Mapleturn Utilities, inc.

Serving the community needs daily

Bill forgiveness for fixed leaks

If you have a major leak and when you get it fixed, we will forgive the excess use on the higher of the bills during this time period.  We offer this to each of our customers one time during a one year period.

Finding the leak

Some leaks are obvious like the dripping faucet, the discoloration of the ceiling or a wet spot on the floor.  But others can be much more mysterious.  A toilet, for example, may not shut off when it is full and just runs all of the time.  This is obvious.  But the flapper in the bottom of the tank can also leak very slowly and the tank just needs to refill occasionally. 

If you ever hear your toilet tank fill for no reason, this flapper is leaking.  The easiest way to check this is to put some dark food coloring in the tank (don’t flush it) and wait 20 minutes.  If the color migrates to the bowl the flapper is leaking.

Water Softeners

The most difficult leaks to find are the ones from the water softener.  Due to the nature of the softener schedule you are asleep when it is working.  If the timer is malfunctioning the regeneration may be taking place every night (not really a leak) or the backwash portion of the cycle could be too long (too, not really a leak).  If the backwash valve does not seat properly and water just drips from the discharge line all of the time (a leak).  Just occasionally look for dripping from the end of this line and question if you think you are going through salt faster than normal.

Outside the Home

Water has a way of always showing itself.  A wet spot in your yard that does not dry up may very well be a small leak in your service line.  As water flows through a pipe, the pipe vibrates.  If it is in contact with even a small rock, over time, it can wear a hole in the line. 

The leak that is the most difficult to find is the same scenario of the pipe rubbing against the concrete just as it enters the house.  The water from the leak travels down the outside of the basement wall to the perimeter drain and then is drained off well away from the house.  This leak may show up as a damp area of the concrete directly below where the pipe comes through the wall.

Leak detection

auto read meters

As we install more auto read meters we are realizing the importance of this new tool that is available to us. The new meters have the ability to monitor your usage by the hour. 

If it measures water usage every hour of the day, over a three day period, a notice pops up when we read your meter at the end of the month saying that there is a possible leak.

We also have the ability to go to any of these meters and pull a history of usage.  It then can graph the usage monthly, daily and even by the hour so that we can see when the water was used. 

For example:  A customer’s bills had been going up even though they could not find a leak anywhere. 

By using this tool we found that there was high usage every couple of days at 3 in the morning. 

They found that their water softener, instead of rinsing for the minute that it is suppose to after re-charge, was rinsing for 20 minutes every time it ran.  Just running water down the drain.