Neptune R900i water meter- can it fail by speeding up?

I am a homeowner with no knowledge of these things but I'll tell you what I do know. We got a sewer service bill that was 4 times higher than unusual for March-April. I called and asked "What the heck?" The lady said "It's even worse for the next month--24,000 gallons." (Feb-March was 2200 for comparison.) She figured we must have a leak in our sprinkler system.

Long story short: plumber and handyman friend spent 3 hours 2 days ago searching for a leak. The really bad thing is that our water meter is on the far side of our wide cement driveway, so when they couldn't find anything they figured it must be under the driveway--deep--but they admitted it's odd that there's nothing to show for it. No water coming up in any of the cracks in the driveway. And the grass was all dry alongside the driveway too.

They came up with a plan to re-route the pipes which made me sick at the thought of how much this would cost. BUT THEN...when they were showing me how to turn off the water at the meter just to try to save a little water at night, the meter stopped running at the fast clip it had been running at. This took them by surprise and they did all kinds of tests turning on and off the water. The meter definitely had slowed down. Their conclusion was that we had a defective meter.

NOW we try to tell this to the local utilities company but the lady we have to deal with insists that we have a leak that started back in April (AND THEY NEVER TOLD US!!!) and you can see it on the chart she emailed us. And, she insists, there is no possible way for a meter to be defective by speeding up. We have pleaded with her to just change the meter and see if that makes a difference before we have to tear up the yard and driveway. Nope, it wouldn't make any difference.

But our plumber took a look at that chart and he says it shows a drop of about 1/3 on the day they were out and the meter slowed down (she sent the chart the day after so there are no other readings after that). He said, "We didn't have the water off long enough to make that much of a difference."

He doesn't want me to call and argue with her again until they can get out here and switch out the meter themselves to see if it makes a difference. But in the meantime, he wanted me to see if I could find any complaints/instances online of failure of this type of meter. I haven't--but I HAVE found that people have tons of complaints about the radiation it emits and many have tried to opt out of having this kind of meter. Wonder if we can use that as an excuse to get a new one?

Sorry to go on so long, but this is really stressing us out. Finances are tight as it is without having to think of a major plumbing job.

 

I won't state that it is utterly impossible for a water meter to read a higher than true throughput but it would be an extremely rare occurrence. You did state that when your plumber first looked at the meter it was running at a fast clip and then stopped. This tells me that somewhere downstream of the meter there is something that is using water and coincidentally while the plumber was there this unknown usage stopped, maybe for good and maybe just for a period of time.

As for what is using all that water, I don't know. Do you have any pools or fountains that have automatic "make-up" to keep the level constant? Do you have a water softener that has a hard-piped backwash system? Any floor drains that have trap primers?

As for the "radiation" emitted by the remotely read meter...the same people that are complaining about the radiation are the same people that complain about mind probes by alien beings. There is NO danger from any radiation.

 

For that last point--about the radiation--I did notice that all the posts/articles seemed to date from 2012. Nothing more recent than that.

No, we have no pools or fountains or water softener. No floor drains and have no idea what a trap primer is.

The plumber and our handyman friend looked all over the place, including our neighbors' yards and found nothing to give a clue where this water could be going.

...I just got a call from the head of our subdivision's HOA. Told me how a neighbor of ours who lives behind and above our house on a hill, had pretty much the same thing. High water meter readings, but no source of a leak found anywhere. They went ahead and had all the plumbing re-routed through their attic instead of under their slab.

HOA director is going to send an email to all to see if anyone else has had meter problems.

 

A trap primer is a device that either continuously or periodically adds water to the trap of a floor drain. The continuous models have an adjustment that should run only a very small stream and the periodic models let a squirt through when they sense a sudden drop on the supply side, often from flushing a toilet. Continuous models far more common in commercial and industrial installations and the adjustment is often set to allow far more flow than necessary.

Slab, or under-slab leaks are NOT uncommon. Although the Copper Institute flatly denies it, the TRUTH is that copper piping in contact with concrete WILL deteriorate and cause leaks. What IS uncommon is that your leak seems to have lessened. There are companies that use specialized listening devices as well as infrared cameras to locate leaks in or under concrete slabs. Locating and then fixing the leak most likely would be less expensive than running new piping through the attic space but there is no guarantee that another leak in/under the slab won't occur in the future, even in a few days.

