The water bill came last week... last month's water consumption was twice the normal amount. That seemed extra strange, because for an entire week last month, nobody was home.

Being the nerdy sort, I pulled together my bills from the last four years and ground the numbers a little. This house hasn't used that much water in that period, ever. What the heck?? So I summarized it, put it into a graph, and wrote a letter to the town. Being a bit town-pessimistic, I figured I wouldn't get a response.

To my surprise, I got an email from the town's utility billing specialist. In her message, she detailed the daily water consumption over the past two months, showing the usage spike on one particular day. She went further then, and showed the hourly consumption for that day. That particular day's usage was roughly a month's worth. Across a span of seven hours that day, the hourly consumption was at just under 200 gallons. A couple of her graphs follow:



Moving on, she suggested I have a leaky toilet. That seems the normal suspicion, but I'm skeptical. First, because I've rebuilt the toilets in the house already, and second because of the 10x-plus daily rate. Third, that particular day was the day that started the empty-house week.

Moving on... I'm thinking, "could a running toilet use that much water?" Shower heads are generally regulated to 2 gallons per minute, right? At that rate, an open shower would use 120 gallons per hour. That's considerably less than 200 gph. Suppose a flush is 6 gallons... 200 gph would come down to a "constant flush rate" of 33 flushes/hour. Could a fella flush a toilet that often? Depends on how long it takes to refill the tank, I suppose, and I haven't timed that.

But back to the point: the supply line feeding a toilet is smaller than what feeds a shower, so it seems that a "running" toilet wouldn't use as much water as a running shower (120 gph), right? I'm no plumber, for sure, but I'm having a hard time believing a running toilet would use that much water. And a tougher time believing a faulty flush valve would suddenly stop leaking seven hours later, bringing household usage back to normal.

Thinking beyond that, what other things in the house use water unattended? The ice maker? No way that used that much water -- where did all the ice go? Leaky water heater? I surely would have noticed that (again, where did all the water go), by way of the damage 1400 spilled gallons would leave. Washing machine? Again, I figure it would have left me a heck of a mess if it had run out that much water.

If it's not possible for a toilet supply line to pour out 200 gph (is it possible?), and neither the fridge nor the water heater dumped that much water, then where did it go? Truly, the only thing I can think of is that a neighbor attached a hose to my outdoor faucet and watered the garden. I'm not about to pin that on him, plus who the heck waters a hundred-square-foot garden for seven hours in November?

I'm at a loss, y'all. Can a running toilet use that much water for a solid seven hours and then quit? If not the washer, nor the water heater, nor the icemaker, nor a toilet, then what in the world else could use that much water, unattended, and then quit suddenly?

(Never before have I typed the word "toilet" so many times in a single day... or even a month. )

My toilet takes about 2 min to refill.

So 30 refills at 6 gals is 180gals. Per hour

Quite possible.

The water use issue comes up frequently in my area. The water department will write if off if it is a one time occurrence. {Apparently their system makes mistakes}. They will usually offer to come out and check the water line. I know this was not your specific question, but our water department makes lots of mistakes.

My first thought was someone knew you were gone, and stole the water from an outside faucet. It happens around here.

I had this same thing happen a few years ago.

I called and complained and the guy said he'd get back to me.

He did. Turns out my meter was broken and had been for a while, so they SWAGGED an amount and billed me for it.

I was okay with that.

Do you have any type of softener or RO system?

quote:

Originally posted by bigpond73:
My first thought was someone knew you were gone, and stole the water from an outside faucet. It happens around here.

There's an indoor valve... that's going to be closed all the time now, for sure.

quote:

Originally posted by eyrich:
Do you have any type of softener or RO system?

No, sir.

Any of your more immediate neighbors got a pool or hot tub?

We have a toilet where the flap sometimes doesn't engage fully if you don't flush right. Probably if you ease down the flapper w/ the lever rather than just letting it 'slam' shut.

