Toronto Water says $2,500 bill caused by leaking toilet, Scarborough man disagrees

City News
By Meredith Bond & Adrian Ghobrial
14 May 2018

Without knowing it, a Scarborough man may have been flushing thousands of dollars down the toilet.

When Vipin Sehgal received his water bill at the end of February, he was shocked to see he owed the City of Toronto over $2,500.

His bill showed that starting in mid-January, his water usage started climbing before finally peaking on February 26 and then dropping down to a somewhat reasonable consumption level.

The total usage for that massive bill was 1572 cubic metres or almost 1.5 million litres of water over five months — enough to fill five average-sized swimming pools.

Seghal says his bill is usually around $300 dollars and averages around 100 cubic metres.

Immediately, Seghal realized something was wrong as he could not recall any changes to his family’s water consumption over that time period.

He contacted Toronto Water, who sent a plumber out to investigate and discovered a small leak in the toilet. The city concluded the leaky toilet was to blame for the spike in water consumption.

However, the plumber didn’t come to his home until March 23, almost a month after Seghal’s water consumption had returned to near normal levels.

Seghal says he has paid $350 of the $2,500 bill as a show of good faith while he waits for them to investigate what really caused the spike, but the city has slapped on a penalty for late payment.

The fact that they are charging him interest now on his non-payment is “just adding insult to injury,” he said, adding that it’s, “another slap in the face from city workers.”

Seghal says it’s clear to him there are inaccuracies in the system, whether it’s a human issue or a mechanical one.

City of Toronto’s Manager of Utility Billing Anthony Fabrizi says an investigation was launched after Seghal complained about the high bill and Toronto Water will soon be testing the meter to determine if anything went wrong, but he said a faulty toilet could explain the spike.

Fabrizi says the city believes that Seghal tried fixing his toilet, but couldn’t fully stop the leak, which is why the plumber still found evidence of a much smaller leak, a month later.

Seghal strongly contends he did not touch the toilet and was not aware of any leak until the city’s plumber discovered it.

Manager of Customer Care Services at Toronto Water Carlo Casale says the water gauges very rarely get it wrong.

Casale says when you look at the math from the bill, the spike can easily be attribute to a leaky toilet.

“If you think of a toilet, most tanks are about six litres in volume, so after you flush, say it takes 30 seconds to fill, that’s 12 litres a minute, over a day that’s $66 a day. In a month, that’s about $2,000 a month. It’s very easy for it to add up.”

When told that Seghal had yet to fix the small leak in his toilet and his water consumption levels had returned to normal, Casale says, “We can only charge by what goes through the meter. It’s very mechanical. Whatever goes through there, that’s what we’re going to charge.”

Casale did offer some tips if you want to avoid this happening in your home.

“One way to determine if a toilet is leaking is to listen. You can usually hear it leaking,” Casale said. “If not, you can usually do a little dye test, where you add in a little bit of food colouring, or even a tea bag, and wait about 10-15 minutes and see if the coloured water goes into the bowl. That’s one way to indicate if there’s a running toilet that’s uncontrolled.”

There is also a website called “My Water Toronto” where you can check your daily, weekly, and monthly water usage.

Fabrizi says there is a provision in their bylaws called the unexplained consumption increase. But, at this time, since the city has determined what they believe caused the leak, the Seghal’s can’t receive an adjustment under this provision.

The city receives around 1,000 complaints a year from people with high bills and in around 70 per cent of the cases, they give the homeowner at least a partial break on the bill.

If the city does find there was a problem with Seghal’s metre, Fabrizi says all the extra fees will be reversed.

Ultimately, there is no guarantee that the Seghals won’t have to pay their $2,500 bill.


The shocking cost of running toilets in NYC apartments

The Water Scrooge
David Schwartz
25 August 2016

The crashing of ocean waves. The babbling of brooks. The pitter-patter of rain on a tin roof.

For many of us, the sound of running water soothes like little else can. But we can all readily agree, the sound is anything but calming when it's coming from our toilets' tanks. According to the American Water Works Association, an estimated 1 in 5 toilets has a leak at any given moment. The culprit?

More often than not, it's an intermittently running toilet that has either
a). Not yet been identified or
b). Isn't seen as a cause for concern.

But anyone who likes saving money should be concerned. Running toilet water wastes about 25 times more water than a shower leak and four times as much water as a simple faucet leak. As you can imagine, the cost of such wastefulness significantly adds up over the course of a month, let alone a calendar year.

How much is this really costing landlords (condos)?
According to the City of New York, where the cost of water has risen 200 percent over the past decade, a running toilet with a medium leak will typically waste 250 gallons per day, costing over $100 a month. Got an open-fill valve? That can waste up to 4,000 gallons per day, costing about $1,350 a month.

If you own a multi-family building that contains 800 toilets, you can assume 160 of these have an undetected leak RIGHT NOW. That translates to $13,120 down the drain, assuming they all have medium sized leaks, and tens of thousand dollars more if any of them have high-volume leaks. You may be wondering: How does this happen? And how can I catch these leaks before they start?

Let's keep going...

The 'not so mysterious' cause of running toilets
Toilets operate off gravity – meaning, when you push down on the lever it lifts up a rubber flapper, allowing water to run out of the tank and into the bowl. Once the water in the tank runs out, the flapper closes and allows the tank to refill. The tank water then slowly rises until a float closes the intake. The problem?

Toilets are originally calibrated in dry, factory settings. As such, the parts within the tank are subject to changes over time, due to water pressure, mineral deposits and natural aging. Each year a toilet is in operation, its internal components are becoming less and less efficient. The good news is all of these issues can be easily fixed once identified. Here are some of the most common causes of a running toilet:

•	A damaged or warped flapper that is no longer providing a water-tight seal on the flush valve.
•	A flapper, trip lever or chain that has lost alignment with its flush valve and created a gap.
•	A flush valve that has developed small cuts, causing leaks between it and the flapper.
•	A "stuck" open fill valve that is causing water waste as it flows down the overflow tube.

How to easily identify running toilets
1. Insert a couple drops of food coloring into the tank.
2. Avoid flushing the toilet for 20 to 30 minutes.
3. Check for color in the bowl. See color?
You've got a running toilet leak!

Although testing for toilet leaks is simple, landlords of large, residential buildings still face an annoying problem: How can you efficiently check ALL of your units for toilet leaks, when their malfunctions don't conform to any kind of schedule? Even if you scheduled an annual leak check of all unit toilets, several toilets that initially appear fine upon inspection may begin leaking the very next month!

How to Pro-Actively Find Leaks (and save)
1. Routinely calibrate toilets
Do commit to calibrating all toilets once per year. Update old, rubber flappers; reset water flow to the minimum amount necessary and ensure there are no active leaks.

2. Use in-tank toilet cleaners with care
Large tablets made of chemicals and chlorine liquid intended to help keep the toilet bowl clean, can wear away flappers over time. Unfortunately, such wear is often not covered by warranty. The damage caused by in-tank cleaners is often the result of a toilet not being flushed for a long period while a house is empty. Without flushing, the chlorine content of the tank water increases and is more likely to wear away the flapper.

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