Site index

Calculators

Each one takes a measurement you can make yourself and returns a volume and a cost.

• Water meter leak test

  The direct quantification of water loss in a UK property: two meter readings over a measured interval converted into litres, cubic metres and cost.

  • How to read a water meter

    The measurement is impossible without knowing which digits on a UK meter are cubic metres and which are litres.

  • What is a normal overnight reading

    Decides whether a measured overnight movement is loss or ordinary residual draw, which is the difference between a leak and a number.

  • Meter moving with everything off

    Interprets the single observation that most often starts a leak enquiry, and routes it to a quantified rate and not a guess.

  • Meter not moving but still losing water

    A domestic meter is specified for accuracy only above Q1 and may not turn at all below roughly 0.4 litres per hour, so a still meter does not quantify a loss as zero.

  • Litres per hour to cost

    The conversion clause in full: a rate in litres per hour into cubic metres per year and into pounds.

• Swimming pool bucket test

  Quantifies pool water loss in a UK property by separating evaporation from leakage, then converts the net loss into litres, cubic metres and cost.

  • How much evaporation is normal

    Evaporation is the baseline the measured drop is judged against, so without it a normal pool reads as a leak.

  • Pool losing water only when the pump runs

    The pump variable decides whether the measured loss sits on the pressure side of the circulation or in the structure.

  • Liner and structure loss

    Classifies where a quantified pool loss originates, which is the difference between a constant rate and one that stops at a level.

• Leaking toilet

  Quantifies the most common continuous internal loss in a UK property and converts the band into litres, cubic metres and cost.

  • Dye test for a leaking toilet

    The only household procedure that confirms a silent cistern loss, so it is what makes the quantification possible.

  • Siphon or drop valve cistern

    The cistern mechanism decides whether a silent continuous loss is physically possible, which sets the band before any figure is read.

  • Overflow pipe dripping outside

    Converts an observed external discharge into the highest loss band, because an overflow runs to waste continuously.

• Dripping tap

  Quantifies a countable loss in a UK property and converts drips into litres, cubic metres and cost.

  • How to count drips per minute

    The count is the entire input, and a count taken over too short an interval is the main source of error in the result.

  • Why drip volume figures disagree

    The published spread is a category error and not a disagreement, because drop volume is proportional to orifice radius, so a lab dropper figure cannot quantify a tap.

  • Drips per minute to litres per day

    The conversion clause: a count per minute into litres per day and on into cubic metres per year.

• Water bill benchmark

  Quantifies the gap between expected and billed consumption in a UK property, in cubic metres and in pounds.

  • How to read your water bill

    The annual volume in cubic metres is the only input, and it is not the number printed largest on a UK water bill.

  • High water bill with no visible leak

    Interprets a quantified gap that has no visible cause, and routes it to a measured rate at the meter and not to speculation.

  • Cubic metres on your bill to litres per day

    Converts a billed annual volume into the daily figure that every other tool on the site reports in.

• Swimming pool volume

  Supplies the surface area and volume in litres, cubic metres and gallons that the pool loss quantification depends on.

  • How to measure average depth

    A sloping or hopper floor makes average depth the largest source of error in the volume, and the volume is what the loss is measured against.

  • Pool volume in litres, gallons and cubic metres

    The conversion clause applied to pool capacity, which UK pool owners hold in gallons and UK water bills charge in cubic metres.

  • Pool surface area for the bucket test

    Surface area in square metres is the single input that turns a millimetre drop into a volume, so it is a precondition of the quantification.

• Central heating pressure loss

  Quantifies water lost from a sealed heating circuit in a UK property by counting top-up events, and converts that volume into cost.

• Cost of delay

  Converts an already quantified rate of loss into cumulative cost across one week, one month, three months, six months and twelve months.

Reference

The constants, rates and definitions the calculators above are built on.

• Water pricing

  Supplies the rate per cubic metre without which no volume on this site can be converted into cost.

  • Affinity Water

    Water only. North and west London, Home Counties, plus separate East and Southeast regions.

  • Anglian Water

    Water and sewerage. East of England.

  • Bournemouth Water

    Water only. Bournemouth and surrounding areas.

  • Bristol Water

    Water only. Bristol and surrounding areas.

  • Cambridge Water

    Water only. Cambridge and surrounding areas.

  • Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water

    Water and sewerage. Most of Wales, Herefordshire and parts of Deeside.

  • Essex & Suffolk Water

    Water only. Essex and Suffolk.

  • Hafren Dyfrdwy

    Water and sewerage. North east and mid Wales.

  • Northumbrian Water

    Water and sewerage. North East England.

  • Portsmouth Water

    Water only. Portsmouth and surrounding areas.

  • SES Water

    Water only. East Surrey, west Kent, west Sussex and south London.

  • Severn Trent Water

    Water and sewerage. Midlands, from mid Wales to the Humber.

  • South East Water

    Water only. Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire and Berkshire.

