Hi John,
So I just reviewed the discussion and found that you’d recommended pretty much the same route: Homeserve. We got to them via SAUR, but it looks like pretty much the same… Cheers.
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That the one in Charente 16310?
OH did some research, regarding how to submit the request for payment leveling [edit: the word in French seems to be ‘plafonnement’] after a water leak.
I thought I’d share, as it was a bit difficult finding some of the info.
water leak.pdf (113.0 KB)
Cheers
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We have just discovered a leak and consumption has increased from 8m3 per month to 42m3.
We have only recently moved to the house so have no evidence of normal usage other than at our previous house - any ideas if I will be liable for the additional approx 200m3 of water?
Depends where the leak is, up to the meter is water people, beyond that your problem.
Look up Loi Warsmann, as even if you’re liable it can help in reducing the payment. You’ll need to demonstrate the excessive usage is due to a leak in the underground pipes and not from a leaky tap or toilet, and you will need to have a bill showing the leak has been prepared repaired.
There’s some more info here… https://www.toutsurmoneau.fr/edito/warsmann-remise-fuite
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I have been reading the document posted above which suggests if usage is more than double the normal then it would be covered- the problem we have is that “normal” in this house is not yet defined as we are new here - all I can go on is our previous consumption in the previous house (still just 2 of us living here).
I’d reach out to your water company nonetheless and ask them about it, mentioning loi Warsmann but perhaps not necessarily mentioning the part about the bill being double normal. They may even tell you what the previous owner’s typical usage was, and use that as the baseline.
In our case, it was the water company that told us about the scheme in the first place which surprised me, as we’d previously had a very bad experience in the UK requiring us to contact the ombudsman.
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If Mat knows how much is being consumed, presumably it’s after the meter 
. Otherwise, how would anyone know ?
Correct, it is after the meter.
Hopefully getting it repaired today.
I have been told to get an invoice for the repair as proof there was a leak.
My repair on a Bank Holiday has not achieved a lot!!
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Could be a great big soggy patch before the meter. Anyway Mat has confirmed so no problem.
I think we need a definition of repair 
thats an emergency reduction in the leak. Should be enough to fit a straight coupling in there?
Hopefully- it was at most a patch up job, the best I could manage when all bricos closed on a Bank Holiday.
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Its certainly the difference between french water pressure and say thames water which at my place is only 3/4 of a bar.
Yes, I was surprised when our water company pointed that out to us in a letter after having rung us first to tell us that they had observed an “abnormal” increase in our water usage and wondered whether we might have a leak. Unfortunately, we didn’t, it was all down to pressure hosing the patio around the house to remove weeds/moss/etc - which consumed a significant quantity of water in one go. The following year’s meter value went back to normal after that.
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Just finished my annual pressure washing of terrace/patio tiles which seemed to have got particularly mossy and green due to all the wet weather.
Coincidentally we also had our water account from Sogedo last week which once again shows less consumption than the previous year.
When pressure washing and watering pot plants we use pumped water from our well and all the roof surface water is piped to 5 1000lt receptacles for the garden.
We akso have a pond which holds around 60m3 of collected water with thriving fish and frog life.
I have spent a lot of time and effort harvesting water to our benefit resulting in 80m3 of metered water per year with the rest of our usage provided by mother nature.
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I heard a vague ‘tinkling’ sound coming from the mains water meter box in the corner of the garden and found an inch or so of water in the bottom of the box, and water was visibly spurting from the small uppermost nut of the stopcock in the photo. My side of the meter – my responsibility.
I tightened the stopcock tap fully into the OFF position but the spurting increased!
When fully OFF it leaks, but when fully ON it doesn’t leak!
I’m not going to rush into this. Plumbers’ videos say stopcock leaks are quite common and they suggest giving the uppermost top nut in the photo a gentle tightening quarter-turn with a spanner. Which I’ll try when I find a spanner that fits.
Anything I should be beware of before I start wielding the spanner?
You should have let me know - I still have a stock of that self-amalgamating tape that kept the Honda steering going until the new pipe was made!
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Wonderful stuff. First used it for sealing F connectors on LNBs many years ago, but it’s wonderful for temporary pipe repairs as well, or even permanent repairs on plastic drain pipes.
Those old and crappy stop cocks have a packed gland seal around the piece you can see water leaking from. Either replace with a ball valve (best solution but a bit more work usually as they are often a slightly different length. ) or buy a new crappy stop cock, unscrew the head (the bit where it leaks) and replace with the new head this saves undoing the body which is just extra uneccessary work.