$1000 water bill on empty house…help

[Manish Agarwal]

Bought a new SFH in June. House was empty till Aug.

Got a water bill of $20 in June. Those were all fixed cost.

Then $130 bill in July. Bill details shows usage of 6,000 gallons. I filed a complaint with Charlotte Water. I also hired a technician to inspect whole house to find any leakage. None was found. Charlotte Water technician also found no leakage.

August bill - $980. Unbelievable. Bill details usage of 70,000 gallons. Charlotte water company says meter is fine and there is nothing they will do. Their reasoning is someone might have stole the water.

70,000 gallons. It takes 22,000 gallons to fill 1 large swimming pool. If water flow rate is 3 gallons per min the it will take 22,333 mins or 15.5 days to steal that kind of water. That does not make any sense to me.

Anyone had this problem. Any advice how I can solve this please?

Lesson learnt- turn off the water mains on an empty house.

[Bill B.]

$130 for 6,000 gallons? That’s literally less than $10 in the deserts of Las Vegas. 

With all water off make sure the meter isn’t spinning. if it’s not I don’t understand the theft but I understand their reasoning. 
if they are “with the times” they can tell you the last time the meter stopped spinning. 
if it is still spinning with no water being used. Turn it off at the house’s main shutoff. If it keeps going the leak is between the meter and that shutoff. Either way, turning it off at the main should get you a zero water bill the next month or you have a leak or faulty meter. 
if you have that kind of leak you want to find it as it’s most likely undermining your foundation. 
if you do find a leak talk to your water company  in Las Vegas if you find an underground leak and fix it you can get the  high bills erased if you show them the receipts for fixing the problem  

I don’t know where you calculations are off but we fill our 17,000 gallon pool in less than 36 hours with 2 hoses. Ps. That costs less than $30.