It starts out small. The oh-so-faint sound of running water that isn’t just in your imagination. You open the water bill, and sure enough, it’s a little higher. You know in your gut that you probably have a water leak, but how can you be sure?
Steven Nagel, owner of American Leak Detection, Tampa, which has detected nearly 5 million individual leaks since being founded in 1974, recommends a simple water meter test for homeowners who suspect they may have a leak in their home. The test includes checking the water meter after shutting off water on the property. You don’t need anything to conduct the test except a piece of paper and a pencil. It works like this:
- Shut off all running water in the house.
- Find your water meter. (Hint: Most homes have water meters that face the street. They look like covered boxes.)
- Open the cover on the water meter and write down the number on the dial.
- Wait 30 minutes.
- Check the number on the dial again. If the number you see doesn’t match the number you wrote down from the first meter check, then you have a leak somewhere.
Nagel says that some homeowners may not be able to see very small movements of the dial that shows gallons from one to 1-. To compensate, water meters sometimes have a more sensitive dial that’s shaped like a triangle or star. If this dial spins in the least, there’s a leak. No spinning means that your plumbing is fine and doesn’t have any leak problems. Although a water meter can be monitored over the course of a few hours while the water is off by looking at the gallon dial, the star/triangle dial is the quickest and most effective means of confirming the presence of a leak.
Water meter tests can detect pinhole leaks in any piping, but they also can signal that a toilet is continually running. If you’re pretty sure you don’t have leaks anywhere else, or if your john has been acting a little finicky, there are two more steps to do after the initial water meter test: Shut off all valves under the toilets in the house. Repeat the water meter test. If the dials don’t change on the second test, this indicates that the toilets are the problem.
American Leak Detection promotes the water meter test with good reason. First, undetected leaks, depending on where they are in the system, can create breeding grounds for mold and bacteria by putting moisture into the air around the pipes and surrounding fixtures. This can make you sick over time. Secondly, testing can prevent potentially hundreds of thousands of gallons of water from being wasted as they leak out of your pipes—saving this water is good for the environment.
The last reason for promoting testing probably is the reason most people end up doing the meter test—money. Homeowners have to pay for all of the water “used” at their property, whether they actually turned a faucet on for all of that use or not. The longer you go without testing, the more water is lost, and the more money flows out of your wallet and into the hands of the water company.
So what if you do the water meter test and you do have a leak? This is where expert companies like American Leak Detection can come in to help you. Providers of leak detection and plumbing services for over 30 years, American Leak Detection can bring traditional and state of the art equipment to your home that, with the skills of trained professionals, can determine exactly where your leak is and how to fix it.
