County water lines in Puna

[nana valley]

quote:

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Originally posted by KeaauRich

My suggestion: learn how to read your water meter, know what your average usage is and check the figures every so often to make sure everything is normal. The minute something looks weird, call a plumber or the water department. Seems to me that if pipes are leaking enough to run up $4,000 over two months, the homeowner would notice a drop in water pressure at the tap - another sign that something's amiss.

Why should the county be responsible for maintaining pipes on your private property? If there was a problem on your property on "their side" of the meter, how would they ever know about it? Problems in main lines become pretty evident because they cause big disruptions, but as you mention, the comparatively small lines to homes can have leaks that aren't apparent from the surface. So county water customers (or maybe even county residents as a whole, including those of us who don't have access to county water) would have to eat the cost for all the ongoing undetected waster waste as well as the cost of maintaining all those extra miles of water lines on private property.

I think a more realistic solution would be for the county to enact some sort of "customer protection program," where you could decide to pay an extra monthly fee as an insurance policy, and if problems did occur, the program would cover the cost of the water wasted. It might also cover the repair of the pipe, though they might need to have a sliding scale so that people with shorter pipe runs would pay less than people with longer runs.

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Thanks, Krich , but did you notice I mentioned our "private water line" is 1/4 mile from the meter to the house? The lines run along roads not owned by us which means any heavy construction equipment running on other properties could pretty much destroy our lines if driven over. Yes, catchment would be less worrisome but the house was purchased with this crazy set-up with the county and now I am trying to find some way to improve on it. It just seems to me that if county is selling us water, then why didn't they put the meters on the edge of our property, not a quarter mile away. The seller never disclosed that little tidbit of info when I purchased the house.

My neighbor and I spent a weekend digging up and exposing our lines every 500 feet and put shutoff valves on our lines. We did that little job so that if we do get a leak, we can trouble shoot easier, going section to section to find where the repair is needed. And we do check the meters weekly. Since we are downhill from the meters, the water pressure doesn't significantly change to be noticeable to the owners (testimony I have heard from three neighbors). The scary thing is that the original lines installed by previous owners are not very deep in some areas and albizias growing on other owners properties are pulling up our lines. Crazy, insane setup!

I was hoping maybe if enough people with a similar problem gather around we can find some resolution to this problem. I used to live in a district that had a water coop. We bought water from the county but the subdivision installed the meters and lines, each home owner being responsible for the installation at their property.

And a discussion with the water dept. about some kind of insurance would be a great idea. We'll look into that, too.

He who hoots with owls at night cannot soar with the eagles in the morning.