Broken Water Meter
Imagine water gushing from a small round access plate in your sidewalk. The water is surging up from this plate, and streaming past your house, eventually to a drain. And this has been going on for about 36 hours.
This is a true scenario that occurred mid-summer. I walked out to my car one morning and had to cross a small river. It was still going strong the next morning and well into the day. Jocie made sure the water company was aware and took pictures. She even chatted with the utility worker to get the details.
A Broken Water Meter
Our townhouse community has small round access panels in front of each house. A water meter sits behind each panel measuring a homes intake. The utility worker said these meters typically last around 25 years. And you get a nice little river when they fail.
The utility worker replaced the meter and reset the water usage. I imagine the water company will determine that homes average water intake and use that for billing purposes.
There isn’t much a homeowner can do in these situations except call it in. For anyone else in Baltimore County, the phone number for the Department of Public Works is 410-887-3300.
What do you think? Have you ever seen something like this?
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3 Responses to Broken Water Meter
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August 27th, 2008 8:33 pm
Ethan,
I can’t believe they let it go on so long! I have seen them bust before, and if the actual meter or the pipe on the water company side busts, you can’t shut it off. If it were to bust on the house side, the meter can be turned off with a wrench to stop the leak until it can be fixed (at the homeowner’s expense).
Keith
August 27th, 2008 9:13 pm
@Keith, I was really surprised they let it go so long. I thought it would be a higher priority. Not totally sure where the break occurred but I don’t think the homeowner was really involved.
January 8th, 2009 3:00 pm
I own a trailer and have a meter plate beneith by pressure regulator I pay for the regulator and the town provides the meter plate which is shaped like a round saucer. It broke back in July and the town fixed it. It broke last month and the town said it froze and I owe them $1,000 dollars for the 24,000 units that leaked when I wasn’t their. They say it froze yet my trailor pipes did not freeze and my heat is working fine. The pressure regulator did not freeze either. The entire park has to have pressure regulators on their trailers because of water surges with the town water. Can anyone explain to me what is causing these meter plates to burst? It is well below zero here in Maine and my trailor pipes have never frozen. If there was 24,000units of water on the ground of my trailer, there would have been 3 feet of ice. There was no ice. the water sure didn’t seep into the frozen ground. Please help me…