Water Leak Advice - supposedly using over 26 litres and hour, even at night!

[slfk3]

We're with Anglian Water. They put smart meters on in January and we received the new bill in March. Suddenly our water usage has tripled, increasing steadily since the new water meter and we are now supposedly using 987 litres a day. Both myself and the man they send yesterday have done the turning off of the stop cock inside and the meter stops reading so they've now said it's on us and the cause its an internal leak. We live in a bungalow and I've looked/listened/sniffed everywhere and can see no sign of a leak. In looking at the last years bill with the old meter, it is possible that this leak began sometime last March/April. A small hidden leak, I could understand, but am struggling to understand how we could be leaking a good 500-800 litres a day(based on subtracting our standard usage from the last five years) since January this year, or possibly last year, and show absolutely no sign? And shouldn't have Anglian Water alerted us sooner? They've given my neighbours notice for using 3 litres more a day and yet this was the first we were told anything.

Does anyone have anything I ought to check/isolate while I wait for the detection people to come Monday?

Thanks in advance!

Oh! And yes, I checked the serial number too it unfortunately matches, and we don’t supply other properties so no luck there.

And thanks @Fifiesta, good to know you could hear it as I have been going around the house listening for water when everyone else is in bed and have heard nothing. Given I can hear the icemaker draw water from another room, I am fairly confident my hearing is good which is why the only thing in my mind is either the meter/pipes being wrong or a leak possibly under the floor in the extension, but its such a lot of water to have pouring out for months now I struggle to accept it wouldn’t create problems I could see.

It’s a process of elimination. If you haven’t found it then get a plumber in. Some may specialize in finding leaks.

We had an outside leak from the hose. Even though it was off there was a constant drip . But I guess that you have checked that. Are there any areas outside that look greener?

@slfk3 hi, did you manage to resolve this issue please and, if so, what was the upshot? Grateful for any advice as we have exactly the same issue and it’s been ongoing for ages now with no resolution. Many thanks

@Nikkinikkinoo321 did you manage to resolve your issue?

@Maneattraction yes, thank you :) after literally years of toing and froing the leak was finally located and fixed - I am beyond happy!

Where was the leak? Who paid to fix it?

God this brings back memories. Went through this a couple of years back. Thames water came out and did ‘tests’ which basically was turning stop cocks off. Kid then said it’s in your house somewhere. Lots of back and forth and a leak detection team (£1200) and they isolated it to under our front garden wall. Thoroughly annoyed by four months of turning the supply off at the pavement every night due to losing about 600 litres a day I dug up the front garden and exposed the pipe. Absolutely gushing from the connection to the main pipe in the pavement. Thames water then finally came out and fixed it alongside compensating us for all the messing around.

Sounds like for you it is inside your property if they’ve turned off the internal stopcock and the meter stops? You’ve checked all the obvious stuff. If your house is on suspended floors then it could be leaking into the soil under your house and you wouldn’t notice / see any damp spots. Really unlikely you’re losing huge amounts of water and not noticing any damp spots. Leak detection team seems like your best bet, but as with us, if you’re paying by the hour then be prepared for the cost to escalate fast!

@Nikkinikkinoo321 that’s a long time for a leak! Good you have it resolved. Did you have to pay for it, could you claim on insurance? How was it resolved?

It turned me grey! So many calls and emails but by a huge stroke of luck they were working on the main pipes in our road and the leak unearthed itself (literally litre upon litre gushing down the street). They fixed the problem at the outlet pipe to the meter. The engineers were brilliant; my issue was with the company’s procedures

We live in a bungalow and had an underfloor leak. No sign of any water escape but we could hear the sound of running water when we were next to one of the air vents. It was a hole in the mains pipe and the plumber measured the leak flow - 22 litres a minute.

Make sure you have everything turned off, go outside and listen at each of your vents.

Hi OP
I wonder if you could share an update?
I am going through the same thing currently. We are a 2 people household, they changed our meter 28/1/26 to a smart meter, and all of a sudden we have a leak and using 22 L an hour every hour.

Was the meter fitted outside in the pavement (ie outside your building)?

Can you still access the rising main stop tap inside the house?

Turn off the house tap and check to see if you are leaking between meter and house, If you are then sadly that usage is your responsibility and you will have to pay for it. It is then a question of cost of repair which may require extensive digging or just accept it is cheaper to pay for the leaked water.

If you do that and it shows you have no leak before the stop tap then your leakage is obviously inside the house. At 26 litres per hour it is inconceivable that you have not seen damage inside the property so it can only be leaking where it is draining away without visible damage. You say you have ruled out toilet and sinks, so that just leaves under the ground floor (if you have a suspended wood floor). But if you have a solid floor then that rate of leak would be showing up by now.

I went from 11 meters per month to 82 and did not realise until that quarter's bill came in. Mine was relatively easy to find though as it was a toilet that did "run on" after flushing (it was a faulty valve) which I knew as I could hear it, but did not appreciate how much it was costing !!!!!