Page 284 - Water Loss Control

Contr olling Appar ent Losses—Unauthorized Consumption 253

Unlike water visibly spewing forth from a fire hydrant, water obtained illegally at the
customer endpoint occurs at meter/piping locations inside buildings or meter pits, and
is likely to escape detection of all but those with a trained eye. The good news is that the
array of new capabilities offered under the label of advanced metering infrastructure
(AMI) gives water utilities effective new tools to detect signs of illegal endpoint con-
sumption (see Chap. 13, Sec. 13.1.3).
The most common ways to violate water service provisions of a water utility include
• Tampering with customer meters
• Tampering with meter reading equipment
• Making illegal connections into building piping upstream of the water meter
• Illegal use of (often unmetered) fire connection lines for routine water supply
• Illegally reopening a curbstop/valve on customer service connection piping after
it has been closed as an enforcement action for nonpayment by the customer
• Opening valves that should remain closed: bypasses around large meters,
control valves to neighboring water utilities, etc.
• Any other means to corrupt the utility metering and billing process to illegally
obtain water service at partial or zero cost

Meter tampering has been a common illegal action virtually as long as water utili-
ties have employed meters to register consumption volumes to serve as the basis of
customer billing. Perhaps the most common form of tampering has been jumping the
meter. This is accomplished by closing the service connection supply curbstop/valve,
removing the meter, and installing a straight piece of pipe (“jumper”) in place of the
meter, as shown in Fig. 15.3. The water thief routinely places the meter back into the line

FIGURE 15.3 Bypassing a water meter is not complicated. This photo shows a “cheater” or
“jumper” pipe (top) that was illegally used to replace the meter in the meter setter. In the lower
part of this meter pit, is a typical 5/8-in residential meter. (Source: Morgantown Utility Board.)