Repair guide · Diagnostics

Why is my water bill so high?

The call usually starts the same way: "My water bill doubled and I have no idea why." Nine times out of ten in our work, the culprit is the sprinkler system — and the reason you can't see it is that our Blackland clay swallows water silently for months before anything shows on the surface. Here's how to figure out what's draining your meter, in the order I'd check it.

Step one: read your meter

This is the single most useful test, and it's free. Turn off everything that uses water — the irrigation controller, faucets, ice maker, washing machine. Find your water meter (usually a covered box near the street) and watch the dial or the small "leak indicator" triangle. If it's still moving with everything off, you have a leak on the pressurized side of your system. If it's still, your problem is something that only runs sometimes — likely the irrigation schedule or a zone-specific issue.

The usual sprinkler causes, most to least common

A hidden underground leak. A cracked lateral line or a leaking fitting runs every time that zone is on — and on clay, the water tracks sideways and never surfaces. Signs: one patch greener than the rest, a soggy strip, or a zone gone weak. This is the most common high-bill cause we find, and it's exactly what leak detection is for.

A main-line leak. Worse — the main line is pressurized 24/7, so it leaks around the clock, not just during a cycle. This is the one that doubles a bill fast. If your meter moved with everything off and the isolation valve stopped it, suspect this.

A valve stuck partly open. A valve that doesn't fully close lets water seep continuously, or a stuck-open valve runs a zone far longer than scheduled. Either quietly runs up the bill.

A broken or missing head. A decapitated head gushes a firehose of water every time the zone runs — often far more than the whole rest of the zone combined.

The schedule itself. Sometimes there's no leak at all: the controller is running too long, too often, or a forgotten second program is doubling everything. A controller that resets after a power blink often reverts to a default daily schedule nobody wants.

What you can check yourself

1. The meter test above — leak vs. no leak, house vs. irrigation.
2. Run each zone manually and walk it. Look for geysers, gushing heads, soggy ground, or one zone visibly weaker than the others (a sign of a leak downstream stealing pressure).
3. Read the controller. Check run times and start times. Two programs running? A 30-minute runtime where you meant 10? A start time that fires three times a night? These are free fixes.
4. Check your watering days against your city's rules. Overwatering is sometimes just an aggressive schedule — most North Texas cities cap watering at twice a week, and dialing back both saves money and keeps you compliant.

Where this stops being DIY

If the meter says you have a leak but you can't see it on the surface — which is the norm on clay — finding it is the job. We isolate zone by zone, pressure-test to find the guilty one, and bracket the break to a single spot so the repair is one neat hole, not a trenched-up yard. That's leak detection and repair, and the diagnosis is most of the value.

If it's a valve or a controller behaving badly, those are valve repair and controller fixes — usually quick and cheap relative to a single month of the inflated bill. And worth noting: in Frisco, an unrepaired leak is a code violation with photo enforcement, so the bill isn't the only clock running.

A high bill is a symptom, not a mystery — the meter test alone usually tells you whether you're chasing a leak or a schedule. If it points to a leak you can't see, that's our specialty; call us and we'll find it without tearing up your yard.