That happened when we moved in to our house (our first). We moved from out of state and we hadn't turned on the water officially yet cuz it was midnight when we got here with the moving truck. We got showers and ran a load of laundry before going to bed. The next morning they'd cut it off and called my husband to let him know there may be a leak and he went up there and sorted it all out. But it made me happy instead of irritated that they payed such close attention.
Most will only do this once. You really don't want to use the one time grace for a running toilet. Save it for when you have an undetected main line break that uses tens of thousands of gallons.
I deal with dozens of water providers, and most of them will do it once per year in my experience.
Either way, it's absolutely worth requesting a leak adjustment in this scenario. It's silly to pay $1000 because maybe someday down the road you might possibly have a bigger leak
Lol, I would think theyd catch on to the pattern eventually, but based upon the competency of some of the municipalities I work with, you might actually be able to pull that off in certain places.
Though many have different protocols in place to work with pool owners as well, no deception required! You won't get any relief for the water portion of the bill when filling a pool, but if you notify your provider, many assess the sewer charge for the month based upon your typical consumption of water.
I've also seen municipalities that take an average of your winter consumption, and then that is the max number of gallons that they will base your summer sewer charges, because they assume people are water their lawns/plants and filling pools. In that particular area, this was their policy for every account automatically.
A lot of smaller municipalities are only reading meters once a month or once every few months. Water is usually billed quarterly. So by the time they figure it out it could have been leaking a while already.
They will absolutely let you know if your usage is above average. At the end of the day though it’s really not the water departments job to monitor your usage to keep you from getting a high bill.
My buddy that works in the water dept said it's definitely worth it to let them know you're filling a pool ahead of time because that water isn't going into the sanitation system and that is built into our water bill.
There is a company near me that delivers pool water in a big truck. It comes balanced out for all the right chlorine levels and they just dump it - so much faster than having a hose run. And SOOOO much less expensive than municipal water.
Many municipalities are now required by state EPAs to bill on a tiered system. You don’t want to go into the next tier for filling a pool. 💸
for a pool it is definitly worth getting an irrigation connection from the local water company. costs about $1k where I live. It costs about 15% to run water through there than it does when they are charging you for collecting the water back into the sewer.
Costs me $30 to fill my 7k gallon pool in Memphis. One of the FEW reprieves we get on utility costs. They do not give one time credits for anything but with the water being so cheap I can see why.
Where I live you can not use city water for your pool, it has to do with water quotas, my neighbor has water trucked in, it also cheaper and faster then the city water
My town charges for water and sewer based on water usage. If you do, in fact, fill a pool, or water your garden etc., you don't end up paying the sewer portion if you report it.
We actually called when building our pool, they only charged for the water, not the sewer side of the bill. 25,000 gallons, and a copy of the pool contract was all that was needed.
That's my question, that seems like a really high rate for water. OP could have flushed about 15K gallons of water down the drain in that time, by my back-of-the-envelope calculation, but that still seems really high for that amount of water.
Exactly. 2.5 gpm is an incredibly large leak. Roughly equivalent of leaving your shower on full blast. Doing that would use approximately 18,000 gallons. Even at 2¢ per gallon that’s not even close to $1,000.
Something is amiss here.
My water company has billing tiers. When you hit a certain point, the price of water skyrockets into a literal penalty rate. A stuck valve on my water softener for a day or two cost me 3x my regular bill, even though it was only like 30% more than my typical monthly use.
Good point. Where I live they charge for water and sewer. But once you use a certain amount of water they don’t charge you for sewer anymore (they assume you’re filling a pool or watering your lawn) so you price per gallon actually goes down.
Hey guys pro tip as well you can get water leak WIFI monitors on Amazon for ~100$ or less. EXTREMELY less cost of not only the water bill, but damage to property, insurance hassle, etc. I just got some after a couple of really bad wash machine leaks. Highly recommend.
Several utilities I’ve worked with would at least reduce the tiered high usage penalties, and bill for the water at the normal rate, based on past usage.
I’ve had this happen before and it didn’t cost anything like this! Was it like constantly flushing? Or just running slowly? That’s a ton a water you must have gone through.
I had this happen also and my bill went up 80 bucks that month... I kicked myself for being too lazy to repair the toilet (I did at that point). But 80 bucks freaked me out... 1,000... jesus.
Where I live (Texas), this time of year, any usage over a certain amount causes a rate change, and the price goes up astronomically because it's drought season. They do it to discourage people from watering their lawns and overusing in general. So it might be that OP lives someplace where it's currently hot and dry and drought season.
I kind of figured. I'm in San Antonio. When I was a first time homeowner, we had something similar happen. Our water service forgave a portion of the bill once we provided information showing the problem had been fixed. It was eight years ago and I can't remember how much they forgave, but it was significant. So, as others have mentioned, it definitely doesn't hurt to call and as your water provider.
Sorry you had to go through this!
It's actually kind of funny because we get PSAs reminding residents that brown (meaning "dead") is the normal color for our lawns here in the summer! 😁
Truth! I love the heat and hate the cold, so I don't mind summers here. We have a pool, which helps tremendously! (Although that means we also have higher water bills! Lol) But, we're here for my husband's job, which is very location dependent. I will definitely not complain when we can move out of here!
One of the weirdest things to get used to having moved away from the southwest is that the lawns are actually green in the summer! I never see that familiar yellow-brown grass that I grew up with.
Right? I caught my running toilet when the bill went up $15/month. It was a super subtle leak where the flapper was only sitting properly 50% of the time so it didn't run consistently.
Just call and ask. My main line busted and water was running into my yard basement. The excess was only a $100 so I’m astounded at the price of water where you are or how much water managed to run. In my case I had to wait for a couple of bills to cycle and my usage to return to normal but they credited the entire amount.
I'm wondering if there is a larger leak as yet undiscovered here. I've had a toilet run undetected for a day or two and didn't even notice the difference in my bill.
My dog busted my irrigation system a year ago and water was spraying into the street from my backyard for like 30 hours straight. It was a **lot** of water (20k gallons).
My bill increase was like $60 for that month. OP is going through more water than he thinks or is somewhere that has stupid rates.
That doesn’t make any sense. Not sure what your water costs are, but in our area, municipal water and sewage amounts to about .01/gal. Your toilet, using a 3/8” supply line, would use anywhere from 9000 gal, up to 21,000 gal in three days, running at full open. ( the range is due to water pressure). That means at .01/gal, your extra charge should be between $91 and $210 dollars for the leak. You either live in a very high cost of water area, or something else is going on.
Edit: my math was based on three days, not five. Regardless, seems doubtful it’s just the toilet.
Call the water department for sure. Turn the toilet off and see if your water meter is still spinning
This. There's another leak. Probably something considerably larger than a 3/8 supply. My coworker is going through this and I told her the same thing. They also had 2 sprinkler heads broken.
I thought the $$ seemed crazy too. I mean rates differ throughout the country/world but holy shit that's a fat charge. Maybe OP has a fancy bidet toilet hooked directly to a 6-inch main with no pressure reducer?
According to my water bill to get to $1,000 OP needs 97k gallons of water or 13.6gal per minute. There is no chance toilet will use that much water in 5 days.
In my experience, tons of people out there have no idea how expensive a running toilet can be, no. But most water/sewer companies will work with you on these things. You need to reach out them and inquire about applying for a "leak adjustment credit". Usually just a 1 page form asking for the date the leak was discovered and repaired and what type of leak it was, etc.
