I have a Water & Wastewater Rate Notice for a small townhouse I own. It's tenanted. Apparently they've used 206kL over 6 months, an average of 1,200 litres/day.
They're a nice couple with a young child. Frankly there's no way they've used that much. I've tried to explain to council that it's obviously a reading error of some sort, and after being on the phone for twenty minutes I couldn't get it across to them; that there's no way they've been using 1,000% their normal usage pattern. "Perhaps they had some people stay with them for Christmas?"
So I've had to write a letter to council and I'm looking for some creative writing skills to illustrate to them what 1,200 litres a day looks like.
So far I have:
1,200 litres/day is 600 two litre milk bottles. Every single day. For six months.
1,200 litres/day is 1.2 tonne of water a day. Every single day. For six months.
1,200 litres/day is 6 bathtubs full to the brim. Every single day. For six months.
1,200 litres/day is flooding the entire unit, both floors, with 1cm of water. Every single day. For six months.
1,200 litres/day is filling an average pool. Every single month. For six months.
When I first bought my house many moons ago the first bill was for 1200l a day. I nearly died. We had a plumber next door and he came and had a look, one of the toilets has such a small leak you could not even see it running down the back of the bowl. It was measures at 1000l a day. Put one of those blue things in the toilet and you will soon see if it's leaking.
had a faulty retic do this - because it was underground it took quite a bit of investigation to find it
i reckon we created a temporary aquifer under the house!
$900 water bill!!
I just had a 1200L a day bill.
Retic had been cut and buried (600mm below ground) by previous owner but valve from mains to retic left on. Eventually the solenoids must have leaked. 1440 mins in a day so 1/2L a min is not a huge leak and if it is buried under sandy soil no sign of a wet patch.
Now have to get plumber to come and replace the valve which worked but the tap part had completely corroded and had to use stilsons to close it. Surely all this stuff should be above ground!!!
Had to keep digging up pipe until I found the solenoids and then keep digging back until I found the main shut off!
I do think that the Water corp should have more frequent meter readings (even self reading) and a warning if your usage suddenly increases. 6 months is a long time between bills.
Before all that, try talking with them? Maybe they are clueless and/or DGAF, like many tenants. While our old house had tenants it was attacked by termites. Tenants noticed but didn't think it worth mentioning till we inspected and found it, even though this mysterious wood dust was falling all over their stuff. $5k later, damage fixed and chemical barrier. Shudder to think what would have happened if we didn't inspect for 3 more months.
Also check that the water company (or subcontractor) actually read the meter
I had one where they didn't read the meter and just put in a random number for the reading.
If that is the case just ring up and you need to tell the water company the current reading, and they will re-issue the bill.
based on what i see in the media, the correct measures to use for volume are "olympic swimming pools", and if its a particularly large amount of water, "sydney harbours"
The first thing to do is determine if you have a leaky pipe somewhere. It happens quite often if the copper pipes were a bad batch.
It's easy to do.
Turn off all taps and make sure no one flushes the loo.
Read the water meter.
Wait 10 minutes.
Read it again. Make suire you read it right down to the litres dial.
If it hasn't moved then your pipes are fine, and the problem is either the meter was mis-read, (easy to do if it's an old style meter.)
Or, somehow the people used a truckload of water.
If it's a modern meter with just numbers to read like an odometer, then you can sit and watch the 'litres' dial rotate. A small leak will make it rotate very slowly but if you watch it for a minute or two you can see it move.
Keep in mind that if it leaks a litre in one minute then that adds up to 24 X 60 = 1440 litres per day. = 262Klitres in 6 months.
Honestly?
If they dont think theres something wrong with 1200lts, then i think they may struggle to grasp your maths equations.
Id give them something visual to understand the situation 
There is a bukkake world record that may be relevant, but I think you will get them off-side if you mention it. 
To be serious though - In WA we pay for water use and that would be expensive.
But the water RATES are the same
Over there on 'toherside, do u as owner pay more for water rates if your tenants use more water?
Just curious
1,128 litres / day is 206 kl / 6 months
113 litres / day would be normal usage if 1,128 litres / day is 1,000% of normal
1,128 litres / day is 1.76 times the average daily usage based on the ABS figures for NSW in 2009/2010 of 78kl per capita per year for household usage - assuming they didn't have anyone stay with them over Christmas
113 litres / day is 18% of the average daily usage based on the ABS figures for NSW in 2009/2010 of 78kl per capita per year for household usage - assuming they didn't have anyone stay with them over Christmas
perhaps the meter has been estimated for a while and you have been under-paying all those years and this year it has been read - and now it's time to pay. Time to pay.
Have you done some basic checks before you go abusing Council ? For example have you checked they don't have a pet hippopotamus ? The hippopotamus is semi-aquatic, inhabiting rivers, lakes and mangrove swamps, where territorial bulls preside over a stretch of river and groups of 5 to 30 females and young. Perhaps they have more than one ?
