Water Meter Leaking? Who Fixes It and Who Pays
If water is leaking at your meter, the answer to who pays comes down to one question. Is the leak on the street side of the meter, or the house side? Everything up to and including the meter belongs to your water retailer and they repair it at no cost to you. Everything after the meter is yours, and that includes the pipe running across your own front yard.
That sounds simple, and in most cases it is. But Melbourne has three different water retailers with slightly different rules, there are specific exceptions that shift the line, and a leak that looks like it is at the meter is often a leak in your own service pipe surfacing at the nearest low point. This guide shows you how to tell the difference before you call anyone.
In short
- The meter itself and the pipe from the street main to it belong to your water retailer. Report it to them and they fix it free.
- The pipe from the meter outlet to your house is yours, including the garden tap, and it is a licensed plumber’s job at your cost.
- If you are not sure which side it is on, report it to your retailer first. They attend at no charge and will tell you if it is on your side.
- A leak you cannot see but can prove on the meter may qualify for a concealed leak allowance on your bill, but usually only if you repair it promptly and keep the invoice.
- Work Out Exactly Where the Water Is Coming From
- Where the Ownership Line Sits
- Which Retailer Is Yours, and How They Differ
- Who Pays: Four Common Scenarios
- The Exceptions That Move the Line
- How to Test for a Hidden Leak Using Your Meter
- A High Bill From a Leak You Could Not See
- If You Are Renting
- What to Do Today, in Order
- When It Is an Emergency
- Talk to a Licensed Plumber in Melbourne
- Related Plumbing Services
- Frequently Asked Questions
Work Out Exactly Where the Water Is Coming From
Before you make a phone call, spend five minutes identifying the source. It changes who you ring and it saves you paying for a visit you did not need. Open the meter box and look at four things.
The Meter Body and the Dial Face
Water weeping from the meter body itself, from the seam around the dial, or from either of the two unions where the meter joins the pipework, is the retailer’s. You should not touch it, and you should not pay for it.
The Stop Tap
The stop tap next to the meter, the one you would use to shut water off to the whole property, is also the retailer’s on a standard Melbourne connection. A leaking water meter stop tap usually weeps from the gland nut at the base of the handle and often starts after someone has turned it for the first time in years. Still the retailer’s.
The Inlet Side Versus the Outlet Side
Trace the pipe. One side runs towards the street and the main. The other runs towards your house. If the water is coming from the street side of the meter, it is the retailer’s. If it is coming from the outlet side, meaning the connection on the house side or the pipe heading into your yard, it is yours.
Water Filling the Box From Below
This is the one that catches people. If the box has water in the bottom and you cannot see it coming from any fitting, the leak is very often further along your pipe, and the water is tracking back along the trench and collecting in the box because that is the lowest open point. Look for a persistently wet patch of lawn, moss or unusually green grass between the meter and the house, and run the meter test further down.
Where the Ownership Line Sits
In Victoria the principle is consistent across all three metropolitan retailers. The retailer owns and maintains the water main in the street, the service pipe from that main up to your meter, and the meter and stop tap themselves. From the outlet of the meter onwards, the pipework is the property owner’s, and that is true even though a good length of it usually runs under your own front garden, driveway or nature strip.
So the meter is not the boundary of your land. It is the boundary of responsibility, and it sits inside your property on most Melbourne blocks. People reasonably assume the retailer looks after anything outside the house. It does not. It looks after anything up to the meter.
That outlet-side pipe is also where expensive leaks happen, because it is old, buried, and nobody looks at it. On Melbourne’s reactive clay soils the ground moves considerably between a wet winter and a dry summer, and that movement is what finally cracks a service pipe that has been fine for thirty years. The same soil movement is behind a lot of indoor failures too. See why pipes burst in hot, dry weather in Melbourne.
Which Retailer Is Yours, and How They Differ
Melbourne is split between three retailers. Your bill tells you which one you are with. The broad rule is the same for all three, but the fine print and the exceptions differ, so it is worth knowing who you are dealing with before you call.
Swipe the table to see more →
| Retailer | Rough area | What they cover | Faults line |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yarra Valley Water | Northern and eastern Melbourne | The main, the pipe from the main to your meter, and the meter and stop tap. They repair up to and including the meter. They will not reimburse repairs to your internal or outlet-side pipework. | 13 2762 24/7 |
| South East Water | South-eastern Melbourne, bayside, Mornington Peninsula | The meter body, the stop tap, and the pipes from the street to the meter. From the meter to the house is the owner’s, including the garden tap. | 132 812 24/7 |
| Greater Western Water | Western and north-western Melbourne, plus parts of regional Victoria | Same principle. The main, the service to the meter, and the meter assembly. Owner’s responsibility begins after the meter. | 13 44 99 24/7 |
All three run their faults lines 24 hours a day, and all three attend a reported leak at no charge. If you are genuinely unsure which side the leak is on, call them first. The worst outcome is that they tell you it is yours, which is exactly the information you needed, and it cost you nothing.
