Christchurch high user water charges 1 July 2022

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rugrat

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#295714 17-Apr-2022 18:11

https://ccc.govt.nz/services/water-and-drainage/water-supply/water-reporter

If in Christchurch can put address in above and it will give the water usage from last couple of readings.

My last one is over 700 litres a day, guess I must have a big leak some where don’t know about???

3 showers a week, and two loads of washing max.

Leak in top of toilet 44 drips a minute, have tried bending floater but no joy.

https://water.usgs.gov/edu/activity-drip.html

If I put in one home, 1 leaky tap, and 60 drips a minute that gives up to 21.6 litres a day, now where is the other 680 litres going?

Have taken photo of meter, and will take another tomorrow. It’s possible they have neighbours and my meters mixed up, as a few years ago got note in letter box about dirty nappies in recycling, I don’t have kids and it was my neighbours bin that wasn’t collected.

Will also check outside taps tomorrow.

If I’m using water not aware of guess good thing, but I do think it’s possible they get numbers wrong to.

Edit: The water usage site only tells you how much water, it doesn’t give the actual readings so can’t match numbers up on meter that way.

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#2903248 17-Apr-2022 18:17

I tested a few addresses and they had high water usage with the comment 'Are you using water like you oughta?'

Considering all of NZs privacy stuff, I am a bit surprised that anyone can see what peoples water usage and charges are. I guess it could be used as a way to find out if a house is a ghost home or not.

rugrat

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#2903250 17-Apr-2022 18:24

Yeah, I was surprised about that to. My neighbours are only using a fraction of the water I’m using and they have a lot more people in the home, so I have leaks not aware of or something is wrong.

mattwnz

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#2903251 17-Apr-2022 18:28

rugrat:

Yeah, I was surprised about that to. My neighbours are only using a fraction of the water I’m using and they have a lot more people in the home, so I’ve have leaks not aware of or something is wrong.

A leak is very possible. My parents moved into a new home and noticed that the meters indicator was spinning very slowly when all water was off, and they noticed a puddle in an inspection point hole in the garden. The plumber denied it was leaking. Eventually my parents discovered the leak by digging up part of the path, and the leak was in a joint when a plastic joiner hadn't been seated correctly and was dripping quite quickly. So leaks are not uncommon even occurring in new builds.

rugrat

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#2903257 17-Apr-2022 19:11

Properties with shared meters are exempt. Typed in an old address where there was 1 meter for all the houses.

No reading with message “

This property shares a water meter with at least one other property, so we can’t calculate its water usage.

The Excess Water Supply Targeted Rate doesn’t apply to properties with shared meters.”

so not everyone has to worry about water usage

Not using much water tonight, so will take photo tomorrow to see if over 200 litres in 12 or more hours.

spmiller

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#2903259 17-Apr-2022 19:26

They have mine mixed up with my neighbours' -- I emailed them a photo of my meter and my neighbours', and they confirmed they were round the wrong way. They haven't changed my entry on the water reporter yet though, but perhaps it's a separate database.

They can also email you the readings that were taken if you'd like to confirm them.

rugrat

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#2903262 17-Apr-2022 19:43

Thanks Spmiller. I’m hoping the case for me.
The bill is around $5 a quarter, so not sure if worth getting plumber out to save $15 a year, unless gets worse of course.

I’ll see what reading I get tomorrow, should hopefully get an idea if mix up from that.

I noticed a lot of properties the last water reading a lot higher then one before, I haven’t done lots of garden watering.

I can’t see any wet patch’s when ground dry, but will look for that in drier weather. Had leak under driveway at old address and concrete was always wet, was how that one was picked up on.

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msukiwi

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#2903263 17-Apr-2022 19:51

My neighbours save water by urinating regularly on the berm!

rugrat

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#2903488 18-Apr-2022 14:26

Ok, it went up by 300 units in over 20 hours.

Did a half hour test with no water being used and it did 16 litres in half hour.

Question: It had 4 red digits, is the last digit litres or 10th of a litre. ? I am treating last digit as a full litre for above numbers.
Overseas examples only show 3 red digits, and I can’t find anything on councils web site on how to read.

There was a geekzone post in 2012, but link in there no longer works, think it was a water care one.

The only info I can find is on the white numbers, cubic meters, but they would turn to slow for my purposes.

Edit: Actually there is a 1000 litres in a cubic meter, that means three digits is 999 litres which would make the last digit a 10th of a litre, so is the council over stating everyone’s water usage by 10 times that has 4 red numbers.

k1w1k1d

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#2903507 18-Apr-2022 16:03

Litre meters

Most water meters record water flow in litres. (Note: 1 cubic metre = 1000 litres)

This particular water meter would read 36,721,539.8L.

rugrat

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#2903509 18-Apr-2022 16:09

Cheers just wanted to know what last digit was of a 4 red one. That confirms last digit is 1/10.

So in the 20 hour reading I did used 30 litres, so no way I’m doing over 700 a day.

I’ll ring council tomorrow as believe there is a meter mix up.

I also turned water off to confirm I was reading right meter, and the water stopped flowing from my taps, so know have right one.

rugrat

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#2903751 19-Apr-2022 11:47

Council said they’ll send someone around. Hopefully they do it while I’m home, though if not they can use an outside tap to make sure they have right meter.

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Bung

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#2903807 19-Apr-2022 13:33

Does your invoice include the meter serial number?

Oblivian

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#2903825 19-Apr-2022 14:03

Bung: Does your invoice include the meter serial number?

There isn't any yet.

Grace period with the tools up to gauge any issues or if you are about to be stung come july.

tdgeek

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#3050724 16-Mar-2023 10:08

A bit of pushback here in the media

https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/131482567/definitely-not-residents-refuse-to-pay--stupid-excess-water-charge-in-christchurch

My opinion, and yes I'm ChCh based:

We have no lack of water issues, we can have reduce water pressure when too many use water in high Summer so we have had alternate day restrictions.

Water rates here are just a revenue exercise

Shared meters while a valid issue is a very small number

So gardeners and those that like a nice lawn are penalised. I expect vege gardening is on the rise these days due to inflation/storm affected vege prices

If the excuse is a need to add more water revenue for water works, well, all of us use water, so add a water levy on everyone

Silvrav

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#3050727 16-Mar-2023 10:50

We live out on the banks of the peninsula

we have a septic tank that's a pain sometimes

we have spring water feed with a feed tank behind our house on stilts

we have low water pressure inside the house

have to replace 3 filters every 6 months

there is a water and sewer connection right outside our property convenient installed for us by council

and I am still thankful the previous owners didn't connect the house and we will keep it this way - I hate dealing with council and the less I have to the better....even looking at now going solar and bin free.... anyone know how I can get them remove rates from my property 🤣

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