  • South Staffs Water

    Water only. West Midlands, south Staffordshire and parts of Warwickshire and Worcestershire.

  • South West Water

    Water and sewerage. Cornwall, Devon, the Isles of Scilly and parts of Dorset and Somerset.

  • Southern Water

    Water and sewerage. Kent, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, and East and West Sussex.

  • Thames Water

    Water and sewerage. London and the Thames Valley.

  • United Utilities

    Water and sewerage. North West England.

  • Wessex Water

    Water and sewerage. Dorset, Somerset, Bristol, most of Wiltshire and parts of Gloucestershire and Hampshire.

  • Yorkshire Water

    Water and sewerage. Yorkshire and parts of North Lincolnshire and Derbyshire.

  • Scottish Water

    Water and sewerage. Scotland.

  • NI Water

    Water and sewerage. Northern Ireland.

  • Standing charges

    A standing charge is fixed, so a leak does not change it, and excluding it from the cost of a leak is the correct answer to the opposite intuition.

  • Sewerage charges on leaked water

    Wastewater is billed on a percentage of metered volume, commonly 90 to 95 instead of 100, so applying the full sewerage rate to a leak overstates the cost.

  • Water only companies

    Nine of the twenty England and Wales supply areas buy water from one company and sewerage from another, so the cost conversion needs two rates from two bills.

  • Metered and unmetered charging

    Determines whether a cost conversion applies at all, since an unmetered household pays no volumetric charge on leaked water.

• Measurement

  Defines the units the whole site converts between, and the difference between a rate and a volume.

  • Litres and cubic metres

    The conversion the site performs on every page: 1 cubic metre is 1,000 litres, and UK bills are in cubic metres while losses are felt in litres.

  • Imperial gallons and litres

    Older UK meters and almost every published pool volume are in imperial gallons, so the conversion is required before any figure is comparable.

  • What a cubic metre of water looks like

    Makes the unit the site outputs comprehensible, which is what turns a cubic metre figure into an understood loss.

  • Flow rate and volume

    Confusing a rate with a volume is the single most common misreading of a meter test, and it changes the answer by a factor of the test duration.

• Consumption

  Establishes expected use, which is the baseline that separates water used from water lost.

  • Water use per person per day

    The per-person figure is the benchmark a measured annual volume is compared against to isolate the loss.

  • How much water household fixtures use

    Attributing volume to baths, showers and appliances is what lets a household subtract use from a metered total and leave the loss.

  • Seasonal use and garden watering

    A summer rise in metered volume is the most common false positive in a leak enquiry, so it has to be subtracted before loss is claimed.

• Leak allowances

  An allowance is applied to the volumetric charge, so it changes the cost this site converts a loss into.

  • How to apply for a leak allowance

    The cost figure is only final once an allowance has been claimed or refused, so the claim route is part of the conversion.

  • What a leak allowance covers

    Whether the water element, the sewerage element or neither is covered decides how much of a quantified loss is actually written off.

  • Who is responsible for the supply pipe

    Responsibility for the pipe decides whose cost the measured loss is, which is the last step of converting volume into a bill.

• Insurance

  Trace and access cover pays the cost of locating a quantified loss, so it changes the cost side of the same calculation.

  • Trace and access cover

    A stated policy limit is a hard number that offsets the cost of finding the loss this site has quantified.

  • Escape of water claims

    Escape of water is the named peril that decides whether the damage cost attaches to the property owner or to the policy.

• Detection

  Every result ends in a next action. Once a loss has been quantified, the remaining unknown is where it is, and detection is what that action becomes.

  • Acoustic leak detection

    Describes how a quantified loss is located by the sound of water escaping under pressure, which is the measurement that follows the meter test.

  • Tracer gas leak detection

    Names the tracer gas method correctly, a hydrogen and nitrogen mix introduced into a drained water pipe, as the measurement used where acoustic detection cannot reach.

  • Thermal imaging for water leaks

    Describes locating a quantified loss by the temperature difference it creates, and the conditions under which that measurement fails.

  • When a meter test is not enough

    Marks the boundary of what this site can quantify: the meter gives a rate, and no meter reading gives a position.

About this site

How the figures are derived, where each one came from, and who pays for the site.

• Methodology

  How every figure on the site is derived, end to end, from input through constant to output, including where a band is given instead of a value and why.

• Sources

  Every citation on the site in one table, rendered from data/sources.json, with the date each was last checked.

• About

  Whose site this is, the source context held verbatim, how the site is paid for, and a real contact route for reporting an error in a calculation.

• Site index

  Every published page in one list, grouped as the site is grouped, with what each one is for read from this map.

The same list, for machines

• /sitemap.xml

  Every published URL, with nothing else in it. What a search engine reads.

• /llms.txt

  The same pages as plain text, with who publishes the site, who pays for it, and how to quote a figure from it. Written for a language model deciding whether to cite a page, which is a decision about trust rather than about relevance.