Toilet Cistern overflowing into bowl

[Hoonigan]

why on earth not?

its no different to having the car serviced, having the central heating serviced, cleaning the wheelie bins, emptying the gutters, checking the ball cocks in the loft (just had all new fitted), reviewing the utility bill suppliers, house insurance etc.

Yeah, but quarterly?

[Zak33]

As far as the car service goes - You do recall I work* for a friend whose income and workload are almost entirely from people who don't look after their own cars, right?
I think it'd be safe to say most people take a similar approach to that other stuff.

you have, therefore already answered your own doubts... you too should start maintaining stuff properly cos you see what occurs when other people ....don't

[Zak33]

Yeah, but quarterly?

curtain poles, window hinges, door hinges, particualry the garage doors, locks... at least quarterly.

The gates in the garden get more ...

[Zak33]

to be fair I don't do the gutter that often...so I strike that off the quarterly list

And replace it with a hundred other things....

[Ttaskmaster]

you have, therefore already answered your own doubts... you too should start maintaining stuff properly cos you see what occurs when other people ....don't

I do.
You asked why not... That was my answer.

[DanceswithUnix]

I like to think that I can be that horrific inconsiderate user if I want to be though, it's the "once you've got a meter you can't get rid of it" thought that puts me off.

I was much the same. Last house didn't have a meter, and as I was certain our water usage meant we would pay more on a meter (young kids at the time, constant cloths washing and baths) so told them no when asked about having one fitted.

When I moved to the current house it already had a meter, but the kids are older and our water usage has gone down so we are probably better off. The thing is, having a meter drives home just how cheap water is. Filling buckets and even swimming pools with water is fine, the problem as in here was when we got a leak. I estimated the leak from our service pipe was dumping about a bathtub full of water every 4 hours into the ground, long term I hate to think what that would have done to the foundations of our house. The bill that quarter (thankfully cancelled by the water company) was for £8000.

We don't need smart meters, we need smart leak management in the network.

[Ttaskmaster]

We don't need smart meters, we need smart leak management in the network.

As part of our work in sewers, we often discover evidence of water leaks. However, it's quite difficult and quite expensive to actually locate the point of a leak... and despite all the electronic monitoring devices, the best solution is still digging the whole thing up until you find it, which is nigh-on impossible in many places.

[Saracen]

Yeah, but quarterly?

I didn't used to be either, but a few expensive and probably unnecessary repair bills motivated me properly.

So I developed a sophisticated time-managenent routine. It works thus -

- stage 1 - bug a £1 annual diary.
- stage 2 - buy a red marker pen.
- stage 3 - put a red mark on 4 Saturdays, 3 months apart, jn the year planner bit
- on red mark days, spend 30-60 minutes on maintenance.

I find little and often works best.

[Zak33]

UPDATE:

With new cistern flush systems fitted, I was still using more water than I thought acceptable. Taking daily (with a torch in my teeth) water meter readings, it was still using more than I expected.

While I was doing this , the meter suddenly started whirling round and stopped after about 11 litres, then spun a bit more. An odd amount.. maybe my boy had started running a bath, and then stopped.

Back indoors I asked my missus and the only water use was a single flush of the downstairs toilet.

11 litres? I checked the downsairs cistern, lid off and saw marking along the back of it, cast into the porcelain. The water level was stopping at 9 litres. That's a bloody big flush, I'd not realy looked at it but it is a big tank....but 9 is not 11, and clearly hands had been washed.... so I decided to re-adjust the ball cock float to lower it to 6 litres, and then I flushed again to check it.

That's when I discovered that this toilet fills from mains water (not loft tank) and the water pressure is IMMENSE...so immense that it could easily re-fill an extra 2 litres while emptying. In fact I held the flush button down as an experiment and it coul dprolly use 14 or 15 litres before being empty .

So... both the toilet upstairs flooding down the back of the bowl from a worn system and this downstair toilet filling faster than Niagra Falls with a volume slightly short of the North Sea.... it all makes sense.

Now.. water use is right back down to an average of about 1/3 Cubic metre per day, rather than well over 1 cubic metre per day.

Bloody long slog though... slog to mend the bog.

Makes you wonder how many people's water bills are mental high for silly reasons.

[Gerrard]

Now.. water use is right back down to an average of about 1/3 Cubic metre per day, rather than well over 1 cubic metre per day.

Mine is less than 2m3 per month! Half of my bill is the daily cost and the other the actual usage.

[Zak33]

Mine is less than 2m3 per month! Half of my bill is the daily cost and the other the actual usage.

you need to bath more


Mine's spot on at this level now. It fluctuates according to shower or bath, and who's home or at work.

There's a good online calculator

https://www.ccwater.org.uk/watermetercalculator/

It works pretty well