Help me find a leak? 💧

[lurkinglittleladybug]

We just got a letter from Anglican water saying we have a leak, we are losing 1 litre of water an hour!… DH and I both searched the entire house and no signs of a leak… Surely that much water would cause some sort of damage and we would be able to find it.

Any ideas where the leak could be?

Check under sinks, toilets, outside taps etc. You may need to call a plumber in

Probably on your supply pipe which runs from the stop tap in the pavement to your property. If you have homeserv you may be covered alternatively insurance may do. If you turn the internal stop tap off you might hear water running.

Supply pipe leaks maybe visible or not. Water company might even suggest a plumber to repair for you, as long as you’ve checked it’s not an overflow etc

Turn off your internal stop cock and see if the meter still moves if you don’t have a meter put a broomstick on the outside stop tap and listen you will hear if it’s stopped
that will tell you if it’s internal or external

Check the area between where the external water meter is and the house

Is it greener or different style of grass?

As above, check everything is off in the house and check meter

If still no luck, call a plumber in with the right equipment

1l/hr is a slow leak - 30 minutes to fill a pint glass or about 2.5 buckets a day. You won't hear it running. I wonder how Anglian Water have determined you have a leak that slow? - is it definitely from Anglian Water and not someone trying to scam you for work you don't need?

Assuming it's genuine:

Check the loos - is there water running down the pan or disturbing the surface of the water in the pan between flushes. Can you hear the loo spontaneously refilling the cistern between flushes. This is a common 'invisible' leak that can happen when the flush/fill mechanism starts to fail.

Check the overflows from the loos (modern loos overflow into themselves), the CWST, and the header tank to the radiators.

Check outside taps to be sure you haven't left one running.

Turn off the incoming stopcock(s) (there may be more than one), take a meter reading from the street meter, amuse yourselves for several hours, take another reading. It should be the same. If it's not, the leak is between the meter and the cocks. If it is the same, do the same but with the stopcocks on, if the reading is different this means a leak in the house you haven't found yet.

we are losing 1 litre of water an hour!
To put this in perspective... that's about £15/year on your water bill
(based on AW charge of £1.6853/m^3).

I always wondered where the holy water in churches came from. Now I know!

Turn off the incoming stopcock(s) (there may be more than one), take a meter reading from the street meter, amuse yourselves for several hours, take another reading. It should be the same. If it's not, the leak is between the meter and the cocks. If it is the same, do the same but with the stopcocks on, if the reading is different this means a leak in the house you haven't found yet.

Yes we phoned Anglican water and this is what they recommended to test it to see if the leak is inside the house or the pipe outside. I’m going to switch it off tonight and then see if we lose any more water overnight. No obvious leaks in the house…

We got the same letter. It said the cost was £29 a year. After some investigating, I suspect it is like pp said, a running loo, continuously filling bowl.

will get it sorted.

good luck!

Anglian sent someone out to me. After checking everything they came to the conclusion that we just use a lot of water.....

Will be a leak on your supply pipe…