lee houston wrote:

"Bart Byers" wrote in message
...
RicodJour wrote:
In my town, water meters read like odometers. The meter reader is
competent and reliable. The retired couple across the street used about
2500 gallons per month. They were thrifty and sensible. They would not
water their lawn or even their shrubs.

One month they were billed for something like 15,000 gallons. They
couldn't account for it. They would certainly have heard that much water
running in the house, such as in a stuck toilet. It was a drought. I'd
been over there frequently and would have noticed wet ground if a hose had
been left on.

They had to pay. All bills before and after were normal. Other people in
town have had the same experience. What could cause it?

Possibly the water company was sending out estimated usage bills
which were low and then finally got around to actually reading
the meters??

lee

More likely they misread the meter. Had that happen several times on
electric meters where they would misread an upper digit. Had to call in
corrected readings. Even if I didn't call in corrected readings it would
be corrected at the next proper reading since it's a continuous count,
not a monthly reset. The bills after that 15,000 gallons were likely not
"normal", but rather "minimum" charges that showed little or no water
use, just the base charge.

In my case anything from 2,000 gal down is the base charge. I did once
blow a 3/4" fitting past the meter and it dumped about 12,000 gal before
I found and fixed it. The lawn was nice and green for a while in the
area sloping downhill from the meter pit.

Pete C.