Meters to charge for water lost in leaks

HOUSEHOLDERS ARE likely to have to pay for water they don’t use in their homes following the introduction of domestic metering because of the large number of leaks on private properties, it has emerged.

While the point of installation of meters will vary in each local authority area, in the majority of cases meters will be placed on the public path or road at the point where the water pipe leaves the mains and enters private property, running under gardens, driveways and houses.

This means that householders will be paying for water from the point it enters their property, even if a percentage of that water is lost through leaky or broken pipes underground.

An average of 43 per cent of treated water coming from reservoirs is lost through leaks before it reaches the consumer. However, the rate of leakage on private property could be even higher, Lar Spain, senior engineer with Fingal County Council said.

“The local authorities have been getting slated because of the leaks in their systems, but there is a lot of leakage on the private side, that the householder might never know about unless they’ve dug a hole to find out.”

There was an obvious problem with older properties where pipes may never have been assessed since the house was built, but even new houses were not guaranteed to be free of leaks, he said.

“In older houses the service materials are made from copper or lead, which will have corroded over time.

“However, in some newer houses the quality of the workmanship is not great and we’ve come across a show house with badly leaking pipes.”

Mr Spain, who headed the project to introduce non-domestic metering across the four Dublin local authority areas, said the likelihood of leaks under gardens and houses strengthened the case for introducing metering.

“The need for leaks to be repaired on private property, that in itself is a very strong argument for metering ... It is unfortunate for householders, but at least when metering comes in we should be able to tell them if they have a problem.”