Why it takes a whole quarter to notice
Harrisdale households are large. The average here is 3.2 people, well above the state average, and these are family homes with gardens on reticulation. Normal water use is already a big number.
A leak losing water steadily does not double your bill overnight. It adds itself to a figure that was already high and moves slowly enough that nobody questions it until the bill arrives. By then it has had three months to run.
The other reason is that most Harrisdale leaks have nothing to see. The suburb was gazetted in 2007 and the main estate started construction in July 2010, so the plumbing is original and most of it is buried — under slabs, under paving, in retic lines, or on the service run between the front-boundary meter and the house. Water escaping into Perth sand leaves nothing on the surface at all.
The check that settles it
The first thing we do on arrival is the meter check, and it answers the biggest question in about twenty minutes.
With every tap, appliance and outlet on the property shut off, a water meter should be completely still. Nothing turning, nothing creeping.
If it keeps moving, the property is losing pressurised water. That is a leak, it is on your side of the meter, and how fast the meter turns gives us a rough size before we have looked at anything else.
If it sits still, you do not have a supply leak. Something else is going on — a bill estimated rather than read, a meter read on the wrong date, a retic controller running longer than anyone thinks, or water appearing from storm water rather than from a pipe. When it is storm water
Either answer is worth having, and there is no call-out fee for getting it. If you have already noticed the meter ticking over with everything off, tell us when you ring — it saves a step.
Where the water is usually going
Reticulation
The most common single find in Harrisdale. A cracked retic line drains into sand and waters nothing. The garden looks the same, the ground looks the same, and it can run for months.
Under the slab
Pipework run beneath a concrete floor before the house went up. The signs, if there are any, are indirect — a warm patch of tiles, a hissing when the house is quiet at night, skirting that stays damp.
The service line
The buried run from your meter at the front boundary to the house. Under mains pressure day and night whether anybody is home or not.
Under paving and alfresco slabs
On Harrisdale blocks the landscaping went in over the plumbing, so a failure here is invisible and awkward to reach — which is exactly why it needs locating precisely rather than approximately.
A toilet cistern
The one indoor leak that can genuinely run up a bill on its own, because it leaks into the bowl continuously and silently. Worth ruling in or out early, because it is the cheapest thing on this list to put right. Leaking toilet repair
What it costs to find and fix
There is no call-out fee, and that includes the detection work. You get a written price for the repair before anything is opened up, with transparent pricing and no hidden costs, and if you decide not to go ahead you owe nothing.
What the repair itself comes to depends on what has failed and where. A cistern valve and a slab leak are not the same job. That is precisely why we find it first and price it second, rather than quoting a number down the phone that could not possibly be accurate. How leak detection works
The leak allowance, honestly
This is the part most people have wrong, and it is worth being blunt about.
Water Corporation's position is that leaks on your property are the owner's responsibility to repair. The main in the street is theirs. Everything past the meter is yours.
A leak allowance may refund part of the water you lost, in some circumstances. It does not cover the cost of the repair, and it never has. So the allowance is worth asking about once the leak is fixed, but it is not a reason to wait — every day the leak runs is more water you are paying for, and the allowance will not make you whole.
The faster answer is simply to stop the leak.
Get it found
Tell us what the bill did and we will call you back to arrange a time. A licensed plumber comes out at no charge, runs the meter check, finds where the water is going, and leaves you with a written price.
Monday to Friday, 7:00am to 4:00pm.