First off, I live in SC so any local recommendations won't help.

I got a notice from my water company on Friday that they stopped by to read the meter and noticed nobody was home but the meter was running. I checked that night and sure enough my house used a gallon of water in 10 minutes when nothing was running. At this rate its about 4500 gallons a month (at about $2/1000 gallons this is about 10 bucks a month) so I'm inclined to get it fixed. Looking at water bills for the past year, my usage hasn't gone up a sig. amount so it looks like its a long time problem. I've already checked the toilets, sinks and outside faucets with no results.

Anyone have any ideas on where the issue could be or if there is a quick way to diagnose this problem myself?

5/10/2009 10:11:15 PM

hot water heater? if your water heater is under the house in a crawl space, like mine, you might want to check there. before i bought my house there were some shoddy fittings on the water heater that rusted out and were leaking between the unit and the house. i had the previous owner fix them so i don't know if they would make that kind of difference in the bill, but it might be worth a check.

5/10/2009 10:17:19 PM

other than the obvious checks you've done it's almost impossible i think - if nothing is visibly wet or you can't hear water running (with 1 gallon per 10 minutes i doubt you would) you'll need someone to come diagnose the problem probably

how old is the house

5/10/2009 10:17:50 PM

12 years old.

my water heater is in a closet in the garage so I'd know if it was leaking out.

5/10/2009 10:20:03 PM

^gotcha.

^^ he's probably right then. it's going to be hard to find. good luck though.

5/10/2009 10:21:11 PM

i dont really remember the meter readers checking to see if i was home or not...


ever

5/10/2009 10:24:41 PM

for every 1000 meter readers that just don't care it looks like there's one that does - not that it matters for the problem at hand

5/10/2009 10:28:13 PM

Start turning things off that can be turned off, toilets, sinks, outside spigots. Maybe event turn the main line off at your house and see if it keeps running, meaning you have a pipe screwed between the street where the meter is (I assume, at least that is where mine is) and where it enters your home.

5/10/2009 10:31:17 PM

A slow toilet leak could cause something like this.

[Edited on May 10, 2009 at 10:32 PM. Reason : And can be a PITA to locate.]

5/10/2009 10:32:05 PM

^^good point. i'll work that tomorrow.

^but with a toilet leak wouldn't you hear it running at some point?

[Edited on May 10, 2009 at 10:34 PM. Reason : .]

5/10/2009 10:32:58 PM

you checked the ice maker line?

5/10/2009 10:34:56 PM

^^ Only in short bursts. The water level would dip low enough to cause the fill valve to open. It would fill only for a few seconds and then go quiet until the water level fell low again.

[Edited on May 10, 2009 at 10:38 PM. Reason : not enough ^s]

5/10/2009 10:37:48 PM

Mindstorm nailed it

not sure how it happened yet or how to fix it, but the float isn't fully shutting off the water flow

5/10/2009 10:40:15 PM

We had a similar leak that ran our bill up about the same amount of money each month, maybe a little less.

Luckily I was unemployed at the time so I stayed home and played video games a lot. Kept hearing it refill the tank. Roommate fixed it and it saved $whee.

5/10/2009 10:41:27 PM

Have you gone under the house or is it on a slab?

jesus christ how do you not know your toilet is running for months and months?

I am still not sure how a running toilet uses a gallon every ten minutes.

[Edited on May 10, 2009 at 10:47 PM. Reason : PM Sent.]

5/10/2009 10:42:13 PM

it looks like there is about three things wrong with the filling mechanism. this it the style with the float on a pivot arm to close off the flow into the tank. well the adjustment screw threads were stripped (plastic screw) allowing the screw not to apply enough pressure to press the seal down to close off the flow. the pivot arm was held down just a bit by the fill tube. and the seal inside the shutoff mechanism looked pretty worn out.

this was in a bathroom in the front of the house which is barely used, and the water was leaking into the tank rather than out of the bowl so the toilet would never get low and start running loud. I didn't think to shut off the valve until Fail Boat suggested it

off to Lowes tomorrow

5/10/2009 11:01:08 PM

wow. glad you found the problem.

5/10/2009 11:03:29 PM

yeah, me too. thanks for the help guys

5/10/2009 11:05:06 PM

doublecheck and make sure thats the only leak. 10 gal/min is a lotta water. I woulda said you had a pipe bust otherwise.

5/11/2009 8:50:09 AM

1 gal / 10 mins. not 10 / 1 min

Quote :

"my house used a gallon of water in 10 minutes when nothing was running"

[Edited on May 11, 2009 at 9:22 AM. Reason : asdf]

5/11/2009 9:21:43 AM

reading comprehension FTW ^

5/11/2009 9:25:30 AM

bad flapper/loosen chain/adjust float

done

5/12/2009 8:59:17 AM

and yet, it was none of those that was the problem.

replaced the ballcock assembly last night, leak fixed

5/12/2009 7:22:28 PM