 

Yeah, the plumber and our handyman friend are shaking their heads at why they ran the line under our driveway. What they did in this subdivision was double up the meters so that ours is next to our neighbor's meter to the left of our house. HIS is on the same side as his garage whereas ours runs under the driveway and into the garage. So we're on the unlucky side, you might say. But still, I think the rest of our plumbing into the house is under the slab too.

Personally, as soon as this issue is resolved one way or another, I want to move. Apartment living is looking good to me right now.

 

My sister's house is like that. She had received notice from her water utility of increased consumption and as I recall her bill almost doubled. In her case though it was a toilet (cheap builder's model) that was continuing to fill long after flushing and wasting the water. Since I had promised her two new toilets when she bought the place and only one had been installed just before she moved in I went ahead and had a trusted plumbing company install the second toilet.

I could have done the install but my physical limitations of old age would not have allowed me to schlep the new toilet up the stairs and the old one down plus getting rid of the old toilet. I gladly paid the additional fee for that service.

 

By the way, the solution they had--before they decided it was a faulty meter--was to re-route the line up along the side of the driveway, across the front of our house where we have non-cemented areas in front of the windows for shrubs. There's a cemented area at the front door and that's the only area they'd go under, then they'd go through the brick wall into the garage and have the rest of the pipes exposed up overhead. They asked if I would want them hidden, but I'm for saving any money on this I can. Pipes showing in a garage don't bother me. I just guess we'd want to insulate them in the winter (although we're in Birmingham, so it doesn't get THAT cold).

 

You mentioned running pipes thru the attic. They'd have to be well insulated there too.

I have to agree with Furd. The chances of a water meter speeding up are slim to none. The paddle that sits in the water flow can't move faster than the water is.

 

Got stood up by the plumber for 2 days, but here's where we are now: with the help of a physicist neighbor we ran all kinds of experiments testing whether the leak was in the house or outside. Conclusion: leak outside or faulty meter.

Plumber came today and switched out our meter for one of his own and it was still clicking away at a fast pace, so it does appear there's a leak under our driveway. House is only 12 years old and they say this shouldn't have happened so soon.

So we're going to have to re-route line one way or another.

Here's a question for you: when I saw the plumber earlier this week he mentioned pipes being made of some new plastic material that's supposed to be much better than copper. Any idea what he's talking about and if he's right?

 

Buried water service piping is often done with polyethylene (PE) piping rather than type K (heavy wall flexible) copper because of the significantly lower cost. Above ground, yet where sunlight won't hit it, PEX (cross-linked polyethylene) is now the material of choice. I have heard of PEX being used in underground installations but I don't know of any long term studies of this usage.

The primary advantage of PEX is that it comes in continuous rolls and that lessens the number of joints. The joints themselves are made up in one of two methods, both having withstood the test of time. PEX is slightly flexible and can withstand a light freeze with no damage. The only possible problem I can think of is if your LOCAL plumbing code does not allow it.

 

It's likely that the pipe didn't fail on it's own in that short timeframe, but a poor connection or even a misplaced rock can cause problems.

PE is a good choice for underground usage. PEX is rated for underground use, but as far as I know, it's rarely used for the service main.

 

(Going to post this separately to get more opinions)

We were away all this past week on vacation and just got home to get the estimate from the plumber. Instead of his original idea of running along the side of the driveway and then across the front of the house, into the garage and having exposed pipes all the way across to the water heater, he said a neater idea--and better for resale of the house--would be to bore under the driveway (ours is 22 feet wide and usually 15 is the max but he says they'll manage)--hook up to our sprinkler system, run across the outside of the garage, turn 90 degrees along the side of the house and go into the wall where our water heater is.

I know you're supposed to get other estimates but we're actually kind of relieved about $4000 since we were imagining much more than that.

This guy doesn't have a website or anything with testimonials, but we know his last job was a very popular hamburger place nearby. He was recommended by our handyman/friend and another friend who says he does good work but his prices used to be very high.

One thing in his favor so far: he isn't charging us for any of the several trips he's made out here already, assessing the situation.

I guess you could say it's laziness, eagerness to get this thing done with, and a certain feeling of obligation to him already that makes us just feel like telling him "Go for it."