☎ Water where it should not be? Talk it through with a local Arvada plumber at (303) 552-3896.
The Overnight Read
Find your meter, usually in a pit near the street, and note the exact reading, including the small sweep dial or the flow indicator. Do it late at night after the last water use, then read it again before anyone wakes and uses water. A number that moved overnight, with nothing running, is proof of a continuous leak somewhere in the system.
This overnight read is worth more than any hunch, because it separates a real ongoing loss from a one-time high-use event that a bill alone cannot distinguish. It is the same first move our water line service runs on arrival.
Isolate the House From the Yard
Now find where the loss lives. Close the main shutoff where the service line enters the house, then watch the meter. If it still moves once the house is closed off, the loss lives in the buried service line running from meter to house. If it stops, the loss is somewhere inside.
Split it further with the irrigation shutoff: close the sprinkler system's backflow valve separately and watch again. A loss that ends when irrigation shuts belongs to the sprinklers; one that outlasts both valves points at the domestic supply. Ten minutes of valve work usually cuts a six-suspect list to one, the sorting logic on our yard leak page.
Get the Utility's Daily Graph
Most utilities log consumption by the day, and a call requesting your daily usage breakdown adds a timeline to the diagnosis. A leak that began on a specific date shows as an obvious step change in the graph, which tells you roughly when it started and, sometimes, what changed then, a fixture, a freeze, a repair.
Between the overnight read, the isolation test, and the daily graph, you arrive at a professional call already knowing whether the loss is real, roughly where it lives, and when it started. That trims the visit and the bill attached to it.
When to Stop DIYing and Call
The meter tells you a leak exists and which branch owns it; it does not tell you the exact spot inside a wall or under a slab. Once you have confirmed a hidden pressurized loss, the next step is instrument location, and that is the line between owner testing and professional tools.
Bring your three facts, creeps overnight, survives house isolation or not, started around this date, to (303) 552-3896, and the right equipment rides out with the truck. Owners on the older service lines around Allendale run this sequence most.
Meter Questions From Arvada
What does the little dial on my meter do?
That sweep hand or triangular flow indicator registers even tiny flows, which makes it the sensitive part of the leak test. If it creeps while every fixture is off, water is moving somewhere it should not be. If it sits perfectly still, no continuous leak is present.
The meter moves even with my main shutoff closed. What does that mean?
It means the loss is on the street side of your shutoff, in the buried service line between meter and house, which is the homeowner's responsibility in Arvada. That is a locating-and-repair case, and precise location before digging is what keeps it from becoming a trenched yard.
Can I really diagnose this myself?
You can get remarkably far: confirm the leak exists, isolate which branch, and date its start. What you cannot do without instruments is pinpoint the exact spot inside a wall or under concrete. The DIY work makes the professional visit shorter and cheaper, which is the whole point.