Your Water System

The Maxwell Water Department would like to help you understand your homes water system. Your system will start with a corporation cock (brass valve) attached to the City’s water main near your home. This connection is the beginning of your water system. From your corporation cock, you will have a water line that runs to a curb stop box. This stop box will be the first shutoff to your home system. This will be located in the yard of your home. The water line continues on from that shutoff into your home. Once the water line enters your home, you should have another shutoff valve before the water meter. Most of these connections are made in a basement or a crawl space. The water meter belongs to the City. The Water Department maintains this meter and replaces it when deemed necessary. Each meter is an accurate and dependable water measuring device that registers all of the gallons used in your home.

There are some concerns from time to time about the accuracy of the water meters. The City of Maxwell uses positive displacement meters in the system. This means water has to enter the chamber to make the disk move and record any usage. It is impossible for this type of meter to register more usage than what has been used within the home. Most cases of high water usage involve leaks within the home. A toilet flapper leak, overflow leaking, a dripping faucet or a water softener continuing to recycle can easily waste thousands of gallons of water each month. Since your home is connected to a sewer system, you pay for the water as it enters and as it leaves your home. This excessive usage can add up quickly. Finding the leaks and repairing them saves not only water, but also money.

A simple procedure can be used to find the leaks in your home. The first thing to do is find your meter. Turn off all of your water inside and outside of your home, but leave your shutoff valve open. Your meter will have a small dial or triangle on its face. It is used as a leak detector. If this is moving at all, you have a water leak. If you determine you have a leak, then try to determine where the leak is on your own or contact a plumber to help determine where the leak is coming from.

The majority of the leaks are in the toilets. To determine if you have a leak in a toilet, put a few drops of food coloring in the toilet tank. Watch the bowl for about 15 minutes. If colored water appears in the bowl, you have a leak. In that case you can either attempt to fix it yourself, or call in a plumber. The other possible leak in a toilet will be the overflow valve. To check for this, sprinkle powder on top of the water in the tank. If this powder moves toward the overflow tube, you probably have an overflow leak. Gently bend the float arm down to shut off the valve before water spills into the tube. Toilets are notorious for their silent leaks. A toilet that overflows just one gallon every five minutes will waste 288 gallons of water per day or 8,640 gallons per month.