Quote:
Originally Posted by LeRoySmith
When you say it happens only a few times I wonder if it happens to the same small group of meters each year or a completely different group. If its an electronic glitch it seems like it would be more prone to infect the same meter multiple times rather than once and never again. I'd liken it to something in your car or dishwasher, if there's a gremlin in the wires it rarely happens once and often become a routine failure.
We shut our water off in the garage when we leave, that takes care of the vast majority of the possible leak sites but it does leave the pipe between the meter and the house shutoff in question. You could go a step further and shut it off in the meter pit, its not as easy but not difficult to pop the lid off and give the valve a half turn with an adjustable wrench. No need to call the utility to do this is you're the slightest bit handy (or I'd be happy to stop by and shut it off for you).
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First, thank you for the offer, I appreciate it.
This won't solve the problem, here's why.
Some have reported that they have turned the water off inside their homes so there is no way they could have used it. The District points to their meter, insists it does not fail, and says the water went through the meter. Their position is maybe the water was not completely turned off, maybe the homeowner made a mistake, maybe this, that, or the other but the meter indicates the water went through it.
If you or I turned off the water before the meter and it glitched then we would hear these things:
1. The homeowner is not authorized to tamper with the meter or anything before the meter
2. The District does not even know that the homeowner actually turned off the valve, they could have operated it incorrectly or they could have made a mistake when they thought they had turned it off
3. In any case, the meter indicates that water went through the meter, the meter does not fail, and the homeowner has to pay.
I agree that it must be exceedingly rare that a glitch like this could occur. On the other hand, I cannot disregard the multiple separate reports from people experiencing a single occurrence of a 12,500gal or 25,000gal excessive reading when they were away from the house, when they had the water turned off, and in the case of irrigation, without anyone noticing two or three month's of water running down the road. Again, the one-time forgiveness seems like the perfect compromise for this situation.