Who Pays: Four Common Scenarios
Swipe the table to see more →
| Scenario | Who fixes it | Who pays | Who to call |
|---|---|---|---|
| Water weeping from the meter body, dial seam or either meter union | Your water retailer | Retailer, no cost to you | Retailer faults line |
| Stop tap at the meter leaking from the gland or base | Your water retailer | Retailer, no cost to you | Retailer faults line |
| Leak on the house side of the meter, or anywhere along the pipe to the house | A licensed plumber | Property owner | Licensed plumber |
| Water in the meter box but no visible source, meter turning with everything off | Leak detection first, then a licensed plumber | Owner, if it is past the meter | Retailer first, then a plumber |
The Exceptions That Move the Line
There are situations where the simple meter-is-the-line rule does not hold, and they are worth knowing, because they are exactly the cases where people end up paying for something they did not have to.
- The meter sits well inside your boundary. Retailers set a limit on how far in they will take responsibility. South East Water works to roughly a metre inside the property boundary, Yarra Valley Water to around two metres. Beyond that, the pipe running from the boundary to the meter can become the owner’s even though it is on the street side of the meter. If your meter is set back from the fence line, ask.
- The meter is inside, under or behind a structure. Where a meter has been built into or beneath a wall, enclosed, or made hard to access, the retailer’s obligation can be limited because they cannot reasonably maintain it.
- The property is on a private water main. Common in some unit developments, retirement villages and older subdivisions. A private main is owned collectively by the properties it serves, not by the retailer, so repairs are the owners’ cost.
- Units and apartments with check meters. In a block where individual units have their own sub-meters off a common supply, the retailer typically covers only the physical meters. The common pipework between them is the owners corporation’s. This catches a lot of unit owners out.
- An older meter housing or enclosure. Some older installations have a housing or box arrangement around the meter that is not part of the retailer’s asset even though the meter inside it is.
None of these are reasons not to call your retailer. They are reasons to ask the specific question when you do: does your responsibility extend to where this leak is? Get the answer before you book a plumber.
How to Test for a Hidden Leak Using Your Meter
This is the single most useful thing you can do before calling anyone, and it takes about twenty minutes. It tells you whether water is moving through your meter when nothing in the house is using it.
The twenty-minute meter test
- Turn off everything that uses water. All taps inside and out, the dishwasher, the washing machine, the irrigation controller, any evaporative cooler, any ice maker. If you have a toilet with a slow weep into the pan, that will show up as a leak, so note it rather than ignore it.
- Go to the meter and write down every digit. Include the small black-on-white or red decimal dials, not just the large numbers. Those small dials are where a slow leak shows.
- Look for a leak indicator. Many Melbourne meters have a small triangular, star-shaped or disc-shaped indicator that spins at very low flow rates. If it is turning with everything off, water is flowing. That is your answer immediately.
- Wait at least 30 minutes without using any water. Longer is better. Two hours, or overnight, catches a very slow leak that half an hour misses.
- Read the meter again. Any increase means water passed through the meter with nothing turned on. Because the meter is upstream of all your pipework, that water went somewhere on your side of it.
If the reading moved, isolate further. Shut the stop tap at the meter, wait, and read again. The meter should now be completely still, which confirms the meter and stop tap are holding. Then, if your property has a separate isolation valve where the service enters the house, shut that instead and leave the meter stop tap open. If the meter still creeps, the leak is in the buried pipe between the meter and the house. If it stops, the leak is inside.
A leak in the buried section is where professional leak detection earns its cost. Acoustic listening equipment and correlation gear locate the leak to within a small area so the repair is one targeted excavation rather than a trench down the length of your front yard. On a paved driveway or an established garden, that difference is substantial.
A High Bill From a Leak You Could Not See
A concealed leak on your side of the meter runs 24 hours a day and all of it is metered to you. A pinhole in a buried service pipe can add thousands of litres before anything surfaces, and the first sign is usually the bill rather than a wet patch.
All three Melbourne retailers have some form of concealed leak or water loss allowance for exactly this situation. The names, amounts and eligibility rules differ, but the shape of it is consistent, and so are the conditions that trip people up.
- The leak has to have been genuinely concealed, meaning underground, inside a wall, or under a slab. A dripping tap, a running toilet or a leaking hose fitting will not qualify, because you could reasonably have found it.
- You generally have to repair it promptly once you know. Leaving a known leak running while you dispute the bill usually ends the claim.
