[Hifred]

We have lived in our home for years and our potable water usage is very stable. A little above or below 5,000 gallons a month. I got the shock of my life today when I looked at my water bill and it showed we used more than 52,000 gallons of potable water this month. I immediately checked all the faucets, spigots, toilets to see if they were running as well as hot water heater to see if it was leaking and looked under each sink. I called TV utility and they said they had checked the water meter twice and the reading was accurate. I don't know what else to do as I told the person from the utility company. I looked at the meter outside and it is not moving so I know there isn't a leak or it would keep moving despite all my faucets turned off. I don't have a pool. I haven't had any guests or any reason why the water bill would be so high. The bad thing is I have automatic payment set up and it pulled more than $500 out of my checking account. I asked the person if they could pull my typical payment until we could determine what the problem was but they don't do that.

Has anyone had this situation occur? Do I need to get a lawyer? I am at a loss. Maybe the meter malfunctioned? At this point the people who work at the utility company are done with me but I still have a huge bill and they have taken the money from my bank account..... HELP PLEASE.

[Toymeister]

Meters do fail.

You can have the meter removed and checked for calibration. If it is working fine the fee for that is on you, if it is wrong it is on them and they will correct your bill.

[Bill14564]

Was a leaky toilet gasket in my case. My usage was much higher so if you had a similar problem perhaps it is leaking less or was stuck for a time?

Easy enough to monitor the meter for a few days.

[billethkid]

Several years ago a neighbor had ground lightning that created a meter hiccup.
If you haven't had it done request the water company to send a service tech to come and check your system.
They are quite responsive to such requests.

[DAVES]

Originally Posted by Hifred

We have lived in our home for years and our potable water usage is very stable. A little above or below 5,000 gallons a month. I got the shock of my life today when I looked at my water bill and it showed we used more than 52,000 gallons of potable water this month. I immediately checked all the faucets, spigots, toilets to see if they were running as well as hot water heater to see if it was leaking and looked under each sink. I called TV utility and they said they had checked the water meter twice and the reading was accurate. I don't know what else to do as I told the person from the utility company. I looked at the meter outside and it is not moving so I know there isn't a leak or it would keep moving despite all my faucets turned off. I don't have a pool. I haven't had any guests or any reason why the water bill would be so high. The bad thing is I have automatic payment set up and it pulled more than $500 out of my checking account. I asked the person if they could pull my typical payment until we could determine what the problem was but they don't do that.

Has anyone had this situation occur? Do I need to get a lawyer? I am at a loss. Maybe the meter malfunctioned? At this point the people who work at the utility company are done with me but I still have a huge bill and they have taken the money from my bank account..... HELP PLEASE.

My two cents worth. Customer service, first of all there is a magic balance between being a push over and being politely forceful. Often in these situations the person on the other end of the phone does not have the power to help you. There is an art to finding a person with the power and the position to actually help you.

As far as an attorney, it will cost you more than the bill.

Phone? It is easy to dial a phone but you have no proof of the phone call. Old school perhaps. Return receipt letter cost is about $7.00. Confirming my conversation with xxxxx at xxxxxx on date.

Looked at the meter? Our home is roughly 9 years old. Our meter is under one of those plastic plates. The meter is read though the plate using a small hand held meter reader.

In terms of OLD SCHOOL we still pay with checks. It is truly amusing to find some zit faced kid claiming they have not been paid and my telling them to look for my check# endorced-CASHED-by xxxxxxxx

[blueash]

Could you have had an outside spigot attached to a hose fail? Sometime people forget to turn off the spigot depending on the nozzle to stop the flow, then the hose leaks and you loose potable water.

[Aceskaters]

I had a similar problem a few years ago in Hemingway. After several plumber visits and go rounds with the water dept., the water dept. person told me that, OUTSIDE the garage...near where the in-garage water shut off valve is...the white plastic water pipe under the lawn has a small vertical pipe coming up that is there in case the house ever needs to be re-piped. I went out there and the ground was squishy. Seems that the vertical pipe, which was supposed to be buried about a foot under the lawn, was only about an inch down and must have been broken by a lawnmower at some point. So, don't know if that's your problem too, but you might stomp around outside your garage, about 2 or 3 feet out, and see if the ground is wet. Good luck.

[EdFNJ]

In the OP the poster states "I looked at the meter outside and it is not moving so I know there isn't a leak or it would keep moving despite all my faucets turned off" so it would seem unlikely it could be a leak.

I had a similar problem but it was a very "quietly" running toilet in the MB. When water use increased mid-cycle the water company (Jacobs?) came by my house and told me to check because they were notified of excessive use in their system. In our case the meter WAS moving. Took a while to discover the exact location of the running toilet as that was the last thing we looked at because it was so quiet.