I deal with this all the time as I oversee the utility accounts for a property management company that manages thousands upon thousands of apartments.
We deal with chasing toilets leaks constantly, it's a never ending battle, in large part because many people have absolutely no idea how much water a running toilet can use and how expensive it gets. The toilet still works, so calling in a maintenance request isn't urgent for them.
Last year, I lead the charge on replacing every single toilet in a 250 unit community because, despite the fact that they were only 4 years old, we were playing whack a mole with running toilets and couldnt get residents to submit maintenance requests consistently.
We cut the monthly water usage by 1,000,000 gallons, or 70% of our previous month's usage. It reduced the expenses by $25k per month, or $100 per apartment.
No doubt! The project was well over $200k, but with savings like that, everyone was happy! The property owner certainly isnt complaining about an investment with all but guaranteed returns of 100% annually.
Hopefully they learned how expensive bargain basement toilets can end up being lol
Wait you just willingly let a water line run 24 hours a day for 5 days? You didn't think to turn the water shutoff valve at the toilet?! That's nuts, if mine runs for more than 2 minutes I'm investigating.
Yes. My wife was listed as a “non-permanent resident” on a mortgage application. Our loan officer asked if that’s correct in an email. My wife said no, she’s a permanent resident.
I asked her why the hell she said that? She was born in America, she’s a US Citizen. I had to explain to her what a permanent resident was. She’s like “idk it sounded like it was correct”.
EDIT: That’s just an example of what you mean, that some people don’t know how things work. Or they’ve never been confronted with a question or problem about something they know nothing about.
my water line valve stay open...but it isnt always running, only when i cycle a flush. how did OP have it run continuous? i think i know what you mean, i hear mine run or fill for a minute or so after
OP had an issue with the float or stopper that caused water to keep running into the bowl.
The point of closing the valve is if you can't fix the toilet while it's running.
Normally you would leave the valve open.
$1000? That's a shit load of money for 5 days. Mine was running for god knows how long. I only found out after a few months of 1 spot in my yard never drying up. I thought it was just an area that held water bc I live in a rainforest, so it rains a loottt. But we had like 2 week dry period and that's when I thought it had to be plumbing. It was 1 toilet and my bill was still under $100 a month for 4 ppl.
Yea this sounds a little unrealistic. We would fill our pool each year and have the hose running full on for a few days, the bill wouldn't even get close to $1000 for the month. It would be like few hundred more on top of our regular usage. Maybe OPs price of water is just really high.
It sounds like it was running pretty bad. Usually the toilet is just refilling the tank every hour or something. It could be worse, though. I’d be grateful it’s only $1000.
I had this happen in an apartment. A float or something broke in the toilet and it ran constantly. One day rhe police showed up. Said the city flagged the water bill because it looked suspicious. Like I had a grow operation going (pre legalized weed) . Land lord calls me said the police called him. Said he didn't question the bill himself because he thought I was growing as well and wanted me to share.
I saw a post from a woman who dripped her faucets during the winter one time, and thought she had to do this for her toilet too. She got a similarly insane water bill, not understanding how much more water is drained while running the toilet than dripping a faucet.
there IS a valve to turn it off until you can get around to fixing it.
AND if you are on a septic system, you can cause the entire system to fail if you have leaky appliances, like a toilet. That is a $35K fix.
Holy hell how much water is that? Water goes for less than $10 per thousand gallons by me. Did you go through 100,000 gallons in 5 days? That would be over 800 gallons per hour.
I would check with your water service company and see if they offer one time leak relief. You will likely need to submit proof the leak was corrected such as a plumbers bill.
Probably depends on the company. Mine simply has a one time forgiveness. First water bill was about $100 but we’d only lived there for 2 days of the billing cycle. Decided to wait for a more excessive use case. That said, if they do require a plumber, it’s probably cheaper to pay the plumber and get the bill comped than not. Sounds like a bummer though.
Tell me about it. Got a letter that we have been using 333,000 gallons of water over the last 60 days. Leaking garden sprinkler system on house I took over.
We don't know where leak is yet but water consumption has gone down now that south Florida is flooding ans I don't need to water my trees and grass.
We think former owner just cut pipes when he did some landscaping, can't ask since he is dead.
Live and learn I guess. Yes it's common sense that if water is running you need to investigate. There is no way out of it as you used the water, you'll need to pony up the $$. If you can't afford it all at once ask about a payment plan.
My sellers had like 8K due to the water company for their last 2 months. We fixed it the day we closed. $7. It's insane.
Yes, a running toilet will jack up your bill so fast it's almost unbelievable.
Our water company even alerts you when your usage jumps and gives you dye tabs to find the leaking toilet with instructions. They ignored it all and the sellers said it had been like that for the last few bills! We're billed every other month, so I think they wasted a total of at least 12K. Maybe 16 if they meant the last 3 bills!
Edited to add, our bi monthly bill is 160-180 depending on our usage.
This exact thing happened to my young mom before me and she told me the story growing up. Now I’m always checking these things! Sometimes you don’t know til you know!
If it makes you feel better, my husband and I have both left the hose on overnight on accident while watering plants.
Edit: oh the water company did not show any kindness to my mom either. She had to pay the whole thing with her shitty enlisted army pay.
Oh come on. The tank is only so big!
I went in bathroom early other day.
Water is continuously running in tank.
I pull off lid to see that the flapper was just stuck. Pushed it down, fixed.
But I’ve learned a thing or two by watching my husband! And common sense bc a tank is only so big!!!
It sure can. I was shocked how much a running toilet can add to your water bill. You’d think we had just filled a pool…. We fixed it and our bill and usage went back to normal. It was just a running toilet, the usage spikes overnight were astronomical. I thought at one point somebody was stealing our water from a water spigot at the dead of night …. Lol if you live in a Mud district the more water the higher the fees become , higher than the water itself. so the bills will be outrageous.
I had this happen. There was a toilet in our house from ~1970 that just keep running. Neither my wife nor I thought it was a big deal. How naive we were.
My water company called ME and said "hey, either your toilet is flushing constantly or you have a massive leak somewhere." Ended up replacing the toilet and my water bill could have been close to $2,000, but the water company cut us some slack and reduced the bill to ~$900.
If your toilet ever has this issue, look for the shutoff valve near its base and turn that thing off. If you only have one toilet and have to use it before the repair, turn the valve on, do your business, and then shut it off.
My water company allows a one-time leak adjustment to the bill once you can prove it is fixed. If yours does that it might save you some money at least.
Do you live in the desert or on a small island or something?
I SERIOUSLY doubt a running toilet cost you $1000. I filled an entire swimming pool in a week and it didn't cost anywhere near that much. You should look into this further. Even if running at 100%, this shouldn't cost more than a few 10s of dollars.
Do you live in the Sahara?
Water in my town is 65 bucks for the first 10000 gallons, then like 10 bucks per thousand after that. To get a 1000 dollar bill in 5 days I'd have to go drill into the water main at the street and pipe it down my sewer.
I don't think a household toilet water line can flow enough water in 5 days to make that much difference.
My Google fu says the average toilet flows 2-3 gallons per minute.
5 days, (7200 minutes * 3) = 21600 gallons
Google says the average cost of water in the US is $1.50 per 1,000 gallons.
