I have 2 5/8" T10 Neptune Water Meters, one which serves the house and one for irrigation purposes. The house meter is fine.

My average reading on the irrigation meter is 6000 gallons per month, at a cost of approximately $85.00 per month when combined with the house water. Last year I was away from home for several months, leaving the irrigation system on for a once weekly irrigation and received the following readings on my irrigation meter with the following fees. August- 34,600 ($277.80), September- 43,400 ($371.07), October- 42,500 ($310.07), November - 20,300 ($149.59). (November's bill was calculated after I had the irrigation water turned off midway thru the month.) (42,400 gallons would fill a 25x50 foot pool with a depth of 4.5 ft.)

The house water, was turned off for the entire time I was gone and did not register any usage. The total amount of water used while I was away, according to the irrigation meter was 140,800 gallons! The County Water Dept. checked the meter and said there was nothing wrong with it.

I had an irrigation company check the irrigation system and they said there were no leaks. My lawn care service specialist said my lawn did not take on that much water. When I returned from my trip, I turned the water back on and monitored it. Everything now seems to be working normally, My water company insists that I used that much water, per month to irrigate my lawn.

Is it possible that somehow the meter was affected by a storm and "rebooted" itself after I turned it back on?

I live in Florida and this occurred during hurricane season.



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Water departments are notorious for this. Never have I seen them say, oh boy... that was our fault, let us fix that for you right away! I've had customers receive huge water bills for vacant houses where the water meter had been removed by their department years prior.

So what options do I have? The County Water Department insists that I used 140,880 gallons of water during a 4 month period, yet the irrigation company and my lawn care specialist insist that there were no leaks! Logically this makes no sense! County governmental agencies, including the Attorney General, just send my messages back to the County Water Department or do not respond. Any suggestions from anyone?

Keep your eye on that meter for the lawn, those irrigation solenoid valves are usually cheap..Plastic and like to stick open. also shut the power off to the system and watch the lawn meter, see if it moves.

I shut off the entire system while I was away on vacation and as soon as I got the high bills and realized that there was a problem. Turned everything back on when I returned. I immediately started monitoring everything. Everything works fine. Could the meter have rebooted itself after I turned it back on? I also had to clean off a lot of crud from the meters...seems like the mete readers don't close the covers after they read them. Could the dirt have created a problem? Because everything works fine now, the Water Company insists that I used 140, 880 gallons during the 4 months.

Sounds like somebody stole water from you. Any nearby neighbors? I would think the water company wouldn't release info on neighbors' usage to you, but they could see if any neighbors had an unusually low recorded usage during that time period.

Stole over 43,000 gallons during one month...totaling over 148,000 gallons during a 4 month period? A large tanker truck holds less than 12,000 gallons. I think that is highly unlikely. I live in a very safe area on a cul-de-sac and we have neighbors watching our homes. It is also highly unlikely that a neighbor would be stealing water. Where would they store it? If it was being stolen through faulty meter readings then we are back to a meter problem. I still think it has something to do with the meter. I intend to contact the water meter company and see if I can get some into insight into what could have happened.

Sounds like maybe a faulty timer or solenoid on the irrigation system, to be safe you can have the water company swap that meter… just because your landscaper said the ground was not unusually wet makes no difference during hurricane season I would think the ground would be saturated for days after a hurricane