The Water District Says I Have a Leak. What Do I Do Now?

What the notice actually means

The Las Vegas Valley Water District reaches out to account holders when continuous water flow is detected through the water meter at the property for at least three days. The district credits advanced metering technology for this. In plain terms, the meter has been registering flow around the clock, including in the small hours when a household normally uses nothing at all.

That is a meaningful signal, because it is the pattern a leak makes and not the pattern a household makes. People sleep. Leaks do not.

Step one: confirm it yourself in about twenty minutes

Before you call anyone, you can verify the notice and sometimes narrow it down a long way. This is safe to do yourself and it costs nothing.

1. Turn off every water-using thing in the house. All faucets, the ice maker, the washing machine, the dishwasher. Do not forget the irrigation controller, and set it to off rather than waiting for the next cycle.
2. Find your water meter, usually in a box set flush with the ground between the house and the street.
3. Look at the leak indicator, a small triangle, star, or dial on the meter face that spins when water is moving. Watch it for a minute or two.
4. If it is turning with everything off, water is going somewhere. Note the exact reading, wait thirty minutes without using any water, and read it again. The difference tells you roughly how fast you are losing it.
5. Now close your main shutoff valve to the house and watch the indicator again. If it stops, the leak is inside the house or between the shutoff and the house. If it keeps turning with the house valve closed, the leak is between the meter and your shutoff, which usually means the buried service line.

That last step is the most useful one, because it splits the problem in half. If you are not sure where your shutoff is, here is where to find it in a Las Vegas home.

Where the water usually turns out to be going

A continuous flow notice does not point at a cause, but some causes are far more likely than others, and a few of them are cheap enough to be worth checking before anything else.

• A running toilet. The most common cause by a wide margin and the easiest to miss, because a worn flapper can leak silently into the bowl. Put a few drops of food coloring in the tank, wait twenty minutes without flushing, and look in the bowl. Color in the bowl means the flapper is passing water.
• Irrigation. A cracked lateral line, a stuck valve, or a broken head can run for days underground without anything showing on the surface, particularly in gravel landscaping.
• The buried service line between the meter and the house. This is the homeowner side of the system, and the district describes a service line as the pipe that runs from the water meter to the house.
• A slab leak. Homes here sit on slab-on-grade, so a supply line under the concrete can leak for a long time with no puddle. The usual tells are a warm spot on the floor, a faint sound of running water with everything off, or unexplained humidity.
• A water heater relief valve or a softener stuck in regeneration, both of which can send water to a drain continuously without anyone noticing.

The deadlines that decide whether your bill gets adjusted

This is the part worth paying attention to, because it is the part with a clock on it. The water district runs a Leak Adjustment Program for customers who get an unusually high bill because of a leak. It applies after the leak has been repaired, and the published conditions are specific.

The adjustment is calculated based on the leak volume. The district does not publish a dollar figure or a formula, so treat any specific number you see quoted elsewhere with suspicion. Expect it to take up to three billing cycles to show up on the account.

Keep the paperwork, because you will need it

Whoever does the repair, make sure you end up with a dated invoice that says plainly what was leaking and what was done to fix it. The district also runs a separate reimbursement program covering up to half the repair cost, capped at $2,000 per event, and that one does require a paid invoice and a minimum repair amount, for single-family residential property owners. There is a further assistance program for income-eligible homeowners, handled through community partners rather than by the district itself.

Eligibility rules change, so check the current terms on the district website or call them before assuming you qualify for any of these.

If you are out of town

Getting one of these notices while you are away is the worst version of this problem, because the water keeps running and the clock keeps ticking. If nobody can get into the property, the useful move is to have someone close the main shutoff to stop the loss, then arrange the diagnosis. We can work with a neighbor, a property manager, or a family member who has access, and we can give you the documentation you need for the adjustment filing.

Getting the leak found without guessing

If your own meter test did not tell you where the water is going, the next step is locating it properly rather than opening up drywall or concrete hoping to get lucky. Our leak detection and repair service finds the leak first and then fixes it, which keeps the repair as small as it can be and gives you a clear invoice describing the cause. If your bill is what brought you here, why water bills spike in Las Vegas covers the other causes worth ruling out.

Kingdom Plumbing is family-owned, licensed, bonded and insured (NV Contractors License #0085422), with offices on Farm Road in Centennial, West Cheyenne serving Summerlin, Lenoir Street in Summerlin South, and two in Henderson. We are available 24/7, a real person answers, and you approve an upfront flat-rate quote before any work starts. Call (702) 840-5037 or request service online.