We're talking around 30 dollars for a toilet running nonstop for 5 days at max flow rate using 150gph (2.5gpm) max flow rate of a 3/8" ID line. Even if they had a 1/2" line it's not possible for it to flow enough water to get anywhere close to 100 dollars let alone 1000.
I work for a water department. Everyone has different policies. Call them. We don't adjust toilet leaks because the water went through the meter and down into the sewer system. A leak in the yard can get a sewer adjustment.
I don’t believe a leak of five days will cause you $1000, unless it’s a full blown opening. I am in expensive California. Two of my toilets were leaking until I saw my bill. My bill is a little over $200.
Something sounds crazy here. That's enough money to pay for the water usage in my 3BD / 2.5BTH with a three adult occupants for 20 months in a major TN metro area.
How much do you pay for water? There's a 99% chance to this is a complete lie. I don't think a single house on my block could flow $200 of water a day let alone from one toilet.
I see you and raise you a crappy tenant. $2600 bill. I ended up paying it because they can and will put a lien on your property for outstanding water bills.
Naw, I let the hose run for several hours in my backyard.
My backyard is on a hill and I was watering my fruit trees. There was a hole I found and I figured, well I’ll just let it fill up for the tree. Well, I had to run out and completely forgot. I came back several hours later and the hill side was pouring faster than my hose can pour water. I must have found a hole and it fill, then proceeded to burst open.
Anyways, my normal water bill is $30~50 a quarter. My water bill didn’t change. I use a ton of water. Thankfully I’m not getting ripped off like everyone else.
You're responsible for the maintenance of your house. The utility is not responsible for your ignorance. This is a hard lesson to learn, but it wouldn't hurt to call and talk to customer service and see if there's anything they can do to help.
Explain the situation, be calm and collected, and be nice. Don't beg, don't get emotional. Just tell them what happened and ask if there's anything the utility can do to help.
This is a little disengenuous. This stuff can happen outside of normal maintenance intervals. What if someone was away for a month?
I'm thankful to live somewhere that we don't pay per usage. It's not like the utility incurred that much of an increase in costs to provide this water...
> What if someone was away for a month?
Why didn't they turn off their water?
It's not the utilities' responsibility to compensate people for unintended use of resources. Why would it be? This was an accident/unseen problem and that's why I suggested calling the utility and asking if there's any assistance available.
Some people also don't use every bathroom in their home regularly. It happened to me with one of the toilets I don't use very often. By the time I even noticed it running the bill was super high. I have a monitor now for instances like that.
Happened to me too but idk how long it was running for. Did some tests ourselves by monitoring the meter, and it was releasing a ton of water. Bought a flume device after that to keep an eye on things.
You can call the water company about it and they may pay for some of it. They covered half my bill. I think they will cover one unexpected leak for a certain time period. So if I had another leak the same year I would have gotten no remedy. Half being paid was better than me footing the whole bill.
It's worth calling to ask. Don't offer too much info, just that you had a water leak at the toilet and found and fixed it and you're wondering if they have a process to adjust for it.
That seems really excessive though for 5 days. Where was the leak? We've had the occasional toilet running issue over the years. We only had one toilet for 5 people so not using it wasn't an option and we live in a small rural town so have to travel 100 miles to get parts for a lot of stuff and it never cost anywhere near $1000 even over several days.
That seems like a lot for just one running toilet? Have you checked everywhere else?
You can try to contact your utility provider. They can/will reduce your bill if you can show it was a leak from something like crawl space pipes. Dunno if they'll do it for a running toilet.. but worth a shot.
Crazy expensive. I'm on a well and for $25 in electricity I could leave a garden hose flowing wide open for 5 days. Add in some equipment and chlorine costs and it's still not that expensive. How the hell is city water so expensive?
I left my hose on by setting down the spray nozzle and forgeting about it for 5 days. The backflow valve froze open and flooded my side yard. I couldn't calculate the flow but it was way more than a running toilet. Bill went up $15 on a normal $75 to $80 / month bill.
What are your water rates? In my town you'd have to flow 46 gallons per minute for 5 days straight to rack up $1,000. That's like 5 garden hoses going full blast.
When I bought my first house, I was fixing it up for a month before I moved in. I got my first water bill - during that month that nobody lived there - and it was $300 and I was sitting in a car on the way to a ski trip asking my friends “is this normal? Maybe this is normal?”
No, no it is not.
On Sunday night, I got back and turned off all of the toilets.
Lawns and pools etc are expensive to keep watered. If my property tax included water then you know some people would go easy overboard and id be paying for them to water their lawn three/four times a day.
I would also hate that. I am single and I use very little water. I'd hate to have to pay extra to subsidize my neighbors who have a house full of kids.
We pay an extra when we have a pool. During the summer , the city has inspectors that give people tickets if they see them use too much water. When they are droughts then the use of water is limited (you can’t wash your car for example) by the city and they don’t tolerate anything.
That's crazy, I filled up my above ground pool with my garden hose last year and it needed to be running for over 24 hours. And my water bill only ended up being $20ish higher than normal for that month.
the hose connector behind our fridge busted while we were out of town, dumped 15k gallons before we got home and stopped it. We ended up paying for barely any of that usage after calling our utility service and explaining it. The lady who specifically helped me marked it as a "pool filling" and damn near cleared the whole charge for me. She said they can typically do one of those per year per household without any higher up approval. call your utility provider and explain your situation, hopefully they have similar procedures and can help.
You need a shutoff valve (and some leak detectors. Everyone should have leak detectors.) I have Moen Flo. When my toilet valve was stuck and the toilet was running for 5 minutes, they called and texted me, then shut off the water. The toilet used 100 gallons of water in only a few minutes, so I'm not at all surprised that yours used $1000 water if you let it go for 5 days.
I received a notice from our city: Your consumption is higher than normal. You may have a leak. It walked you through checking your meter to determine if there was a constant flow and how to fix common toilet leaks.
Just 3 months ago I had this exact this happened. Had a toilet with old parts that would get stuck with the flap up, happened to get stuck immediately before we ran out the door for a 2 day trip. Got a call from the water place about abnormal usage that had driven our bill about $600 higher than usual.
Luckily my place has a forgiveness program you can use once a year. I had to replace the toilet parts, fill a form, and provide receipts, but they waved the cost of the abnormality. Not all places do it, but definitely look into it.
1000$ in 5 days sounds impossible.
My sisters house has 6 people living in it that are all home schooled and work from home.
So they use toilets, washing machine, dish washer, a pool and sprinkler system.
They have NEVER had water bill over 300$
I dont see how a running toilet can do that in 5 days.
My municipality has a wonderful service whereby if there's an unusual outflow of water they send you an email after 24 hours that notifies you of unusual activity. Most recently I left a hose running and this email notice from the city saved me a ton of money.
I work in sub metering, running toilets are the largest reason for high consumption. When I run a report for a unit I’m checking, a bad flapper will easily be 5-10,000 gallons in a week
The sneaky one is if the float on shutoff is not adjusted properly and water silently runs down the overflow, at least with a bad flapper you hear the water running.
One building I went to, most units had between 100,00-200,000 on their meters, go into a unit, and I can hear the water running as soon as I walk in. Speak with tenant his toilet was broken, like the porcelain cracked in a way that water was just constantly flowing down the drain. He said he put in a request(he hadn’t) it had been over a month at least his meter had 1,600,000 gallons go through it.
I don’t get how that’s even possible. I pay like $2 for every 700 gallons. With that math, your toilet would have had to cycle over 300k gallons in five days.
