Need some practical thoughts and experience here. I live north of Atlanta in an area where the county water department has gone full NAZI mode. Once you go past a certain amount of usage, the per gallon charges go up exponentially. They call this tiered usage. Now, I will be honest here - I know there must be some good people working for the county, but I know the commissioners are corrupt at worst and lackadaisical at best. The permit and inspection departments are completely braindead, and just about everyone else is a family member of someone who gave them a job, etc.
So a few years ago, the county started switching to smart meters. These have little antennas in them that when the meter trucks drive by they query your usage. In my house, I know what the average usage is per day. I run about $40/month. Imagine my surprise and panic when this month's bill came in at $250. That's a lot of water. Being an engineer, I thought the worst. Checked toilets - no leaks ( a few months ago I rebuilt all 5 of them). Checked laundry connections, no leaks. Dove into the crawlspace fully expecting to find it flooded - dry. Verified no soggy spots in the yard. Hmmm.
Pulling up the water departments website, they now helpfully show your water usage. I can go back years. All of the usage is as expected except for 3 days in early march where day 1, the usage starts to spike - 10 times the average 5000 gallons), day 2 is over 50 times (10000 plus gallons) , day 3 is trending down (5300 gallons) day 4 is 4100 gallons and then after that we're suddenly back to normal at less than 300 gallons per day.
This seems to be some sort of glitch in the system. Has anyone here seen something like this? Did I miss something in my property check? I could see a mainline breaking and leaking underground, but this would not explain the usage returning to normal. We're talking 20k gallons of water - that's a large swimming pool.
Would it make sense to have a plumber come out and sanity check things? The water consumption has gone back to normal, so I'm not sure I'd be wasting their time and my money.
So a few years ago, the county started switching to smart meters. These have little antennas in them that when the meter trucks drive by they query your usage. In my house, I know what the average usage is per day. I run about $40/month. Imagine my surprise and panic when this month's bill came in at $250. That's a lot of water. Being an engineer, I thought the worst. Checked toilets - no leaks ( a few months ago I rebuilt all 5 of them). Checked laundry connections, no leaks. Dove into the crawlspace fully expecting to find it flooded - dry. Verified no soggy spots in the yard. Hmmm.
Pulling up the water departments website, they now helpfully show your water usage. I can go back years. All of the usage is as expected except for 3 days in early march where day 1, the usage starts to spike - 10 times the average 5000 gallons), day 2 is over 50 times (10000 plus gallons) , day 3 is trending down (5300 gallons) day 4 is 4100 gallons and then after that we're suddenly back to normal at less than 300 gallons per day.
This seems to be some sort of glitch in the system. Has anyone here seen something like this? Did I miss something in my property check? I could see a mainline breaking and leaking underground, but this would not explain the usage returning to normal. We're talking 20k gallons of water - that's a large swimming pool.
Would it make sense to have a plumber come out and sanity check things? The water consumption has gone back to normal, so I'm not sure I'd be wasting their time and my money.