Water Leak In The Parking Lot
I arrived at the store and found a nice stream in the parking lot. Not the way anybody wants to start the day. I called the city as it was leaking out of the ground beside a repair they had done a few years before.
They said they would check it out and let me know. That was on Thursday morning. I never heard back from them so I assumed that it was something they were going to deal with. We all know what “assume” stands for….
The city my stores are in is a decent size but I have found I always get a great response to any calls to the utility companies.
On Monday morning I was back at the store and the river was still running through it. A customer said he called the water department. I mentioned I had called the previous week and not heard back so I figured they were fitting it into their schedule.
A few minutes later they showed up and started checking it out. I mentioned about the call the week before and after checking found it had been put on a repair list and not an investigation list.
They looked at a few things and determined the leak was inside the water meter and it was not their problem.
Next was a call to the landlord. I explained the problem and was told. “OK”. I guess that’s a good thing.
A few minutes later the plumber showed up and started determining the route the piping takes through the parking lot.
Something I have mentioned before is that you should try and learn about the building and utilities that your store is in. It will help contractors diagnose problems and you can make sure that some work in a neighboring business doesn’t affect you. With 24 hour stores, I need the utilities all of the time so I get nervous if a power company truck even pulls into the parking lot.
At this point, I let the attendants know what was going on and asked the plumber to let them know when they were going to shut off the water to make the repair. Normally I like to stay around but I had other appointments so I left it in their hands and everything worked out fine.
Lessons Learned:
Do your own investigation and determine the problem as best you can. As I did not even check the meter on the day I found the problem it would have been easy to see it was spinning and the problem was on my side. This was just laziness on my part.
The water department will reduce the sewer charge on the next bill but the water bill will stand. Based on the conversation I had with the water department about 25 days worth of water usage went through the parking lot in 4 days.
Fortunately, we have very reasonable rates but in other areas, this could be enough to wipe out any profit for the month.
An expensive lesson to just take a few minutes for a simple check.
I lay it all out in here folks. Yes, we all make mistakes and I post mine so others can learn from them. And maybe have a laugh or two.
Ken
