Last winter I had occasion to force a small leak in three of our toilets.
The bathrooms in this two family attached house are one on in the same line
and the chase that holds the pipes that serve them is adjacent to a vacant,
unheated house. So the pipes were subject to freezing when the temperature
dropped into the teens. We therefore wanted to keep the water flowing at a
trickle at all times to prevent freezing, so I tied a weight to a piece of
string looped around the overflow pipe and placed the string under the
flapper to prevent a perfect seal. In addition, some basin taps were also
open a trickle. Admittedly, this was only for about a dozen days in the 3
month billing period, but we did not notice any major changes in the water
bill. So if this were a small leak, you should not see a 16:1 increase in
usage.
--
Peace,
BobJ

"Jeff Wisnia" wrote in message
...
Andrew Richman wrote:
My water bill went from $25 a month to $400. The utility says that it
was a leaky toilet. I did have a toilet leak during this time, but
could it really use this much? My usage record has me using 1,000
-6,000 gallons a day when I usually use about 50. Could this really
only be a running toilet?

Thanks,

Andrew

There are 1440 minutes in a day. I expect the refilling flow rate of a
typical toilet is somewhere around 2-3 gallons a minute with the fill
valve wide open. That'd occur if the flap valve was stuck open so all the
water was going down the drain and the toilet's fill valve never shut off.

So, it's possible to use well over a thousand gallons a day on that kind
of leaking toilet, but you'd have to be deaf not to notice it yourself.

If it's the more common slight leak past a deteriorated flap valve, the
daily usage will be a LOT less than that.

It's not rocket science to calculate that stuff out yourself. For the
first case you could measure how long it takes the toilet to refill with a
properly closed flap valve and just measure the dimensions of the tank and
the height the water refills to, then calculate what the flow rate had to
have been. (There are 231 cubic inches in a gallon.)

For the second case you could prop or tie the float valve up so the fill
valve was closed and measure how long it took for the water level in the
tank do drop a few inches, then do the math.

Capiche?

************************************************** *

More to the point, have you watched your water meter for an hour or so
with everything using water in your house shut off? It shouldn't move at
all under those conditions. If it does, start looking for a leak.

Is your house built on a slab with waterpipes from after the meter running
under the concrete? It's not uncommon for leaks to develop there where
they may not be noticed. I hope for you sake thats' not the case, because
repairing those kind of leaks takes MUCHO dinero.

HTH,

Jeff

--
My name is Jeff Wisnia and I approved this message....

(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)

"As long as there are final exams, there will be prayer in public
schools"