Stop Paying for Air: How to Detect Leaky Pipes

By JANEK SZYMANOWSKI

Air Gives False Readings

Main picture above: Burst water pipe in Gauteng. Picture courtesy Pretoria East Record

Every time a water pipe bursts, there’s a good chance that the municipality will rake in thousands of rands from false water meter readings. This is because air passing through consumers’ water meters and water pipes gives false readings that are charged automatically on all water bills.

So if you suddenly have a higher-than-usual water account, this could be the explanation.

If you have a pre-paid meter you are even more at risk. And if you are not the owner of the property, if your landlord refuses to ask the municipality to investigate, chances are you will simply have to pay up!

Investigation by sans10400.org.za

After a personal experience (see below) and numerous queries to www.sans10400.org.za about what appeared to be inflated water accounts, we decided to investigate. Scouring through social media and reading many posts and questions on various group websites, it soon became clear that the issue of inflated water bills is commonplace countrywide. At times costs seem to run into thousands of rands over the normal monthly average charge people are used to paying.

By chance, I mentioned the problem to a former management employee from the Benoni Municipality, who said that with a large number of mains supply water pipes breaking and leaking in the area that had to be repaired, they had had numerous queries about extremely high water bills in the Benoni area. On investigation, he discovered that the air passing through the water pipes created these very high meter readings.

Some years later, having moved to the Helderberg, he experienced exactly the same occurrence at his business premises after a major water pipe burst. He queried what was an outrageously high account, and the local municipality reversed the amount.

But how widespread is this problem?

Air Entering Burst Water Pipes is a Common Problem

I contacted Jacques-Louis van der Linde, senior technical specialist at Elster Kent Metering one of the main suppliers of water metering equipment to municipalities in South Africa. Castle Water Meters was the chief supplier of water meters in South Africa until a few years ago when they were bought out by Elster Kent. The reality is that the water meters this company put in place now utilize old, outdated technology. Rather than measuring water as such, these meters measure all flow through the meter – including air.

Van der Linde confirmed that the problem does often arise when there is a break in the water pipes supply and the air gets into the pipework. He also explained that the majority of water meters use an impeller to measure the amount of water passing through the water pipes then through the meter (see picture below).

When there is a leak in the water pipes delivering water to suburban properties, municipal workers have to shut off the water supply whilst the broken section of the water supply pipe is being repaired. When the mains are reopened again, there can be a large amount of air that has entered the pipework.

Because water is denser than air, the air is compressed and passes through the pipe, and subsequently through the meter, very fast, making the impeller inside the meter literally spin out of control. Depending on the amount of air involved, this can cause your meter to run up an unreal, totally false water reading – which goes hand-in-hand with very high water bills.

New Pre-Paid Meters Problematic

An even greater problem arises from the “new” pre-paid water meters. According to van der Linde, there are more than 250,000 of these pre-paid meters already installed countrywide. The problem is that consumers have absolutely no recourse, as money for the meter must be paid upfront, and in spite of your constitutional rights to water, if you are cut off, you simply have to top up the meter.

Nevertheless, we may be better off in South Africa than in other African countries that practice “water rationing”.

What happens there is that the water is switched off during the day, and when it is turned back on, the air passing through the meter literally eats up all their money. The saddest part is that most of these people are in poorer African countries, and they cannot afford to keep paying for air!

Have I Been Paying for Air?

Anyone whose water bills suddenly increase for no apparent reason should note whether increased “usage” corresponds with burst water mains in the area.

While leasing a property in Somerset West several years ago, I noticed that the council water meter hadn’t been touched for months. The fact that there was an ants’ nest over the meter glass convinced me no readings had been done (see pic below). Just to cover myself I had taken photographs of the meter a few months apart, in September, November, and again in February.

The average water bills per month for September, October, and November were between R400 and R500. In December this increased to R965; in January to R1,181; and then in February, it went up to R1,547.

After a fairly unpleasant conversation and emails with the landlord/estate agent who said that I had obviously watered the garden and filled up the swimming pool, which was not true, I approached the local council and local councilor. Nobody was interested in my problem, maintaining that the readings on the water bills were correct.

Their explanation about the ants’ nest was that after each reading by the council meter reader, the ants had come back and re-established their nest. They also maintained that there could be a leaking pipe on the property. They refused to investigate further, stating that the property owner was the only person who could deal with the council on this issue. He refused and wasn’t interested in doing his own investigation into possible leaking pipework.

I then cleaned the meter and shut off all the taps as well as the house mains water for half a day to see if there was any usage on the meter. There was none, proving it was not a leaking pipe on the property. But in the end, I was forced to pay up.

In retrospect, I realized that there had been a number of water “outages” during the periods when the water bills were so high. But unfortunately, I realized this too late and had to write the bills off to experience.

We subsequently moved to another area, in a different municipality, and recently had two breaks in the water mains. I am waiting to see what the bill will be, and if it is any higher than usual, will take immediate action.

So What Should You Do?

My advice to anyone who has a break in their water supply, and notices air escaping through their taps when the water flow comes back and they turn the taps on, is to make a note of the date and the time of the interruption, and if you are on a billing system (rather than a pre-paid meter), to challenge the council when you get your bill. If you have a pre-paid meter, challenge the council immediately.

SABS Assessing a New Water Meter that Won’t Register Air

The good news is that Elster Kent has a new meter that is currently being assessed by the SABS. This meter can register the density of whatever is passing through the pipes, and if it is not the density of water, it will not register and push up the meter reading.

But it’s going to take a while for all the old meters to be replaced. So in the meantime, be vigilant.