[Hifred]

Thank you everyone for your responses. We checked the toilets and the spigots. I can't believe we are losing at least 45,000 gallons of water in addition to the 5000 gallons we typically use. This is a 10 fold increase. It could be the meter or ground lightening that disrupted the meter. I also appreciate the comment about checking outside the water shut off valve. Our water shut off valve in the garage is surrounded by cement as we have a patio and cement driveway. I will call the water company tomorrow and ask them to check the calibration of the meter. This is such a headache. From now on I am going to be out looking at that meter. I hate to lift the top because I am afraid of snakes or whatever else I might find.

[Velvet]

My guess is it is your meter. Some weeks ago we had our meter “recalibrated” because it was “inaccurate” (since the house was built) by someone sent out from the water company. The person went to each house on the street and unscrewed the top of the meter then recalibrated everyone’s meter. The next month my irrigation bill read 2 and half times more than before even though I used less not more water during the rainy season - but he had warned me that the usage would be more after he “corrected” the meter. It was the first time I did not pay my utilities bill. I waited. I am relatively new. Since he did the same thing on the street to all the houses and most folks here had bought 14 years ago when these homes were built, I was sure there would be some kind of fall out from this. Yesterday I looked into paying my utilities bill and sure enough, it was back to normal. So I paid it. We will see what happens next month.

[karenzeee]

So sorry to hear this happened to you. That type of usage is nuts!

Our bill doubled last month. We were not at the house and had the water inside turned off! First thing we did was changed and double checked our irrigation system as we are in the northern section of TV and it is all connected and on the same bill.

I also called TV and they came out and did a reread, then a flow test, which failed. They did say that I did not have a leak because when everything was shut off, there was no water loss. I got a new meter since ours failed and was about 20 years old.

I did a post on Nextdoor about this also and found out MANY people seemed to be experiencing higher than usual water bills. Makes me go Hmmmmm. So we shall see what happens with next months bill.

Best of luck, and please keep us posted!!

[1couple]

Originally Posted by Hifred

We have lived in our home for years and our potable water usage is very stable. A little above or below 5,000 gallons a month. I got the shock of my life today when I looked at my water bill and it showed we used more than 52,000 gallons of potable water this month. I immediately checked all the faucets, spigots, toilets to see if they were running as well as hot water heater to see if it was leaking and looked under each sink. I called TV utility and they said they had checked the water meter twice and the reading was accurate. I don't know what else to do as I told the person from the utility company. I looked at the meter outside and it is not moving so I know there isn't a leak or it would keep moving despite all my faucets turned off. I don't have a pool. I haven't had any guests or any reason why the water bill would be so high. The bad thing is I have automatic payment set up and it pulled more than $500 out of my checking account. I asked the person if they could pull my typical payment until we could determine what the problem was but they don't do that.

Has anyone had this situation occur? Do I need to get a lawyer? I am at a loss. Maybe the meter malfunctioned? At this point the people who work at the utility company are done with me but I still have a huge bill and they have taken the money from my bank account..... HELP PLEASE.

meters go bad I would make them replace it and dispute the bill

[bowlingal]

And that is exactly why I pay my bills with a check or Master Card

[thevillagernie]

from what I hear it happens a lot.

[Sabella]

Originally Posted by Hifred

We have lived in our home for years and our potable water usage is very stable. A little above or below 5,000 gallons a month. I got the shock of my life today when I looked at my water bill and it showed we used more than 52,000 gallons of potable water this month. I immediately checked all the faucets, spigots, toilets to see if they were running as well as hot water heater to see if it was leaking and looked under each sink. I called TV utility and they said they had checked the water meter twice and the reading was accurate. I don't know what else to do as I told the person from the utility company. I looked at the meter outside and it is not moving so I know there isn't a leak or it would keep moving despite all my faucets turned off. I don't have a pool. I haven't had any guests or any reason why the water bill would be so high. The bad thing is I have automatic payment set up and it pulled more than $500 out of my checking account. I asked the person if they could pull my typical payment until we could determine what the problem was but they don't do that.

Has anyone had this situation occur? Do I need to get a lawyer? I am at a loss. Maybe the meter malfunctioned? At this point the people who work at the utility company are done with me but I still have a huge bill and they have taken the money from my bank account..... HELP PLEASE.

I had a similar issue spoke with villages mgt they said leak or meter issue and would send someone to check the meter. A truck with Jacobs written on the side was outside checking something on the lawn I only knew this because I looked outside. Is Jacobs like the FBI? No other info on truck, man checking meter didn’t ring bell or let me know he was here, when I asked him what was the problem he said nothing and someone would call me? Good luck dealing with this secretive and rude company.