Rosemary Kimberley had no idea a leaking pipe leading to her home was losing her litres of water – and potentially costing her more than $700 in annual water charges.
It was Carterton District Council which alerted her to the problem.
“We would never have found the leak, never. There was no visible sign of it. We were wasting litres and litres and litres of water,” says Rosemary.
That could have cost her dearly following Carterton’s introduction of water metering and charging for excess water use. The small Wairarapa town historically has experienced summer water shortages.
Three years ago the council began installing water meters, the change introduced to make consumers connected to the town water supply more conscious of their water usage and any wastage.
On July 1 this year it began charging all users for water use of more than 300 cubic metres (300,000 litres) a year, at a rate of $1.50 per cubic metre above the limit.
Carterton’s 2000 properties use one-third less water now than they did a year ago, much of the savings coming from the council’s efforts to find leaks. Inspectors visit properties where meter readings show the water usage appears higher than normal.
Rosemary says that three months after water charging started, she received a letter and then a visit from council staff. Checks revealed a leak in the pipe from the roadside to the house.
She was losing water at a rate of about a litre a minute – that’s more than 500 cubic metres a year (which equates to 50,000 ten litre buckets of water) just through leakage, according to council estimates. That could have cost more than $700 if she had already used up her 300 cubic metre free allocation.
“It would have been terrifying to get the bill at the end of the year – a real shock,” says Rosemary.
A plumber was called and new pipe laid to fix the problem.
“We had no idea about the extra water use – the garden didn’t look any greener,” she says.
“It’s certainly been worthwhile getting it done. We couldn’t have gone on like that. I’m full of praise for the council for coming around to check after just three months.
“In the Wairarapa here we take water wastage seriously. We can see the value of water as the area has gone into drought the last two years,” says Rosemary.
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