[newyork59]

3 months ago I received a $525 water bill. I called the city water dept. They told me to look at my meter watch if dial was spinning indicating a leak. It did not. Next bill was $85 (normal billing). My recent bill is $487. I have checked my everything in my house. I do not have a pool. What can I do?

[Fr_Chuck]

Turn everything in house off,
See if meter is turning.

Of course I would be at the water department and demand a new meter and refuse to pay bill until meter was changed

If you have craw space or basement, you follow all pipes looking for leaks, Check toilets to see if any are sticking so water runs.

With all water turned off, listen to pipes to see if you hear water running.

[hkstroud]

Check for leaking your toilets. What you described sounds like you have an intermittent problem with a toilet.

[massplumber2008]

Hi NewYork59

As Hkstroud said, check for leaks at your toilet... first place to check! To do this, take some dark food coloring and drip about 20 drops into the toilet TANK (only) and mix the color around without allowing any water to drip into the overflow tube and without disturbing the flapper. Allow the toilet to sit unused for an hour or two and then check back to see if any colored water shows up in the toilet BOWL. If colored water shows in the bowl then you have probably found the issue and the flapper (at a minimum) will need to be replaced.

If that fails, then as Fr_Chuck suggested, do not use any water in the building and note EXACTLY where the pointer on the red leak detector at the meter is located. Here, the leak detector would not SPIN, but it would move slightly over a period of fifteen minutes or so if a constant leak was present. Remember that most water meters read in terms of CUBIC FEET of water... not gallons! Take your time here and watch/mark the pointer on the spinner and see if it moves even the slightest over a 20 minute period.

Start there and report back on results, OK?

Mark