You don't need any special equipment to confirm whether your property is losing water — just your water meter, a notepad and half an hour. These are the exact checks we ask Gold Coast customers to run before we attend, because they tell us whether there's a leak, roughly how big it is, and which side of the system it's on.
Step 1: Find Your Water Meter
On most Gold Coast properties the meter sits in a plastic or concrete box near the front boundary, often close to the driveway or fence line. Lift the lid carefully (watch for ants and the odd green tree frog) and note the full reading, including the red numbers or dials which measure litres.
Step 2: Shut Everything Off
Turn off every tap inside and outside the house. Make sure the washing machine, dishwasher, ice maker, irrigation controller, pool auto top-up and evaporative cooling are all off. Don't flush any toilets during the test.
Step 3: Wait 30–60 Minutes
Take a photo of the meter, wait at least half an hour, then photograph it again. No movement means no constant leak — your high bill may be a one-off usage event or a leaking toilet that only runs after flushing. Any movement means water is escaping continuously somewhere on your side of the meter.
Step 4: Isolate Hot vs Cold
If the meter is moving, shut the isolation valve on the cold inlet of your hot water system and repeat the test. If the movement stops, the leak is on your hot water line — very common in slab leaks. If it continues, the leak is on the cold side: the underground main, toilets, irrigation or pool plumbing.
Two Bonus Tests
The toilet dye test
Drop food colouring into each cistern and wait 15 minutes without flushing. Colour appearing in the bowl means the flush valve is leaking — a fix that often costs less than one month of the water it wastes.
The pool bucket test
Fill a bucket with pool water and sit it on a pool step so the water levels inside and outside the bucket match. After 24 hours, compare: if the pool level has dropped more than the bucket level, the pool is leaking rather than evaporating.
What Your Results Mean
A moving meter with everything off is a confirmed leak, and every day it runs adds to your bill and the damage. This is the point to bring in professional acoustic, thermal and tracer gas equipment to pinpoint the leak without digging. Call Creative Coast Plumbing & Gas on 0485 090 185 and tell us your meter test results — we'll triage the job over the phone and usually attend the same day, anywhere on the Gold Coast.
Sound familiar?
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