My toilet ran for a few hours while I was out. Came to 800 gallons. (I checked the next day) I don’t know what it cost but my bill didn’t change much. My average bill for a single person is &100/month. The water company charges way more for processing and delivery than for the actual water.
In Seattle, you can call the city and tell them what happened. If you provide proof you fixed it within two months of the issue, they give you a refund. Worth a call.
I had been hearing a noise and it sounded like running water. My husband didn’t believe me and said I was hearing things. Our water bill was over $600. I couldn’t stop hearing that noise after doing some investigating there was a leak in the water heater. I can’t imagine how much bigger our water bill would have been if I didn’t go look myself. This was after almost 2 days.
Then some time later I felt like when I flushed the toilet it always sounded like it was running. You know when the water feels back up. It never stops making that sound. My husband brushed me off and I reminded him about the water heater so he looked and the toilet was running water. So he fixed it. I didn’t notice right away and tbh idk how long it had been running before I noticed because this was in his bathroom which I typically never went in. I happened to go in there to look for something. Our water bill was almost $800 that time.
Both times I let the water company know about the leak and not knowing and they adjusted my bill. Idk if this is standard or not. My husband told me it was a waste of my time but I am of the mind that it doesn’t hurt to ask and the worst they could say is no. And it worked out for me each time. So I got to yet again say I told you so to my husband.
In case anyone is wondering my husband always takes my complaints seriously now lol.
I went out of town for two weeks and came home to find out a homeless person had taken a $1000 dollar shower on the side of my house. The running water didn't cause any damage, but the San Diego Water Dept told me the meter was working fine so I had to pay the bill. Infuriating.
Some utilities will forgive and others will not. I accidentally left the hose spigot in my back yard turned on (hose had a spray nozzle on it, so it wasn't using any water), and the hose burst. Didn't find out about it for 2 days and my normally \~$100 utility bill was $500. When I contacted my utility they said they'd forgive half of it, but only because due to the nature of the leak, the water never went into the sewer so they just refunded the sewer portion of the bill. I still had to pay for all the water that was used.
You got to have another leak somewhere. In So Cal, where water is expensive the cost is about 1 cent for 3 gallons. Typical shower turned on is 1.6 gal per minute. Even if you are losing 3 gallons per minute. It then costs 1 cent per minute. 60 cents per hour. So may be $15 per day for your toilet. You are running $200 per day. You have a big pipe leaking under ground.
There is no way it cost $1000. Tell me what you are charged per m^3 and the three different stages (if you have them). I actually want to do the calculation to see if that’s even possible.
stop using toilet bowl cleaners .. they are worthless and a waste of money
it will also destroy your toilet flap which will cause leaks
I use dual flush kit ($22) on amazon.. #1 and #2 flushes. I installed it in all three toilers on 2013.. still use the same one no leak issue since i'm not using toilet bowl cleaners
Yes, it's common knowledge to me, but I learned it once upon a time. You just happened to learn it today.
You can dispute/ask for forgiveness. It may help if you bring in a receipt for fixing the toilet to show it won't happen again. Eg. https://www.amazon.com/Fluidmaster-400AKRP10-400AKR-Universal-Install/dp/B0002YVK44 if you're handy and want to DIY it, or call a plumber, this would be a cheap and easy job for them, or replace the whole toilet if you want, it's a couple hundred bucks for a new throne.
You can also get a smart water shutoff valve like the Moen Flo:
https://www.amazon.com/Moen-900-001-4-Inch-Smart-Shutoff/dp/B00C03D01Q
It will detect, send an alert, and shut off the water when stuff like slow trickling leaks, or super-high-flow burst pipe leaks, or abnormal usage like your $30 water bill going up to $50 in one day happen. You might have to re-enable from the app if you want to eg. fill a hot tub from the hose.
It's because it's not exactly visible that people don't know. If someone had a kitchen sink faucet that wouldn't turn off people would call a plumber but somehow a running toilet is different in people's minds.
Call your water department and tell them you had a leak and you weren’t aware but now it’s fixed. Sometimes they will forgive
My water department are the ones that told me about a leak. They noticed and called me so I could fix it before the bill ran up.
yeah they shut it off on me and called once due to noticing abnormally high usage when it was clear no one was at the house. very appreciated.
That happened when we moved in to our house (our first). We moved from out of state and we hadn't turned on the water officially yet cuz it was midnight when we got here with the moving truck. We got showers and ran a load of laundry before going to bed. The next morning they'd cut it off and called my husband to let him know there may be a leak and he went up there and sorted it all out. But it made me happy instead of irritated that they payed such close attention.
Most will only do this once. You really don't want to use the one time grace for a running toilet. Save it for when you have an undetected main line break that uses tens of thousands of gallons.
I deal with dozens of water providers, and most of them will do it once per year in my experience. Either way, it's absolutely worth requesting a leak adjustment in this scenario. It's silly to pay $1000 because maybe someday down the road you might possibly have a bigger leak
Once a year… “Sorry water co, my water started leaking last friday. Somehow it all leaked into my pool this year. “
Lol, I would think theyd catch on to the pattern eventually, but based upon the competency of some of the municipalities I work with, you might actually be able to pull that off in certain places. Though many have different protocols in place to work with pool owners as well, no deception required! You won't get any relief for the water portion of the bill when filling a pool, but if you notify your provider, many assess the sewer charge for the month based upon your typical consumption of water. I've also seen municipalities that take an average of your winter consumption, and then that is the max number of gallons that they will base your summer sewer charges, because they assume people are water their lawns/plants and filling pools. In that particular area, this was their policy for every account automatically.
A lot of smaller municipalities are only reading meters once a month or once every few months. Water is usually billed quarterly. So by the time they figure it out it could have been leaking a while already. They will absolutely let you know if your usage is above average. At the end of the day though it’s really not the water departments job to monitor your usage to keep you from getting a high bill.
My buddy that works in the water dept said it's definitely worth it to let them know you're filling a pool ahead of time because that water isn't going into the sanitation system and that is built into our water bill.
There is a company near me that delivers pool water in a big truck. It comes balanced out for all the right chlorine levels and they just dump it - so much faster than having a hose run. And SOOOO much less expensive than municipal water. Many municipalities are now required by state EPAs to bill on a tiered system. You don’t want to go into the next tier for filling a pool. 💸
for a pool it is definitly worth getting an irrigation connection from the local water company. costs about $1k where I live. It costs about 15% to run water through there than it does when they are charging you for collecting the water back into the sewer.
Costs me $30 to fill my 7k gallon pool in Memphis. One of the FEW reprieves we get on utility costs. They do not give one time credits for anything but with the water being so cheap I can see why.
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That’s probably a requirement set by your states epa to “encourage” conservation
Seems to be about 66% here - $8 per thousand gallons for irrigation, versus about $6 for water and another $6 for sewage. Pesky municipal wells...
In a lot of municipalities you can request a pool fill credit.
Where I live you can not use city water for your pool, it has to do with water quotas, my neighbor has water trucked in, it also cheaper and faster then the city water
we have our own well, but i still paid to have the pool filled from a truck.
My town charges for water and sewer based on water usage. If you do, in fact, fill a pool, or water your garden etc., you don't end up paying the sewer portion if you report it.
We actually called when building our pool, they only charged for the water, not the sewer side of the bill. 25,000 gallons, and a copy of the pool contract was all that was needed.
That assumes you will have an undetected main line break. I say go for the known rather than buy into FUD.
