Cyprus-Forum.com

[rozz1000]

We have a holiday home in a small development, and recently had a water meter reading showing usage of more than 180 cu meters, which gave us a bill of more than EUR 300, whereas our normal bill is 10 Euros or less. We are certain that we have not used this much water and think that the meter could be faulty, although it has supposedly been tested by the water authority, and appears to be turning at a normal rate now. We have heard of three other households who have had similarly huge bills without any explanation. Has anyone out there in Cypriot cyberspace had a similar problem?

[skyvet]

The "fault" probably isn't with the meter, but with a leak somewhere (possibly underground) which are a common occurrence. Apart from the hassle of having to locate exactly where the leak is (if there is one) according to the water company's rules and regulations, the consumer is liable for the cost of the water lost in any leak that occurs "after" the meter!
If you're only on the island from time to time, maybe you could ask a friend to check your meter on a regular basis to ascertain the useage, which obviously should be negligable if you're not here! If the meter is increasing, it's pretty certain that you do have a leak! Good luck

[CBBB]

The "fault" probably isn't with the meter, but with a leak somewhere (possibly underground) which are a common occurrence. Apart from the hassle of having to locate exactly where the leak is (if there is one) according to the water company's rules and regulations, the consumer is liable for the cost of the water lost in any leak that occurs "after" the meter!
If you're only on the island from time to time, maybe you could ask a friend to check your meter on a regular basis to ascertain the useage, which obviously should be negligable if you're not here! If the meter is increasing, it's pretty certain that you do have a leak! Good luck

Or someone is nicking your water! If you have any outside taps you should install locks on them.

[GreekIslandGirl]

Why don't you turn the water off at the stop just behind the meter?

It's a good idea to do that as a general rule when you go away and then there won't be any disasters from leaking pipes or dripping taps etc etc.

[ludo1981]

I use to fix this kind of issues in FRANCE.

so the process to see if it's leakink is :

1- before going work in the morning you close down all tabs all water consumming no washin' machin nothing has to take water.
2- you go on your water meter and take the number.
3- At night when you come back you will check the difference if there is any.

if not, it mean you have use this water. if yes ,

4- try yourself to follow the pip from the water meter to all instalations, principaly the deposit and the solar panels. 80% of the time is comming from the deposit's valve.

the problem for you is that because it's after the water meter you are responsible of the maintenance and so you will not be able to clamback this money.
good luck

[rozz1000]

Thanks everyone for taking the time to reply to my post. However we are certain that we don't have a leak as the following bill was normal, and the meter is turning now as we would expect, so at some time it must have leaped forward. If there had been a leak, surely we would still have one now? However, we now have a neighbour monitoring our meter so should find out very quickly if the meter jumps forward again. This same person checks the house regularly for dripping taps or leaks so we are certain that this hasn't happened.

We are loath to turn off the water completely as we have a small irrigation system which runs for one minute every evening. We have checked that this is working OK. This only leaves theft, but as we have a neighbourhood warch scheme one of them would have noticed, and we have locks on all the external taps, which only seems to leave the water meter possibly being faulty. Its very worrying as we can't afford another huge bill !

[Get Real!]

Why don't you turn the water off at the stop just behind the meter?

It's a good idea to do that as a general rule when you go away and then there won't be any disasters from leaking pipes or dripping taps etc etc.

Exactly! If you’re gonna abandon your house for a week or more just kill the power from the mains and turn the water knob off.

[Robin Hood]

A suggestion:

A similar thing happened to my next door neighbour. The fault was believed to be in the counter which is immersed in the water! A small piece of lime scale gets jammed between the counter ‘wheel’ that reads single cubic meters and the one that reads the tens of cubic meters. When the single cu. meter wheel turns it drags the tens one with it. This means you run through one cu. meter but it actually ends up turning the ten meter wheel as well and you end up paying for ten times what you have actually used.

They take the meter out to check it and there is no fault as the removal or passing a large volume through the meter dislodges and flushes out the particle and the meter appears ‘normal’. It could not be proved that this was the case but it seems very strange that a meter that is not used for a long period suddenly shows hugely exacerbated usage. The lime scale in the water here is a real problem as it coats piping and then small pieces break off, some even too minute to see but between two of these segments could cause the symptoms you have.

[cyprusgrump]

Thanks everyone for taking the time to reply to my post. However we are certain that we don't have a leak as the following bill was normal, and the meter is turning now as we would expect, so at some time it must have leaped forward. If there had been a leak, surely we would still have one now? However, we now have a neighbour monitoring our meter so should find out very quickly if the meter jumps forward again. This same person checks the house regularly for dripping taps or leaks so we are certain that this hasn't happened.

We are loath to turn off the water completely as we have a small irrigation system which runs for one minute every evening. We have checked that this is working OK. This only leaves theft, but as we have a neighbourhood warch scheme one of them would have noticed, and we have locks on all the external taps, which only seems to leave the water meter possibly being faulty. Its very worrying as we can't afford another huge bill !

Has the water been cut-off at all...?

We've had a problem here in Pissouri when the water supply is interrupted...

When the supply comes back, air rushing through the system can spin the meter and add tonnes to your consumption.

There seemed to be a number of houses that were particularly susceptible to this - the council didn't believe the owners until they managed to get them on site in time one day and could see the meter whizzing round as the air was purged from the system.

The simple solution was to fit an air-purge valve just before the meter.

The other thing that can cause unusually high bills is a leaking cistern on a toilet. The valve can stick open (because of lime-scale, etc.) causing a slow, steady refilling of the cistern all the time - I know somebody here that had a €1,000 bill for that reason!

As has been said, the best solution is to isolate the irrigation system from the rest of the house but if you can't do that I would strongly recommend turning off the supply to each toilet at the wall...

[CBBB]

Thanks everyone for taking the time to reply to my post. However we are certain that we don't have a leak as the following bill was normal, and the meter is turning now as we would expect, so at some time it must have leaped forward. If there had been a leak, surely we would still have one now? However, we now have a neighbour monitoring our meter so should find out very quickly if the meter jumps forward again. This same person checks the house regularly for dripping taps or leaks so we are certain that this hasn't happened.

We are loath to turn off the water completely as we have a small irrigation system which runs for one minute every evening. We have checked that this is working OK. This only leaves theft, but as we have a neighbourhood warch scheme one of them would have noticed, and we have locks on all the external taps, which only seems to leave the water meter possibly being faulty. Its very worrying as we can't afford another huge bill !

Has the water been cut-off at all...?

We've had a problem here in Pissouri when the water supply is interrupted...

When the supply comes back, air rushing through the system can spin the meter and add tonnes to your consumption.

There seemed to be a number of houses that were particularly susceptible to this - the council didn't believe the owners until they managed to get them on site in time one day and could see the meter whizzing round as the air was purged from the system.

The simple solution was to fit an air-purge valve just before the meter.

The other thing that can cause unusually high bills is a leaking cistern on a toilet. The valve can stick open (because of lime-scale, etc.) causing a slow, steady refilling of the cistern all the time - I know somebody here that had a €1,000 bill for that reason!

As has been said, the best solution is to isolate the irrigation system from the rest of the house but if you can't do that I would strongly recommend turning off the supply to each toilet at the wall...

I had the problem with a toilet cistern, but you couldn't see it, it was just a very fine film leaking down the back of the bog. The bloke from the waterboard had a look and said there was no problem, then a real plumber came and placed a piece of tissue at the back of the bowl above the waterline, and you could see it soaking up the water! WE had gone from about 2 Tonnes a month to 30!

Mind you, I would suspect the Neighbourhood Watch of nicking it!