I don’t pay my water bill so why should I report a leak?

As a renter, you may not be responsible for your water bill, so why would you want to get involved with fixing leaks? Well reporting a leak isn’t actually as much hassle as you may think, and you'll be doing the Darwin region a huge favour by helping to save this precious resource.  

So you think your rental property may have a leak?  This simple 3 -step leak check will help you confirm your suspicions: 

Step 1: Ask people in your home not to use water while you do the test, and make sure that there is no water being used in your home i.e. that the washing machine is not on.

Step 2: Go to your water meter and take a reading of the last two red digits on your water meter - write down or take a photo of the reading.

Step 3: Wait 5 minutes – remember not to use any water during this time. Take a reading of the last two digits in red. If there was any movement of the dial, you may have a leak - even the smallest movement can add up to a lot of wasted water over a year.

Did your meter move? This could indicate that you may have a hidden leak.  All you need to do now is let your property manager or landlord know as soon as possible by following the ‘reporting of issues’ process identified in your tenancy agreement.

If you are paying for water use at the property, it is in your best interest to get any leaks fixed as soon as possible as you are the person being charged for the water use. 

Once you have fixed your leak, why not let us know by signing up to be a Water Champion!

Fixing a leak is important; you can feel like you’ve done your bit for the environment. The reality is that Darwin is currently using more water than can be captured and supplied. We currently use up to twice as much water as other cities with a similar climate in Australia.

By working together with Darwin residents and businesses finding and fixing leaks in 2017, we’re really pleased to report that over 1 billion litres of water was saved. But we need to keep up the good work of finding, checking, reporting and fixing leaks to save our precious water resource.

Many people think that Darwin has an endless supply of water, but this is a myth. We are currently using more water than can be captured and supplied in the long term.