- You need the licensed plumber’s invoice, and it needs to describe the leak, where it was, and the date of repair. Ask your plumber for this specifically, because a one-line “plumbing repairs” invoice is often not enough.
- There is a time limit. Claims are tied to the billing periods affected, so do not sit on it for a year.
Practical order of operations: get it repaired, get a properly worded invoice, then contact your retailer’s billing team and ask what their concealed leak allowance requires. Do not pay a disputed bill and then ask. Ask while the account is still in question.
If You Are Renting
A leaking water meter or a burst water service is not something a renter is expected to pay for or arrange. Under Victorian rental law, a burst water service and a serious water leak are both classed as urgent repairs, which means the rental provider must arrange them immediately and you can escalate if they do not respond.
Report it to the rental provider or agent in writing straight away and keep the message. If it is on the retailer’s side you can also report it to the retailer’s faults line yourself, because they will attend regardless of who is on the lease. For the escalation steps and the timeframes, see our guide to urgent plumbing repairs for renters in Victoria.
What to Do Today, in Order
Six steps, in this order
- Photograph it. Open the meter box, take clear photos of where the water is coming from, and note the date. This matters for both a retailer claim and a leak allowance.
- Decide which side it is on using the four checks at the top of this guide.
- If it looks like the meter, the stop tap or the street side, call your retailer’s faults line. It is free, it is 24 hours, and they will attend.
- If it is clearly on the house side, turn off the stop tap at the meter if water is running to waste, then call a licensed plumber.
- If you cannot tell, run the meter test, then call the retailer first anyway. Let them rule their side out at no cost before you spend money.
- Either way, read your meter and write it down. If this turns into a bill dispute later, a dated reading from today is the most useful thing you will have.
And if the leak turns out to be on your side but inside rather than underground, that is usually a smaller job than people fear. Leaking taps and pipes is routine work, and catching it early is the difference between a repair and a replacement.
When It Is an Emergency, Not a Job for Monday
Most meter leaks are a weep you can live with for a day or two. Call immediately, at any hour, if any of these apply.
- Water is coming out fast enough to pool, run down a driveway or flow onto a footpath.
- You cannot shut it off, or the stop tap will not hold.
- Water is tracking towards or under the house, a garage or a slab.
- The ground around the meter has slumped, washed out or gone soft.
- You have lost pressure or supply to the house along with the leak.
A fast leak on the retailer’s side goes to their faults line. A fast leak on your side goes to an emergency plumber, and in the meantime shutting the stop tap at the meter stops the water and stops the meter counting it.
Talk to a Licensed Plumber in Melbourne
If the leak is on your side of the meter, or your meter is turning with every tap off and you cannot find where the water is going, Plumb Construct can locate it and repair it. We are licensed, we work across Melbourne, and we answer emergency calls 24/7.
Related Plumbing Services
Frequently Asked Questions About Leaking Water Meters
Who is responsible for a leaking water meter in Melbourne?
Your water retailer. The meter, the stop tap beside it and the pipe running from the street main to the meter are all retailer assets, and they repair them at no cost to you. Responsibility passes to the property owner at the outlet of the meter, which means the buried pipe from the meter to your house is yours even though it is outside the building.
Will my water retailer charge me to come and look at it?
No. Yarra Valley Water, South East Water and Greater Western Water all run 24-hour faults lines and attend reported leaks at no charge. If they find the leak is on your side of the meter they will tell you and leave it with you, but the inspection itself does not cost you anything, which is why it is worth calling them first whenever you are unsure.
There is water in the meter box but I cannot see where it is coming from. What does that mean?
Usually that the leak is further along your own service pipe and the water is tracking back down the trench to collect in the box, because the box is the lowest open point. Run the meter test. Turn everything off, read the meter, wait at least 30 minutes, then read it again. If it moved, water is passing the meter with nothing on, and the leak is on your side.
Can I get money back on a high bill caused by a hidden leak?
Often, yes. All three Melbourne retailers offer some form of concealed leak allowance where the leak was genuinely hidden, meaning underground, in a wall or under a slab, and you repaired it promptly once you knew. You will need your licensed plumber’s invoice describing the leak, its location and the repair date, and you need to claim within the billing periods affected. A dripping tap or a running toilet will not qualify, because those are considered findable.
Can I turn the stop tap off at the meter myself?
Yes. Turning the stop tap at your meter to shut water off to the property is something you are entitled to do, and it is the right move if water is running to waste. Turn it slowly and only as far as it wants to go, because on an old tap forcing it is how you turn a weep into a proper leak. Do not attempt to tighten, pack or remove any part of the meter or stop tap assembly. That is retailer equipment, and interfering with it can make you liable for the damage.
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