A recap. A Severn Trent engineer visited around a week or so ago. He carried out comprehensive investiagtions both inside and out. His conclusions: no abnormalities anywhere. No leaks inside or out (meter is inside under the sink). No abnormalities in the feed to our property. No air in the feed. Nothing.
Now waiting to hear back from Severn Trent. In the meantime I have carried out a few mesaurements of my own. Ran off 10L of water exactly measured via a measuring jug. Meter registered exactly 10L of use. Therefore meter is not over-reading. Meaaured amount of water I use for a typical hand wash - 6L. Measured amount of water used for a toilet fush - 6L. The average usage per day per person in the UK according to on line sources is around 150L. Given that I wash my hands probably around 10 times a day minimum that amounts to at least 60L! This does not make sense to me. I wash my hands thoroughly under a running tap probably for around a minute. This has always seemed entirely normal to me - but perhaps it isn’t. I come from a medical laboratory background handling blood samples all day that were either potentially infectoius or known to be infectious so one gets in to the habit of lots of thorough hand washing which is considered good and normal medical laboratory practice. It has become ingrained in me and although now retired old habits persist. Even so I don’t see how this could be doubling our bills compared to neighbours who may not wash their hands so much but ceratinly use far more water than we do on clothes washing etc. So the mystery persists and simply does not make sense.
The 150 litres a day was developed in the early 1990s from work done by monitoring the inflow of water into a district meter area. The diurnal pattern of water use shows peaks at about 8am and 6pm with minimal flow at about 3am.
the 3am flow is considered as mostly leakage and there are calculations that are done to determine the likely leakage from a burst and or a background pipe loss such as a leaky joint. The analysis can get quite complicated and drew on the Burst and Background Estimate methodology (BABE).
I remember working on the studies in the early 1990s and the publications of the associated managing leakage water reports. I also wrote a thesis on this work back in the day.
however…The analysis to derive to the rough 150l per person per day is a bit of an exaggeration as in reality we do use a bit less. However, that would be difficult to explain to a regulator as it would mean that the leakage is a lot higher if the usage was lower.
it was a very political period in the water industry with privatisation, huge investment in AMP 1,2 and 3 especially. Not much has changed from what I see from the outside looking in nowadays…
in reality the average person probably use 90 to 110 litres per day…
I would take readings each 24 hours to see if anything strange is happening compared to what you expect in terms of water use.
I the reading seem high I would then do the same for day and night.
One answer could be a tank overflowing and discharging to waste so you aren’t seeing it. Unlikely on the one hand but could be a possibility as the pressure is higher at night.
this assumes all other possibilities have been closed out such as;
leak on comms pipe - I recall you said that the meter is internal so this shouldn’t be an issue
rogue connection to others- unlikely from the investigations you have done.
Given this was your last post on the closed thread:
“I feel it is becoming extremely repetitive with the same comments/suggestions/explanations appearing time and again. Thanks to all who have contributed but time to move on”
Why not ask Richard to re-open up the old thread and save yourself from as you say "extremely repetitive with the same comments.
Sorry @Elkman70 but it’s all been said before many many many times. I am sure we all want to hear a positive outcome to this.
I’m sure it’s not related to the issue at hand (pardon the pun) but I did reflect on this and concluded that, bar maybe one early week during Covid, I’ve never washed my hands this much in one day. Maybe half as much.
Just on a very rough calculation I did on an excel spreadsheet, using AI calculated volumes (per activity) but with my (and the wife’s) general daily water usage, the calculations came out at around 316ltr’s, so I don’t think we are far off the mark here.
Just to give another data point, I can see that our winter half year water usage as a two person household is 200 litres per day. This increases to about 320 litres a day when we have the garden drip watering system on during the summer.
As i said it’s just what you have used.
Water has gone up quite a bit lately, plus in the past it was cheaper and so you tended to just ise it and not worry about how much you used. Now its gone up suddenly you notice it as it a big chunk of money.
If you can set up a camera that is recording the meter for 24 hours then you should be able to see a spike somewhere without having to keep checking. It could all be being used overnight.
I think you will find that you are indeed simply using more water than most people do. And the only way to reduce it is by consciously deciding that you are going to do so.
70sPete the first thread, although locked, is still there and accessible and better still it contains all the answers you could possibly require.
There is nothing possible to be added to your water meter problem here. If this is genuinely creating a lot of stress for you and your partner and you are unable to undertake the monitoring, would it be possible to ask a neighbour or relative or friend to undertake a day of monitoring for you? There may be a good reason why it is not possible for you to undertake 30 minute checks, but that really is an essential step for you to have done.