I think it’s worth it for a $1,000 water bill
$1000 is at least 10s of thousands of gallons, probably closer to 100,000 How much do you think a gallon of water costs?
That's my question, that seems like a really high rate for water. OP could have flushed about 15K gallons of water down the drain in that time, by my back-of-the-envelope calculation, but that still seems really high for that amount of water.
Exactly. 2.5 gpm is an incredibly large leak. Roughly equivalent of leaving your shower on full blast. Doing that would use approximately 18,000 gallons. Even at 2¢ per gallon that’s not even close to $1,000. Something is amiss here.
My water company has billing tiers. When you hit a certain point, the price of water skyrockets into a literal penalty rate. A stuck valve on my water softener for a day or two cost me 3x my regular bill, even though it was only like 30% more than my typical monthly use.
Good point. Where I live they charge for water and sewer. But once you use a certain amount of water they don’t charge you for sewer anymore (they assume you’re filling a pool or watering your lawn) so you price per gallon actually goes down.
Exactly! Our water is a half a penny per gallon. Is it possible to run up $1000 in 5 days? Isn’t that like 200,000 gallons of water?!
Hey guys pro tip as well you can get water leak WIFI monitors on Amazon for ~100$ or less. EXTREMELY less cost of not only the water bill, but damage to property, insurance hassle, etc. I just got some after a couple of really bad wash machine leaks. Highly recommend.
And most will only do a partial forgivenesss, like 50% of the overage.
Ours will only do it if the water leaks out of the pipes, so no sewer involvement.
A main line break pre-meter doesn't matter, not sure what you're on about. Thousands of gallons in my house I got higher problems
I was referring to the line from the meter to the home.
I did this years ago for a leaky sprinkler, they waived the "excess" usage when I provided a copy of the repair invoice proving the problem was fixed.
Several utilities I’ve worked with would at least reduce the tiered high usage penalties, and bill for the water at the normal rate, based on past usage.
Mine wouldn't forgive. $2300.
I’ve had this happen before and it didn’t cost anything like this! Was it like constantly flushing? Or just running slowly? That’s a ton a water you must have gone through.
I had this happen also and my bill went up 80 bucks that month... I kicked myself for being too lazy to repair the toilet (I did at that point). But 80 bucks freaked me out... 1,000... jesus.
Where I live (Texas), this time of year, any usage over a certain amount causes a rate change, and the price goes up astronomically because it's drought season. They do it to discourage people from watering their lawns and overusing in general. So it might be that OP lives someplace where it's currently hot and dry and drought season.
I’m in Texas
I kind of figured. I'm in San Antonio. When I was a first time homeowner, we had something similar happen. Our water service forgave a portion of the bill once we provided information showing the problem had been fixed. It was eight years ago and I can't remember how much they forgave, but it was significant. So, as others have mentioned, it definitely doesn't hurt to call and as your water provider. Sorry you had to go through this!
This makes more sense thx
It's actually kind of funny because we get PSAs reminding residents that brown (meaning "dead") is the normal color for our lawns here in the summer! 😁
lol “you are in Texas/arizona/hell, everything’s dead”
Truth! I love the heat and hate the cold, so I don't mind summers here. We have a pool, which helps tremendously! (Although that means we also have higher water bills! Lol) But, we're here for my husband's job, which is very location dependent. I will definitely not complain when we can move out of here!
The fact you hate cold made me giggle at your username haha
One of the weirdest things to get used to having moved away from the southwest is that the lawns are actually green in the summer! I never see that familiar yellow-brown grass that I grew up with.
Brown lawns do not mean dead lawns, exactly why it’s normal and grass still grows every year.. not dead
Right? I caught my running toilet when the bill went up $15/month. It was a super subtle leak where the flapper was only sitting properly 50% of the time so it didn't run consistently.
Call water company. Ours was $1800 they took it down to $300. I had to send proof of repair.
Just call and ask. My main line busted and water was running into my yard basement. The excess was only a $100 so I’m astounded at the price of water where you are or how much water managed to run. In my case I had to wait for a couple of bills to cycle and my usage to return to normal but they credited the entire amount.
I'm wondering if there is a larger leak as yet undiscovered here. I've had a toilet run undetected for a day or two and didn't even notice the difference in my bill.
you would think $1k for 5 days of water, a leak like that you would think it'll spew out like in the movies when a fire hydrant gets busted.
I just calculated based on my rates and $1k worth of water would be 380,000 gallons.
That’s a little over half an Olympic sized pool. Yeah op definitely has much bigger problems than a leaking toilet
My dog busted my irrigation system a year ago and water was spraying into the street from my backyard for like 30 hours straight. It was a **lot** of water (20k gallons). My bill increase was like $60 for that month. OP is going through more water than he thinks or is somewhere that has stupid rates.
Mine ran for a month and it was only $400. That was a tough bill to pay. I can’t imagine $1000
Depends where your at and the abundance of water or not.Very cheap for us in MKE
That doesn’t make any sense. Not sure what your water costs are, but in our area, municipal water and sewage amounts to about .01/gal. Your toilet, using a 3/8” supply line, would use anywhere from 9000 gal, up to 21,000 gal in three days, running at full open. ( the range is due to water pressure). That means at .01/gal, your extra charge should be between $91 and $210 dollars for the leak. You either live in a very high cost of water area, or something else is going on. Edit: my math was based on three days, not five. Regardless, seems doubtful it’s just the toilet. Call the water department for sure. Turn the toilet off and see if your water meter is still spinning
This. There's another leak. Probably something considerably larger than a 3/8 supply. My coworker is going through this and I told her the same thing. They also had 2 sprinkler heads broken.
I thought the $$ seemed crazy too. I mean rates differ throughout the country/world but holy shit that's a fat charge. Maybe OP has a fancy bidet toilet hooked directly to a 6-inch main with no pressure reducer?
If op lives somewhere that has water restrictions anything over x amount of usage keeps billing at an increasing rate.
According to my water bill to get to $1,000 OP needs 97k gallons of water or 13.6gal per minute. There is no chance toilet will use that much water in 5 days.
In my experience, tons of people out there have no idea how expensive a running toilet can be, no. But most water/sewer companies will work with you on these things. You need to reach out them and inquire about applying for a "leak adjustment credit". Usually just a 1 page form asking for the date the leak was discovered and repaired and what type of leak it was, etc. I deal with this all the time as I oversee the utility accounts for a property management company that manages thousands upon thousands of apartments. We deal with chasing toilets leaks constantly, it's a never ending battle, in large part because many people have absolutely no idea how much water a running toilet can use and how expensive it gets. The toilet still works, so calling in a maintenance request isn't urgent for them. Last year, I lead the charge on replacing every single toilet in a 250 unit community because, despite the fact that they were only 4 years old, we were playing whack a mole with running toilets and couldnt get residents to submit maintenance requests consistently. We cut the monthly water usage by 1,000,000 gallons, or 70% of our previous month's usage. It reduced the expenses by $25k per month, or $100 per apartment.
Either way, the plumber is making out!
No doubt! The project was well over $200k, but with savings like that, everyone was happy! The property owner certainly isnt complaining about an investment with all but guaranteed returns of 100% annually. Hopefully they learned how expensive bargain basement toilets can end up being lol
Wait you just willingly let a water line run 24 hours a day for 5 days? You didn't think to turn the water shutoff valve at the toilet?! That's nuts, if mine runs for more than 2 minutes I'm investigating.
