Did you receive a potential leak notification?
What to do if we suspect there may be a leak on your property
If you’ve received a potential leak notification, it’s because we’ve noticed an unusual volume of water is continuously flowing to your property.
Check for leaks
One little leak can quickly cost a lot of water and money. Finding and fixing leaks early saves bucket loads of water.
Pipes, hot water services, plumbing fixtures, and fittings can all get leaks regardless of age, location, or construction method. They can occur in new homes, old homes, inside or outside, above or under the ground.
For more information visit Check for leaks
Get alerts faster
Create a Barwon Water online account and make sure all your contact details are up to date to receive potential leak alerts directly to your phone or email so that you can act faster, protect your property and save money.
What causes a potential leak notification?
Typically a potential leak notification is sent after we detect more than 5 litres of water continuously flowing to a property every hour for more than 24 hours, every day for 7 days. For small amounts of water our systems will wait the full seven days before sending a notification to help avoid false positives.
If we detect more than 1,000 litres of water has been flowing to a property in just 24 hours, we will try and alert you within 24 hours to help you avoid any potential property damage. In these cases we ask customers to let us know if they’ve investigated the cause, so we can switch o any additional notifications if required.
For more information on how digital meters work visit Water Meters
What do our customers say?
Potential leak alerts are already helping customers find and fix hidden leaks that would otherwise go undetected. One customer in Geelong told us that "The leak alert gave us important information to make a decision. We immediately started investigating and were able to find and repair a leak we otherwise may not have discovered... When we need to make every drop count and we're shaving a minute o our shower to save 9 litres of water, losing 16 litres an hour (to a leak) is actually a really big deal."
If you’ve received a potential leak alert and run into any issues while searching for a leak, we’re here to help. Call us on 1300 656 007
Who is responsible for fixing leaks?
Both Barwon Water and property owners are responsible for ensuring we protect the system that serves us and ensuring that water is not wasted.
Barwon Water owns and is responsible for water source infrastructure up to and including the maintenance of the water meter. Property owners are responsible for maintaining easy access to the water meter and are responsible for any pipes, fittings and fixtures up to the sewer connection point.
To learn more visit Customer leaks
Are you eligible for payment assistance?
If you’ve received an unusually high bill due to a leak that could not have been reasonably detected by you, you may be eligible for a one-off allowance to cover a portion of the increased water usage charges.
To check your eligibility, please give us a call or visit Concessions and payment assistance.