I need some guidance on locating a water leak at my folks house. Their water bill this month was $1,200.00 and last mo. it was $1,000.00, which is almost 3x the cost last year. They have an acre yard and I think one or more of the pipes underground is broken. I already found that the main sprinkler head 2" line, bronze golf-course-type head was broken underground and I repaired it, but I am at a loss on how to locate any other leaks, if they're underground.
The house has 2 meters - one for the house and one for the yard. The yard meter is consuming a lot more water than in the past. The house meter does run slowly, but the usage is in line with years past. Mom only waters the yard twice a week, so there's got to be a leak somewhere. When the sprinkler is off, there is no indication of water usage at the yard meter. After the tornado in 10 of '19 we had lots of trucks driving all over the yard and they broke many pipes and heads, but we repaired all the damage - or so we thought.
Any ideas on how I can determine if there is another underground leak or where a leak may be located?
Thanks.
l told my pap and mam I was going to be a mountain man; acted like they was gut-shot. Make your life go here. Here's where the peoples is. Mother Gue, I says, the Rocky Mountains is the marrow of the world, and by God, I was right. - Del Gue
How many zones on the irrigation system? You can run each zone independently and watch the meter. That should give you an indication of which zone has the problem.
If you can break the line somewhere rig up a coupling with an air stem like is on your cars wheels. Air up the line, if there is water in the line the leak will become apparent.
There are 8 zones. I could certainly watch the meter in each zone to see if one zone moves considerably faster than the others.
Regarding underground leak detection, I believe the leak only occurs when the sprinkler system is operating, so that may make it difficult to locate the leak due to all the noise, but I will look into it.
Thanks.
Last edited by High_Noon; 08/15/22.
l told my pap and mam I was going to be a mountain man; acted like they was gut-shot. Make your life go here. Here's where the peoples is. Mother Gue, I says, the Rocky Mountains is the marrow of the world, and by God, I was right. - Del Gue
If you can break the line somewhere rig up a coupling with an air stem like is on your cars wheels. Air up the line, if there is water in the line the leak will become apparent.
Seems like it would be rather difficult to air up an acre of sprinkler lines - a lot of it is 2" PVC line. Right?
l told my pap and mam I was going to be a mountain man; acted like they was gut-shot. Make your life go here. Here's where the peoples is. Mother Gue, I says, the Rocky Mountains is the marrow of the world, and by God, I was right. - Del Gue
My water bill doubled for a few months, and I racked my brain trying to figure out what it was. Turned out to be the toilet in the guest bathroom. About every other time it was flushed, it would continue to run instead of cutting off and since we're rarely in there, we didn't know it. I had no idea that a toilet could use that much water. It wasn't running full force, just not shutting off completely.
Start adding division /shut off valves. Isolate the problem systematically. Ball valves work well at this. Most meters have a small "triangle" indicator that when turning will show down to a very small flow that's your best tool. I bought a property 20 ish years ago that covered 10 acres and had a water leak. I isolated the system into thirds using ball valves and the flow detector on the main meter. The first day I quickly eliminated the house system and the barn system which left a 400+ foot run between the meter and the house which by process of elimination was where the leak was. In my case being in sandy ground and not finding water at the surface (and not knowing where the pipes exactly were) I abandoned that line and replaced it with a new one. For us that repair paid for itself in three short months. Good luck...
You're out $2200.00 in water bills. I'd cap every head to find the leak if I had to.
Yeah.
Man you would think there would be a puddle with that big of a leak.
No puddle. Also there's probably 60+ heads in the yard - big PITA to cap 'em all, but it may come to that.
l told my pap and mam I was going to be a mountain man; acted like they was gut-shot. Make your life go here. Here's where the peoples is. Mother Gue, I says, the Rocky Mountains is the marrow of the world, and by God, I was right. - Del Gue
l told my pap and mam I was going to be a mountain man; acted like they was gut-shot. Make your life go here. Here's where the peoples is. Mother Gue, I says, the Rocky Mountains is the marrow of the world, and by God, I was right. - Del Gue
Start adding division /shut off valves. Isolate the problem systematically. Ball valves work well at this. Most meters have a small "triangle" indicator that when turning will show down to a very small flow that's your best tool. I bought a property 20 ish years ago that covered 10 acres and had a water leak. I isolated the system into thirds using ball valves and the flow detector on the main meter. The first day I quickly eliminated the house system and the barn system which left a 400+ foot run between the meter and the house which by process of elimination was where the leak was. In my case being in sandy ground and not finding water at the surface (and not knowing where the pipes exactly were) I abandoned that line and replaced it with a new one. For us that repair paid for itself in three short months. Good luck...
Thanks, I will look into doing that.
l told my pap and mam I was going to be a mountain man; acted like they was gut-shot. Make your life go here. Here's where the peoples is. Mother Gue, I says, the Rocky Mountains is the marrow of the world, and by God, I was right. - Del Gue
Old school would be shutting off all the timers and letting the place go a little brown.... except the spot that's leaking.
Too labor intensive to shut off the pressure except when watering, that'd be a twice per day hassle, and you wouldn't find anything new..
Folks don't want to kill all the St. Augustine.
l told my pap and mam I was going to be a mountain man; acted like they was gut-shot. Make your life go here. Here's where the peoples is. Mother Gue, I says, the Rocky Mountains is the marrow of the world, and by God, I was right. - Del Gue
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