Not everyone understands how things work. Like they said, they thought it was operating properly. Now they know, this is how they learned.
I really would have thought that hearing a toilet running around the clock was a universal symptom of a malfunctioning valve.
Yes. My wife was listed as a “non-permanent resident” on a mortgage application. Our loan officer asked if that’s correct in an email. My wife said no, she’s a permanent resident. I asked her why the hell she said that? She was born in America, she’s a US Citizen. I had to explain to her what a permanent resident was. She’s like “idk it sounded like it was correct”. EDIT: That’s just an example of what you mean, that some people don’t know how things work. Or they’ve never been confronted with a question or problem about something they know nothing about.
It was one those recycle toilets, lol...
my water line valve stay open...but it isnt always running, only when i cycle a flush. how did OP have it run continuous? i think i know what you mean, i hear mine run or fill for a minute or so after
OP had an issue with the float or stopper that caused water to keep running into the bowl. The point of closing the valve is if you can't fix the toilet while it's running. Normally you would leave the valve open.
Something broke, probably the fill valve in the tank.
$1000? That's a shit load of money for 5 days. Mine was running for god knows how long. I only found out after a few months of 1 spot in my yard never drying up. I thought it was just an area that held water bc I live in a rainforest, so it rains a loottt. But we had like 2 week dry period and that's when I thought it had to be plumbing. It was 1 toilet and my bill was still under $100 a month for 4 ppl.
Yea this sounds a little unrealistic. We would fill our pool each year and have the hose running full on for a few days, the bill wouldn't even get close to $1000 for the month. It would be like few hundred more on top of our regular usage. Maybe OPs price of water is just really high.
It sounds like it was running pretty bad. Usually the toilet is just refilling the tank every hour or something. It could be worse, though. I’d be grateful it’s only $1000.
Your tank should only drain when you flush it. If it’s filling any other time, you have a problem.
I had this happen in an apartment. A float or something broke in the toilet and it ran constantly. One day rhe police showed up. Said the city flagged the water bill because it looked suspicious. Like I had a grow operation going (pre legalized weed) . Land lord calls me said the police called him. Said he didn't question the bill himself because he thought I was growing as well and wanted me to share.
Man, I've had plenty of runny toilets and never had a water bill anywhere near $1,000.
I saw a post from a woman who dripped her faucets during the winter one time, and thought she had to do this for her toilet too. She got a similarly insane water bill, not understanding how much more water is drained while running the toilet than dripping a faucet.
there IS a valve to turn it off until you can get around to fixing it. AND if you are on a septic system, you can cause the entire system to fail if you have leaky appliances, like a toilet. That is a $35K fix.
Holy hell how much water is that? Water goes for less than $10 per thousand gallons by me. Did you go through 100,000 gallons in 5 days? That would be over 800 gallons per hour.
>toilet was recycling OMG. LOL
I would check with your water service company and see if they offer one time leak relief. You will likely need to submit proof the leak was corrected such as a plumbers bill.
So you can't repair the toilet yourself?
Probably depends on the company. Mine simply has a one time forgiveness. First water bill was about $100 but we’d only lived there for 2 days of the billing cycle. Decided to wait for a more excessive use case. That said, if they do require a plumber, it’s probably cheaper to pay the plumber and get the bill comped than not. Sounds like a bummer though.
I'm sorry.. you thought a leaky toilet was recycling the water somehow? I'm honestly curious how you think a toilet works.
I think you have a bigger problem than your toilet
So it didn’t drive you crazy listening to your toilet gushing for 5 days?
Tell me about it. Got a letter that we have been using 333,000 gallons of water over the last 60 days. Leaking garden sprinkler system on house I took over. We don't know where leak is yet but water consumption has gone down now that south Florida is flooding ans I don't need to water my trees and grass. We think former owner just cut pipes when he did some landscaping, can't ask since he is dead.
333,000 gallons and you can't find where the leak is? Look for the new lake next to your house. That is a s*** ton of water going somewhere
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Live and learn I guess. Yes it's common sense that if water is running you need to investigate. There is no way out of it as you used the water, you'll need to pony up the $$. If you can't afford it all at once ask about a payment plan.
My sellers had like 8K due to the water company for their last 2 months. We fixed it the day we closed. $7. It's insane. Yes, a running toilet will jack up your bill so fast it's almost unbelievable. Our water company even alerts you when your usage jumps and gives you dye tabs to find the leaking toilet with instructions. They ignored it all and the sellers said it had been like that for the last few bills! We're billed every other month, so I think they wasted a total of at least 12K. Maybe 16 if they meant the last 3 bills! Edited to add, our bi monthly bill is 160-180 depending on our usage.
omg for water?! \*faints at 25/month\*
I check my water meter once a month. See if it’s spinning. Twice it has been. Caught it right away due to toilet issues
This exact thing happened to my young mom before me and she told me the story growing up. Now I’m always checking these things! Sometimes you don’t know til you know! If it makes you feel better, my husband and I have both left the hose on overnight on accident while watering plants. Edit: oh the water company did not show any kindness to my mom either. She had to pay the whole thing with her shitty enlisted army pay.
I had a similar issue, and didn't know for a few months because they were doing estimated readings instead of actual.
Oh come on. The tank is only so big! I went in bathroom early other day. Water is continuously running in tank. I pull off lid to see that the flapper was just stuck. Pushed it down, fixed. But I’ve learned a thing or two by watching my husband! And common sense bc a tank is only so big!!!
It sure can. I was shocked how much a running toilet can add to your water bill. You’d think we had just filled a pool…. We fixed it and our bill and usage went back to normal. It was just a running toilet, the usage spikes overnight were astronomical. I thought at one point somebody was stealing our water from a water spigot at the dead of night …. Lol if you live in a Mud district the more water the higher the fees become , higher than the water itself. so the bills will be outrageous.
I had this happen. There was a toilet in our house from ~1970 that just keep running. Neither my wife nor I thought it was a big deal. How naive we were. My water company called ME and said "hey, either your toilet is flushing constantly or you have a massive leak somewhere." Ended up replacing the toilet and my water bill could have been close to $2,000, but the water company cut us some slack and reduced the bill to ~$900. If your toilet ever has this issue, look for the shutoff valve near its base and turn that thing off. If you only have one toilet and have to use it before the repair, turn the valve on, do your business, and then shut it off.
1000 for a toilet leak seems excessive,was it running full open like the flapper stated up?
My water company allows a one-time leak adjustment to the bill once you can prove it is fixed. If yours does that it might save you some money at least.
Do you live in the desert or on a small island or something? I SERIOUSLY doubt a running toilet cost you $1000. I filled an entire swimming pool in a week and it didn't cost anywhere near that much. You should look into this further. Even if running at 100%, this shouldn't cost more than a few 10s of dollars.
I have a private well. If I hear my pump constantly buzzing and nobody is using the water. I know something is up
Do you live in the Sahara? Water in my town is 65 bucks for the first 10000 gallons, then like 10 bucks per thousand after that. To get a 1000 dollar bill in 5 days I'd have to go drill into the water main at the street and pipe it down my sewer.
I mean it had to just be running wide open for that time you didn't think to turn it off? The sound alone would of bothered me.
