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| X marks the spot. |
I have learned some very important lessons over the past couple of weeks.
Here's the short version:
(1) The Louisville 1 Water Company is not here to help you.
(2) One of the highest profile and "best" plumbers in Louisville 2 is a scam artist.
(3) You can and should read your own damn water meter.
(4) And pay close attention to your water bill.
1 I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that you can replace "Louisville" with the name of any city in the United States of America.
2 Ibid.
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Here's the long version:
It started, as I'm guessing these things usually do, with a very high water bill. I contacted the Louisville Water Company (LWC) via email and asked about this and received this reply:
Dear Mr.,
Thank you for contacting Louisville Water Company’s Customer Service Center.
Your usage has increased tremendously, have you notice in leaks? You need to do dye test on commodes to make sure you have no silent leak. You can put 12 to 13 drops of food coloring in the back of the tank and let it sit for 6 hours or overnight without flushing. If color appears in the bowl, that is an indication of a leak.
If you find no leaks inside or outside of property, call us and we will have our field rep come out and inspect
the meter.
Which I did, and lo and behold one of my toilets did fail the leak test. I replaced the flush seal and tested again and there was no leak. But then I started thinking, "What if there was another problem? How would I even know?" So I emailed LWC again.
Thank you for your response. I did the food coloring test and it only took 20 minutes for the dye to show up in the bowl of one of my toilets. If I may, I have two addition questions for you.
(1) Is it possible for one toilet leak to cause such a huge water loss or is there something else that I should look for?
(2) Is there a way for me to monitor the water use in my house so that I can catch problems before they show up on my water bill? I have read about a water usage meter with a leak indicator, but have no idea where this would be or if it is even accessible to me.
And I received this response:
Dear Mr.,
Thank you for contacting Louisville Water Company’s Customer Service Center.
It is possible for a toilet leak to cause a large amount of usage since water is basically continuously running. I would also check your yard for any wet spots that could indicate leak. Check for replace and worn gaskets and washers on in any indoor and outdoor faucets. Check behind or below your washing machine or dishwater for stains indicating a leak. Make sure the water level on your toilet tank is an inch below the top of the tank. Unfortunately, I do not know of way to currently monitor daily water usage.
Louisville Water Company offers a courtesy leak adjustment to assist customers with a high bill resulting from a leak on their property. The adjusted bill will be higher than your normal bill, since the courtesy adjustment is 50% of the excess amount based on your average usage. In other words, you are responsible for your normal bill plus 50% of the excess amount. Courtesy adjustments are limited to no more than two (2) adjusted bills in a twelve (12) month period.
You must have the leak repaired and submit your proof of repair along with the completed form located at louisvillewater.com. In the search bar type Adjustment form.
Please allow 4- 6 weeks for your request to be reviewed after we receive the requested documents and for a final determination to be made. You should continue making payment on the account to avoid any service interruptions.
Which gave me some important information (reference partial reimbursement), for sure, as I had no idea about that. But there were two very big problems: (1) the assumption that there was no other cause (since there were no leaks or wet spots on my lawn) and (2) the assertion that "I do not know of way to currently monitor daily water usage." And the later is a BIG deal, as we'll see.
I emailed back:
Thank you for your help. I have replaced the seal on the flush valve on the toilet which had the slow leak and re-tested it with the dye and it is no longer leaking. Is there a way that you can check my water usage to show if there has been a change in my usage? I'd like to find out if there are any other problems before the next water bill shows up since that is two months away.
And received this reply:
Unfortunately, there is no way to determine the amount of usage since you repaired the toilet. However, most likely the toilet was the culprit if dye appeared when 1st test was performed.
That was false on both counts. And I was pretty sure that the comment reference the amount of water usage was not true. I mean, what the hell was the water meter for, after all? And I couldn't understand why someone couldn't come out to check it for me. So I called LWC. And talked to a woman who told me that my water meter would be read in a couple of months. I told her that that was ridiculous, as if I did still have a leak that would mean I'd have another enormously high bill. She didn't like that at all, and became very snippy. But she said that she would attach a note to my account that the meter reader should pay attention to my meter reading.
Now, I didn't know it at the time, but turns out there is a leak indicator on the water meter. So not only can you literally see how much water is being used by the house any time, you can even see if water is running. So to determine whether or not you have a leak, all you have to do is make sure that no water is running in the house, walk outside and open up the meter, and look at a little indicator. If it is moving, you have a leak. Not exactly rocket science, eh? (However . . . the water company does not want you to do this. At least not in Louisville. In fact, the good plumber (we'll get to him in a moment) told me that they don't even like plumbers opening up the little underground boxes. So while it's pretty easy to do--a pair of vice clamps is all you need to turn the pentagonal nut--I don't know if the homeowner is "allowed" to do that.)
I didn't like that LWC representative's attitude, so I decided to go old school and wrote a letter to LWC. I don't know why, but that actually got me some action. A few days later there was a bang at my front door at about 8:00 a.m. I opened it and a man shouted at me, "Is there any water running in your house right now?" A little startled, I still managed to reply, "No." He riposted, "You've got a leak, then." Over his shoulder as he walked away. What the fuck? "What should I do?" I called out to him. "Call a plumber," he said. And that was that.
