£1k water bill. Leaking water supply. Trench width? Graft spade?

[Safety First]

My wife could not wait to send me a text today while I was at work to say our water bill was a few quid less than £1000.
Should have been around half that....

Stopcock off, water meter still spinning. Not a shared supply. = Leak!
Measured the leak as approx 107 litres an hour, which is about 50% of our cold tap on full

So I shall be cutting a chase down the 13m driveway this weekend. I know there the rusty galvanised pipe runs....roughly...

But how wide do I cut the chase? Less width less soil etc.... But aren't graft spades a pain?

Will hire one of those dust suppressing stone cutter things and maybe a graft spade.

Hopefully I'll get to the boundary and find no leak- i.e. the prob would be on their side- water company I mean... But then I'll have to ask them to fix my drive? Or what?

Anyway anyone got any advice or encouragement ! Ha!

Hope your Monday beats mine.
Cheers all!

 

[Ian H]

Phone the water company first, they will dig at your boundary and rule out their section. Some of them will investigate further.

If you know the line of the pipe you may hear the leak or not because it’s quite a small one.

If your digging it out about 300mm wide would be the minimum.

 

[Safety First]

Thanks for reply...Not second guessing you, but is that 300mm from a reg?

 

[Ian H]

No, just the width of my legs.

I don’t tend to follow any regs, if doing a repair the new section goes in at the same depth as the original pipe.

For example, this steel pipe at about 600mm deep:

 

[Hugh Jaleak]

Stopcock off and meter still spinning? Call the Water company first, meter should be downstream of stopcock, both are usually their property. If stopcock is off and water is still flowing then that needs investigating. Once past the meter box/your boundary then it's your pipe and your responsibility I'm afraid.

You'll need to dig wide enough to be able to get in and repair the pipe if that's what you want to do, but to be honest, if its steel pipe and it's leaking now, how long is the rest going to last? I'd be inclined to run in a new plastic service, and abandon the old steel service. Old pipe could be up to 760mm (2'6") deep for frost precautions, new one will need to go in around the same depth if you opt to replace.

 

[Diyisfun]

Report the leak.
They will come & confirm.
You will not be charged for any leaking water once they have been & confirmed leak, but you will have a time period to repair (about 2 weeks).

 

[Safety First]

Sounds pretty freestyle,,,

Report the leak.
They will come & confirm.
You will not be charged for any leaking water once they have been & confirmed leak, but you will have a time period to repair (about 2 weeks).

Thanks.
Like the part about not paying, not so much about the 2 weeks to act, hadn't heard that... !

 

[Safety First]

Stopcock off and meter still spinning? Call the Water company first, meter should be downstream of stopcock, both are usually their property. If stopcock is off and water is still flowing then that needs investigating.
.

Sherlock! Yes it does indicate a leak... They are coming on Monday.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Stopcock off and meter still spinning

I'm assuming he means the internal stop cock vs the external meter.

Sherlock! Yes it does indicate a leak... They are coming on Monday.

It wasn't clear from the op.

 

[Dan Robinson]

If the leak is after the boundary stop cock, a discount is discretionary.

 

[Hugh Jaleak]

Sherlock! Yes it does indicate a leak...

Depends on the setup. Mine has external stoptap, followed by meter, in an integral unit, I was imagining the same setup, hence why I queried it.

You assume no shared supply, never assume anything!

Also, as Dan has said, if the leak is on your property, any discount is discretionary. Water companies want leaks repaired, I cant see them being too generous with allowing water to be wasted.

 

[big-all]

i think around here east surrey they average your bill before the leak but that was old information [20+ years old ]and think it may be a 50/50 share now but not a plumber just a chippy

 

[Ian H]

Severn Trent and UU don’t charge for the leak as long as you fix it within 28days.

 

[Diyisfun]

If the leak is after the boundary stop cock, a discount is discretionary.

Not discretionary with Anglia water.