In any case, it results in a leaky toilet through the flap that isn't fully closed. Doesn't happen often, but if you don't catch it, then it's probably quite a bit of water since it's a quick re-fill system. May not get resolved until the next flush.

So, I vote conceivable.

quote:

Originally posted by 83v45magna:
Any of your more immediate neighbors got a pool or hot tub?

Nobody within "reasonable hose distance," and I'm pretty sure my "Mrs. Kravitz" neighbor across the road would've clued me in if someone had run a hose from my house for that long.

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
Doesn't happen often, but if you don't catch it, then it's probably quite a bit of water since it's a quick re-fill system. May not get resolved until the next flush.

So, I vote conceivable.

I'm with you, mostly. But would a poor seal suddenly heal itself seven hours later? Nobody was here to flush it again for a week.

^^^^^^^^^^^
Put colored liquid in the toilet and you will know. I am betting on faulty meter. Our meters were read by a human and they sometimes made up numbers. They are now read by other means and the technology screws up as well.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
colored liquid in the toilet

Food coloring in the tank. On it!

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
I am betting on faulty meter. Our meters were read by a human and they sometimes made up numbers. They are now read by other means and the technology screws up as well.

A misread meter was my first thought as well, because I ran into that this summer. My water department warned me that after reading my meter it appeared I had used nearly 4x as much water in July as usual, and they suggested that since I had neither a swimming pool nor an irrigation system then I must have a water leak. I doubted that, because my house is only 2 years old and when I checked repeatedly over a period of time my water meter didn't budge even a hair. A plumber friend suggested taking the wait and see approach.

Sure enough, they then admitted a couple weeks later that they read the meter wrong. I now haven't had a water bill since August, as we wait for my actual water usage to pass the incorrectly high misreading that I already paid for.


However, what makes that misread meter scenario unlikely here is the detailed daily usage breakdown that his water department was able to provide him. That doesn't sound like a misread meter, if they're able to monitor specific hourly usage like that. But it could still be something like an electronic meter glitch or department software glitch.

quote:

Originally posted by vthoky:
I'm with you, mostly. But would a poor seal suddenly heal itself seven hours later? Nobody was here to flush it again for a week.

Perhaps the flow of water or a hiccup in the flow helped to reset the flap properly? The flap is fine, it's just the mechanics of sealing has some play.

Just thinking out loud - with our toilet, this is plausible.

quote:

Originally posted by vthoky:
But back to the point: the supply line feeding a toilet is smaller than what feeds a shower, so it seems that a "running" toilet wouldn't use as much water as a running shower (120 gph), right?

The plumbing to a shower will supply a whole lot more than 2 gpm.

The valve(s) will reduce the flow a bit, but the primary limit on flow rate in a shower is a flow restrictor (basically a plate with some tiny holes in it) in the shower head. It’s almost always a separate, removable piece, but occasionally is built in to the shower head.

3 gpm is not an unreasonable toilet flow rate.

I just measured my toilet. 3.1 gallons in 59 sec.

I worked for a water utility for 12 years.
Very common to have a water flap in a toilet not close, then seal.
If a water meter is bad, it is usually to the benefit of the customer. Over time the fins on the meter wear down causing the meter to under read.

We would credit the customer for a one time water surge, not a big deal for the utility to take away the charge. When I first started, we had meter readers that would visit the customers quarterly and read the meters. Now it is a simple drive by to collect the data.

quote:

Very common to have a water flap in a toilet not close, then seal.

Very true, especially in hard water areas, here in FL flap replacement is quite common.

The high water use could have been a stuck toilet flapper or one that didn't seal, and the water consumption isn't like flushing it over and over, it's a constant flow since the float will never rise enough to close the valve.

Similar flow to leaving a sink faucet running for a whole day....

If it's the toilet , you will hear it filling . No mystery there .

Look on the bright side. Those 1400 gallons went down the drain while you were gone, not into the house itself which could have occurred if a pipe or water heater had burst (and either of those might have run a lot longer than 7 hours). The toilet gods were looking out for you!