It’s never a fun time to receive a utility bill that’s a lot higher than you anticipated. That’s exactly what happened to one Phoenix homeowner.
He opened his water bill last month and found a number he was sure had to be a mistake: $2,777. Cameron Green hadn’t seen a normal bill in quite a while, to be fair. That’s because a city-owned meter transmitter at his home had stopped working.
For seven months, the city couldn’t actually read Green’s usage. That meant he also wasn’t being billed for it. When the device was fixed, though, all seven months came due at once. The bill covered 344,000 gallons of water, a staggering amount for Green’s household. As he put it: “We don’t have a pool, we don’t have a jacuzzi.” The home does have a single bathtub that the couple rarely uses, and that’s about it.
Green’s first reaction was disbelief that the number could be real. But there was a very concrete reason he had been hit with that kind of number. There was an underground leak in front of his house, invisible from the surface, that had been pushing water through his meter for months. Because the transmitter was dead, no monthly bill ever flagged the spike, so the leak ran on unnoticed.
Once the meter was reporting again, the city retroactively billed Green for every gallon used. He accepts that the water went through his meter, but he doesn’t agree with the fairness of the bill’s delay. The broken city equipment, he argues, kept him from catching the leak far sooner, and the city took no responsibility and made no adjustment for it. According to the City of Phoenix’s Water Services Department, transmitter failures like this are rare, under 1 percent, and tend to happen as the devices near the end of their life. In other words, they didn’t exactly agree with Green’s frustrated assessment of the situation.
How a Bill Like This Can Pile Up
Today’s water meters don’t actually need a person to walk up and read them. A small transmitter on the meter will send the reading to the utility, which uses it to calculate each monthly bill. The system is reliable until the transmitter fails. When it does, the utility stops getting numbers, and without numbers, it can’t put together an accurate bill.
The gap in billing is only half of it. The other half is the leak. An underground line can develop a slow break that never surfaces, with no puddle in the yard, no sound in the walls, while it wastes water day and night. The single best warning sign of a leak like that is a sudden jump in the monthly bill. With no bill coming, Green had no way to prepare or change anything, and those 344,000 gallons slipped away.
It’s important to keep in mind that water that passes through your meter is water you’re generally responsible for, even when a hidden leak is the cause. A dead transmitter reads as zero, which could either mean an empty house or a broken sensor. You won’t necessarily know which one it is until it’s too late.
What to Do If Your Bill Blindsides You
What should you do if this happens to you? The best defense is catching a leak before it becomes a runaway bill. Watch your monthly usage and compare it to the same month a year earlier. Treat any unexplained jump as a reason to look closer. You can also check for a hidden leak yourself in a few minutes. Shut off every faucet, appliance, and irrigation line, then find your water meter. Many meters have a small red triangle or dial that spins when water is moving. If it keeps turning with everything off, water is going somewhere it should not, and it is time to call a plumber.
If a shock bill does arrive, do not just pay it in silence. Call the utility and ask it to walk you through the charge and the meter history. Ask specifically about a leak adjustment. Many water providers will credit part of a bill caused by a documented, repaired leak, though you usually have to request it and show proof of the repair, like a plumber’s invoice. If the balance is large, ask for a payment plan, which is what Green arranged over 36 months. If you get nowhere, escalate in writing and keep records of every call. You may be in for an uphill battle over time with this situation.