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What You Have to Be Able to Show
Leak adjustment schemes are not persuaded by an account of what happened. They want dates and a receipt, and both are easy to have if you know in advance that they will be asked for.
The essentials
Adjustment schemes ask for the same small set of things: the bill that rose, evidence of the leak itself, and a receipt showing the repair was carried out and when. The repair receipt usually matters more than the diagnosis, because it is what dates the fix.
The meter with everything off
Oregon City states the eligibility test plainly: the meter must register consumption when no water is in use. That is the whole of it. If the dial or the low-flow indicator moves while nothing in the building is running, water is leaving the system somewhere between the meter and the last fixture.
Do it properly: everything off, including anything automatic — irrigation, an ice maker, a water softener mid-regeneration, a top-up valve on a boiler. Write down the reading, the date and the time. That note is the beginning of the claim.
Source: City of Oregon City, Oregon, Water Leak Policy and Adjustment Application.
Two dates, and they are not the same date
Oregon City asks for the date the leak was detected and the date the leak was repaired, alongside a description of the repairs. They are asked for separately because the gap between them is what the scheme is judging you on: a long gap looks like a leak you lived with.
So record the day you first had evidence rather than the day you first had a suspicion, and then move.
The receipt is the load-bearing document
Both schemes want proof of repair — a plumber’s bill or receipt. New York will waive it where the property has a working automated meter reading device, because then the utility can see the consumption fall by itself, but that is an exception rather than the rule.
Make sure the invoice says what was repaired and where, not just “plumbing work”. An invoice that does not describe a leak repair is not evidence of one.
Source: New York City Department of Environmental Protection, Leak Forgiveness Program; City of Oregon City, Oregon, Water Leak Policy and Adjustment Application.
Keep the detection report too
If somebody is paid to locate the leak before it is dug up, ask for their findings in writing: where they located it, by what method, and what the meter was doing when they arrived and when they left.
It is not usually required. It is the document that answers an argument about whether the leak could reasonably have been found sooner, which is exactly the argument an extension turns on.
Next
Check with your water utility first.If the leak is on their side it is not your bill and not your excavation, and that call is free. If it is yours, come back and we will route you to a local contractor who can find it, chosen on the ZIP code you give. We never charge you either way. Nor must it be a leak: whatever the plumbing is doing, this number reaches somebody.
Call (888) 530-1544