After getting the toilet leak figured out in the master bathroom, I thought I was done fixing toilets. I was back to investigating another leak, but this time it was our powder room toilet.
We received a letter from our city’s water utility department stating that we used three times the regular amount of water last quarter. We were not watering the lawn or filling a pool, so the water was leaking somewhere. The letter suggested checking our toilet, which could be the silent leaker. I needed to pick up some blue dye tablets from the department and check our water meter to see if water was flowing when all faucets were off.
The same day, I went downstairs to the meter. I opened the cover. First, the meter did not have the analog gauges shown on the picture they provided. And second, it was a digital display, and it was blank. I assumed we had a bad meter. The meter was sending out erroneous information and the city would need to come out and replace it. I was confident now that we were not leakers.
When I got to work the next day, I wrote them an email indicating that our digital meter was not displaying anything. Smugly, I wrote that I could not follow their directions if I could not read the meter. I sent the email and waited for their apology for their bad meter.
About an hour later, I received an email back. It read, “The digital water meter is an older meter. You can shine a very bright flashlight on the meter to wake it up. You may need to hold the light there for a minimum of 30 seconds. If you still can’t get the numbers to appear, please let me know. We can come out and put a new meter in. One without the digital display.”
So, the digital display meter was older than the analog one from the photo? I forwarded the email to Efiwym, my wife. She texted me to let me know the numbers DID display if you shined a flashlight on the meter. No bad meter, no apology. On the way home, I would pick up some blue dye tablets from the utility department.
When I got home, I grabbed the flashlight to check out the meter. Efiwym was right, the meter would wake up if you shined the flashlight on it. The numbers were turning over, as Efiwym was running the dishwasher and washing machine. I will check it later. However, I did get an earful from Efiwym about her concerns for months about a possible toilet leak in the powder room.
I told her I researched the continuous “buzzing” sound the toilet valve was making. She would say, “That toilet is always running. Listen, it sounds like it is running.” However, I checked the tube coming out of the valve and not a drop could be found. If it was leaking, it would be at the flush seal., and we would not hear the trickling sound from the toilet. That evening we dropped a blue tablet in each of the 3 toilets. When we went to bed, the master bathroom toilet water was not blue, the main bath toilet water was not blue, but the powder room toilet water…(drum roll) was blue. DAMN!