
Well if you could not find it maybe the water meter person who came to check your last reading also could not find it . If he/she could not find it, they might be simply calculating your bill based on your bill on previous average usage and that could be a reason why you could have been on holiday or out of town but still find you have a water bill that does not tally with the water usage. |
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Additonal Water Meter Test
If no leaks are detected, the next thing to check is the meter accuracy. This can be done with a simple bucket test. Use a bucket or container that is marked in volume units or initially just a 10 litre bucket to start with.. Check the meter by turning on a tap running water into the bucket but ensuring that no other water is used while testing (eg running sprinklers ,washing machin etc ) Check the meter against volume for volume . If you find that the reading is correct, this should indicate that the meter is reporting correct water usage. If not, then contact the local authority responsible and explaining what you have done. This will save them time and probably make your complaint more credible. |
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If you have had these experiences and found other ways of solving the problem of excessively high water bills, then write to us explaining your findings and we may pubish it here as an addition to this article.
Normally your local water provider will have a website discussing some of these steps or giving other solutions depending on the meter and the systems they are using.
Something is becoming more popular these days is AMR or Automatic Meter Reading.
An AMR systems discussion can be found on AMR supplier websites. A good place to start would be
http://www.flowmeterdirectory.com/flowmeter_automatic_meter_reading.html |
