On Sunday, 3 November 2019 09:03:19 UTC, Robin wrote:
On 02/11/2019 23:40, Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Sat, 2 Nov 2019 08:26:26 -0700 (PDT), polygonum_on_google wrote:

We have next to no idea if there is a water leak between meter and
house.

Leaks tend to "sing". A bad leak will be audible where the rising
main enters the building. To listen for a small one press the handle
of a long screwdriver against you ear and the other end against the
rising main. With nothing taking water you shouldn't hear anything a
leak will be a sort of hissing noise. Also listen to the street stop
cock.


While that's still one of the ways Thames Water /locate/ leaks, if a
user is fit enough to listen for leaks then with a water meter they can
probably just turn off every tap and see if the meter shows a flow*. But
that does require the ability/willingness to kneel on the pavement (or
worse) and peer at a meter. I'd thought Polygonum's point was more that
it'd be nice to check for leaks in comfort from an in-home display.

Could be worse though: I wonder how the many water meters in Oz are home
to a dangerous spiders and snakes.

*all the meters I've seen were analogue with a "low flow indicator" so
it's not a matter of spotting a needle move round the numbers. I think
the digital ones switch the display to a direct reading of flow rate.

When we had a serious leak, about four years ago, in a previous house. It had probably been going on for several years before we noticed.

We didn't, at the time, have a meter.

There was no evidence at the surface of any leakage at all.

The leaks were located under our driveway, far enough away that we'd never have heard any singing.

Thames Water staff had been around the area listening in the months before we found the leak. They didn't find anything. There again, our driveway is private property so they had no right to wander in and listen.

Eventually, we saw water coming into the garden. That was a bit of a giveaway. :-)

Had to dig a minor ditch and, when that was deep enough, all the water simply disappeared. We had exceptional drainage and were more or less on top of a hill.

Once Thames fixed the leak, they forced us to have a meter. It was at that point we started to think about the implications of another unnoticed leak and the potential cost in water alone.

Reading the meter from inside, and, as I said, an alert mechanism, would have been welcome. Though no need (in our view) for it to be a significantly smart device.