I called a plumber. A very high profile plumber in Louisville. A top three winner in L.E.O.'s Reader's Choice Awards plumber. And was told that first I needed to contact a company that specialized in finding out where the leak was. They gave me a contact number. I called and had to leave a message when there was no answer. And then I started to worry. It was December 23, and I wasn't sure how much work would get done as the Christmas holiday walked in on little cat's feet. So I went online, found the company's website, and filled out a form there. A few minutes later my phone rang, and a very nice fellow said he had just happened to be looking at the computer and that he could send somebody out in a couple of hours. He also asked me which plumber I had gone with, and when I told him, he responded, "You might want to get another estimate. Dauenhauer does a lot of that kind of work." And you know, I didn't really think about it at the time, but those words ended up being very important.
Some guys came out and did some stuff and marked my lawn in blue and yellow paint. I called the plumber back and he came by and looked at the marks, then told me that we also had to have BUD (Before You Dig) come out to check for underground stuff, and that he would contact them and ask if they could expedite it, and that he would then be able to come out the next day. Which was not only a Saturday, but Christmas Eve as well. He also told me that they could either do a spot repair of the pipe for $1400 or pull the whole pipe out and put a new one in for $2900. He suggested that it would be better to do the latter, since if there was another leak the whole process would have to be repeated, and that since the pipe was old (70 years or so) that it probably would have other problems sooner or later. So I said I would go for that option.
Meanwhile I called Dauenhauer to see about a second estimate, and the person who answered told me that they would have to come out to give me an estimate, and that they wouldn't be able to get to it until Tuesday morning. I went ahead and scheduled it "just in case," but figured that I'd be cancelling that one in the very near future.
As soon as the BUD people came by I called the plumber back, talked to a secretary, and was told that they did indeed work on Saturday, even Christmas Eve, for a half-day.
But that didn't happen. The plumber told me that he would come out Monday morning at 8 a.m. to get it done, and that I shouldn't worry about it. But then Monday morning came and when no one showed up I called the office and was told that they were getting everything together and would be on their way in a few minutes. And then a little later I got a call from the plumber who said he was sorry but he couldn't get a team together for the job and that he would try for Tuesday but for sure by Friday. I didn't like that much.
So I called Dauenhauer again. This time I spoke to a fellow who said no problem, they would be out Tuesday morning. I asked if he could give me a ballpark figure of how much it would cost to do a spot repair. He said "$850." Gulp. (Good thing I went for that second estimate, eh?) I then asked, "How about if I wanted to get the whole line replaced?" He told me . . . and I have to admit that I can't remember what the number was, but it was considerably less than $2,900. But the reason I don't remember is because he said, "But you don't want to do that. Get the spot repair and then enroll in the insurance for your pipes, which is only about $10 a month, and then if you have another problem it'll be covered." Which was funny, because I had asked the first plumber about doing that, and he had told me that once the spot repair was made that I would have to pay on the insurance for two years before it would cover anything. So let's just say that at the very best, that first plumber--who seemed very friendly and nice--did not have my best interests at heart.
And as it turned out, much to my delight and surprise, I actually already had the insurance for the water line--I did not have coverage for the sewer line, and had not understood that there was a distinction between the two. So I actually did not have to pay anything for the repair. So if you've ever wondered if that insurance was worth it or not . . . well, let's put it this way. The Line Coverage insurance costs $12.98 every two months. (It may have been lower previously, but it certainly wasn't ever higher.) I've lived in this house since December 24th of 1994, which is just a tad over 22 years. Which is 264 months. Which means I've received 132 water bills. Which means that I've paid (to date) $1,713.36 (at most) for the insurance. So even with that perspective, I would have pretty much "won" with that first plumber with just the one repair. And I could be wrong--and hope that I am--but it seems to me that if you have one breakdown that wasn't caused my an accident of some kind that you can pretty much count on having another one at some point in time. I found a website that said the life expectancy of copper water lines is 50+ years. My house was built in 1955. Those are not good odds. So, again, I'm thinking that this kind of insurance is pretty much a must have thing unless you have water lines made from PVC, wherein the life expectancy is (literally) forever.
I must say, however, that my first look at my leaking pipe was quite startling to me on two counts.
Count 1: it's just a tiny little pipe! I was expecting something quite a bit larger. It's no bigger than the copper pipes that cross my basement ceiling.
Count 2: the word "leak" does not do this problem justice. The water was spurting out of that hole. It makes me weak to think about how much water was wasted because of this problem--which was compounded by the LWC's unwillingness to alert me to the problem (you'd think that somebody would be monitoring the meter readings for excess usage, since the customer is not privy to that information) and their unwillingness to help me to find a quick solution.
As it stands, the only way you have to detect a "silent leak" (such as this one, wherein there was no sound of water running, no indication of a leak inside or outside of the house, nothing) is by monitoring your water bill carefully--and by paying close attention to the usage as well as the amount due. As I pointed out, though, you actually can open up the cover to the meter and take a look at the leak indicator, but that is at the very least frowned upon by the water company. (I didn't find anything to indicate that it was actually against the law, though. So do what you have to do, be who you are.)
I am also seriously confused as to why this is so secretive. I mean, the electric company has a meter right there on the side of the house, and that's less vital than access to a water meter (since electricity doesn't typically leak out of your house unnoticed). I am really uncomfortable with the fate of my water bill being in the hands of people who don't seem to give a shit about my economic well being. Matter of fact, while looking some things up a few minutes ago, I found a story about a Louisville couple who had received a water bill for $20,000. (True truth, no shit.)
P.S. I forgot something. Reference LWC's "courtesy adjustment." That means that they will only charge you for 50% of the excess amount (based on your average usage) of your water bill. So you're only responsible for half of the water that you didn't know (and had no way of knowing) you were "using." Isn't that sweet of them?
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