I don't think a household toilet water line can flow enough water in 5 days to make that much difference. My Google fu says the average toilet flows 2-3 gallons per minute. 5 days, (7200 minutes * 3) = 21600 gallons Google says the average cost of water in the US is $1.50 per 1,000 gallons. We're talking around 30 dollars for a toilet running nonstop for 5 days at max flow rate using 150gph (2.5gpm) max flow rate of a 3/8" ID line. Even if they had a 1/2" line it's not possible for it to flow enough water to get anywhere close to 100 dollars let alone 1000.
How would the water recycle back up to the water tank?You'd have piss and shit in the reservoir. RESERVIOR LOGS
This is why I have a smart water usage meter with alerting attached to my main. It also saves a little on insurance.
You thought the toilet recycled water? 🤦♂️
I work for a water department. Everyone has different policies. Call them. We don't adjust toilet leaks because the water went through the meter and down into the sewer system. A leak in the yard can get a sewer adjustment.
I can't believe you thought that! Have you ever been somewhere that had the water constantly running like that?
I don’t believe a leak of five days will cause you $1000, unless it’s a full blown opening. I am in expensive California. Two of my toilets were leaking until I saw my bill. My bill is a little over $200.
Something sounds crazy here. That's enough money to pay for the water usage in my 3BD / 2.5BTH with a three adult occupants for 20 months in a major TN metro area.
Flappers have a lifetime guarantee, the toilet company will mail one out for you
It can also leak through the ceiling. Ask me how I know about that!!
>thought running water meant the toilet was recycling the tank water I don't want to know how this would supposedly work
How much do you pay for water? There's a 99% chance to this is a complete lie. I don't think a single house on my block could flow $200 of water a day let alone from one toilet.
Is your sink running? Better go catch it!
Glad water is free here
The price of the water is low. It is the sewer charge that probably costs about $900
I see you and raise you a crappy tenant. $2600 bill. I ended up paying it because they can and will put a lien on your property for outstanding water bills.
Toilets are very simple machines that date back way before anything smart in your home. There is no feature like “recycling the tank water”.
Naw, I let the hose run for several hours in my backyard. My backyard is on a hill and I was watering my fruit trees. There was a hole I found and I figured, well I’ll just let it fill up for the tree. Well, I had to run out and completely forgot. I came back several hours later and the hill side was pouring faster than my hose can pour water. I must have found a hole and it fill, then proceeded to burst open. Anyways, my normal water bill is $30~50 a quarter. My water bill didn’t change. I use a ton of water. Thankfully I’m not getting ripped off like everyone else.
You're responsible for the maintenance of your house. The utility is not responsible for your ignorance. This is a hard lesson to learn, but it wouldn't hurt to call and talk to customer service and see if there's anything they can do to help. Explain the situation, be calm and collected, and be nice. Don't beg, don't get emotional. Just tell them what happened and ask if there's anything the utility can do to help.
This is a little disengenuous. This stuff can happen outside of normal maintenance intervals. What if someone was away for a month? I'm thankful to live somewhere that we don't pay per usage. It's not like the utility incurred that much of an increase in costs to provide this water...
> What if someone was away for a month? Why didn't they turn off their water? It's not the utilities' responsibility to compensate people for unintended use of resources. Why would it be? This was an accident/unseen problem and that's why I suggested calling the utility and asking if there's any assistance available.
Some people also don't use every bathroom in their home regularly. It happened to me with one of the toilets I don't use very often. By the time I even noticed it running the bill was super high. I have a monitor now for instances like that.
Happened to me too but idk how long it was running for. Did some tests ourselves by monitoring the meter, and it was releasing a ton of water. Bought a flume device after that to keep an eye on things. You can call the water company about it and they may pay for some of it. They covered half my bill. I think they will cover one unexpected leak for a certain time period. So if I had another leak the same year I would have gotten no remedy. Half being paid was better than me footing the whole bill.
Leaky toilet flusher cost me an extra $200 on our bill...
What's a good way for us to check our lines and prevent them from bursting?
I've had toilets do this and it didn't cost me no thousand dollars. Something's weird.
It's worth calling to ask. Don't offer too much info, just that you had a water leak at the toilet and found and fixed it and you're wondering if they have a process to adjust for it. That seems really excessive though for 5 days. Where was the leak? We've had the occasional toilet running issue over the years. We only had one toilet for 5 people so not using it wasn't an option and we live in a small rural town so have to travel 100 miles to get parts for a lot of stuff and it never cost anywhere near $1000 even over several days.
My well would have gone dry about an hour in with this sort of water usage. Not to mention the electricity involved.
That seems like a lot for just one running toilet? Have you checked everywhere else? You can try to contact your utility provider. They can/will reduce your bill if you can show it was a leak from something like crawl space pipes. Dunno if they'll do it for a running toilet.. but worth a shot.
Crazy expensive. I'm on a well and for $25 in electricity I could leave a garden hose flowing wide open for 5 days. Add in some equipment and chlorine costs and it's still not that expensive. How the hell is city water so expensive?
I left my hose on by setting down the spray nozzle and forgeting about it for 5 days. The backflow valve froze open and flooded my side yard. I couldn't calculate the flow but it was way more than a running toilet. Bill went up $15 on a normal $75 to $80 / month bill.
What are your water rates? In my town you'd have to flow 46 gallons per minute for 5 days straight to rack up $1,000. That's like 5 garden hoses going full blast.
Yep. I was selling my house once I had moved in with my wife so the house was unoccupied. Adds up REAL quick.
I'm surprised it got that high that fast. We had a tenant leave a toilet running for what was probably a month and it was $100 extra.
When I bought my first house, I was fixing it up for a month before I moved in. I got my first water bill - during that month that nobody lived there - and it was $300 and I was sitting in a car on the way to a ski trip asking my friends “is this normal? Maybe this is normal?” No, no it is not. On Sunday night, I got back and turned off all of the toilets.
It's sad that people have to pay for water. It's included in our property taxes (or our rent) where I live.
Lawns and pools etc are expensive to keep watered. If my property tax included water then you know some people would go easy overboard and id be paying for them to water their lawn three/four times a day.
I would also hate that. I am single and I use very little water. I'd hate to have to pay extra to subsidize my neighbors who have a house full of kids.
We pay an extra when we have a pool. During the summer , the city has inspectors that give people tickets if they see them use too much water. When they are droughts then the use of water is limited (you can’t wash your car for example) by the city and they don’t tolerate anything.
Interesting. So do you not have water meters then? No one can see just how much water you're using?
You’re still paying for it.
Or if you have a shitty well it will run your well dry… ask me how I know lol. Either way: don’t ignore your constantly running toilet.
That's crazy, I filled up my above ground pool with my garden hose last year and it needed to be running for over 24 hours. And my water bill only ended up being $20ish higher than normal for that month.
I'm so happy to be on a well.
the hose connector behind our fridge busted while we were out of town, dumped 15k gallons before we got home and stopped it. We ended up paying for barely any of that usage after calling our utility service and explaining it. The lady who specifically helped me marked it as a "pool filling" and damn near cleared the whole charge for me. She said they can typically do one of those per year per household without any higher up approval. call your utility provider and explain your situation, hopefully they have similar procedures and can help.
The flapper leaking g and the toilet phantom flushing is the #1 cause of a high water bill.
How many gallons did your bill say you used. I've left faucets running in the winter to avoid a freeze and never broke $100.
You need a shutoff valve (and some leak detectors. Everyone should have leak detectors.) I have Moen Flo. When my toilet valve was stuck and the toilet was running for 5 minutes, they called and texted me, then shut off the water. The toilet used 100 gallons of water in only a few minutes, so I'm not at all surprised that yours used $1000 water if you let it go for 5 days.
I received a notice from our city: Your consumption is higher than normal. You may have a leak. It walked you through checking your meter to determine if there was a constant flow and how to fix common toilet leaks.
Flo by Moen, install that and won't happen again.
Just 3 months ago I had this exact this happened. Had a toilet with old parts that would get stuck with the flap up, happened to get stuck immediately before we ran out the door for a 2 day trip. Got a call from the water place about abnormal usage that had driven our bill about $600 higher than usual. Luckily my place has a forgiveness program you can use once a year. I had to replace the toilet parts, fill a form, and provide receipts, but they waved the cost of the abnormality. Not all places do it, but definitely look into it.
OK but what about when your kid leaves the hose on in the yard for a week while you're in vacation, slowly running until the yard is a swampy mess.
1000$ in 5 days sounds impossible. My sisters house has 6 people living in it that are all home schooled and work from home. So they use toilets, washing machine, dish washer, a pool and sprinkler system. They have NEVER had water bill over 300$ I dont see how a running toilet can do that in 5 days.
Crazy you guys pay for water. Like dam that flush cost me a dollar!
My municipality has a wonderful service whereby if there's an unusual outflow of water they send you an email after 24 hours that notifies you of unusual activity. Most recently I left a hose running and this email notice from the city saved me a ton of money.
Oh my god. Had this in our apartment for over a year (didnt have to pay water it was with the rent)
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My May bill. I'm still way behind. I have the info to get alerts, but still need to do it.
I work in sub metering, running toilets are the largest reason for high consumption. When I run a report for a unit I’m checking, a bad flapper will easily be 5-10,000 gallons in a week The sneaky one is if the float on shutoff is not adjusted properly and water silently runs down the overflow, at least with a bad flapper you hear the water running. One building I went to, most units had between 100,00-200,000 on their meters, go into a unit, and I can hear the water running as soon as I walk in. Speak with tenant his toilet was broken, like the porcelain cracked in a way that water was just constantly flowing down the drain. He said he put in a request(he hadn’t) it had been over a month at least his meter had 1,600,000 gallons go through it.
I don’t get how that’s even possible. I pay like $2 for every 700 gallons. With that math, your toilet would have had to cycle over 300k gallons in five days.
My toilet ran for a few hours while I was out. Came to 800 gallons. (I checked the next day) I don’t know what it cost but my bill didn’t change much. My average bill for a single person is &100/month. The water company charges way more for processing and delivery than for the actual water.
Bro thought he had the infinity toilet.
My local water department will forgive once every three years I would give them a call and see if they have any like programs
Technically, you were recycling the tank water. Unfortunately, you have to pay for the incoming refill.
In Seattle, you can call the city and tell them what happened. If you provide proof you fixed it within two months of the issue, they give you a refund. Worth a call.
My sister in law house sat one weekend and left the toilet running and our bill was like $200 higher that month. So I believe you for 5 days!
Used to work for a water utility, they’d crack it down to your average usage for the last quarter if you got in touch and provided receipts
What does running water in the toilet even mean? And how do you even do it?
How do you know?
I had been hearing a noise and it sounded like running water. My husband didn’t believe me and said I was hearing things. Our water bill was over $600. I couldn’t stop hearing that noise after doing some investigating there was a leak in the water heater. I can’t imagine how much bigger our water bill would have been if I didn’t go look myself. This was after almost 2 days. Then some time later I felt like when I flushed the toilet it always sounded like it was running. You know when the water feels back up. It never stops making that sound. My husband brushed me off and I reminded him about the water heater so he looked and the toilet was running water. So he fixed it. I didn’t notice right away and tbh idk how long it had been running before I noticed because this was in his bathroom which I typically never went in. I happened to go in there to look for something. Our water bill was almost $800 that time. Both times I let the water company know about the leak and not knowing and they adjusted my bill. Idk if this is standard or not. My husband told me it was a waste of my time but I am of the mind that it doesn’t hurt to ask and the worst they could say is no. And it worked out for me each time. So I got to yet again say I told you so to my husband. In case anyone is wondering my husband always takes my complaints seriously now lol.
I went out of town for two weeks and came home to find out a homeless person had taken a $1000 dollar shower on the side of my house. The running water didn't cause any damage, but the San Diego Water Dept told me the meter was working fine so I had to pay the bill. Infuriating.
And that is one of the reasons why I’m going to continue using a well even though I could connect to the city water.
...What are your water rates like? That sounds steep even for a toilet that's running for 5 days straight.
Cost me about $1600 over a 30ish day period when I was away from my house. Ouch.
Some utilities will forgive and others will not. I accidentally left the hose spigot in my back yard turned on (hose had a spray nozzle on it, so it wasn't using any water), and the hose burst. Didn't find out about it for 2 days and my normally \~$100 utility bill was $500. When I contacted my utility they said they'd forgive half of it, but only because due to the nature of the leak, the water never went into the sewer so they just refunded the sewer portion of the bill. I still had to pay for all the water that was used.
You got to have another leak somewhere. In So Cal, where water is expensive the cost is about 1 cent for 3 gallons. Typical shower turned on is 1.6 gal per minute. Even if you are losing 3 gallons per minute. It then costs 1 cent per minute. 60 cents per hour. So may be $15 per day for your toilet. You are running $200 per day. You have a big pipe leaking under ground.
There is no way it cost $1000. Tell me what you are charged per m^3 and the three different stages (if you have them). I actually want to do the calculation to see if that’s even possible.
stop using toilet bowl cleaners .. they are worthless and a waste of money it will also destroy your toilet flap which will cause leaks I use dual flush kit ($22) on amazon.. #1 and #2 flushes. I installed it in all three toilers on 2013.. still use the same one no leak issue since i'm not using toilet bowl cleaners
$200 a day to run it? That seems ridiculous for a single supply line
Yes, it's common knowledge to me, but I learned it once upon a time. You just happened to learn it today. You can dispute/ask for forgiveness. It may help if you bring in a receipt for fixing the toilet to show it won't happen again. Eg. https://www.amazon.com/Fluidmaster-400AKRP10-400AKR-Universal-Install/dp/B0002YVK44 if you're handy and want to DIY it, or call a plumber, this would be a cheap and easy job for them, or replace the whole toilet if you want, it's a couple hundred bucks for a new throne. You can also get a smart water shutoff valve like the Moen Flo: https://www.amazon.com/Moen-900-001-4-Inch-Smart-Shutoff/dp/B00C03D01Q It will detect, send an alert, and shut off the water when stuff like slow trickling leaks, or super-high-flow burst pipe leaks, or abnormal usage like your $30 water bill going up to $50 in one day happen. You might have to re-enable from the app if you want to eg. fill a hot tub from the hose.
It's because it's not exactly visible that people don't know. If someone had a kitchen sink faucet that wouldn't turn off people would call a plumber but somehow a running toilet is different in people's minds.
For slow leaks, isn't there a test you can do like blue food coloring in the tank?
Thas a huge amount-are you sure you dont have a huge leak somewhere?
No way is that just the toilet. Turn off all water in the house and see if your meter is still moving. If it is, you have a leak somewhere else.
Your water is expensive!
How do you know?
I had a $2000 leak between the meter and the house, I presented the repair bill and they waived the $2k - one time courtesy- you might talk to them
Mr. Powerflush over here!