Read your meter twice overnight to find a leak and what it costs you, and see which tariff block your household lands in and what the next kilolitre costs.
Make sure nobody uses water: no taps, no flushing, no washing machine, dishwasher or irrigation, and let the geyser finish filling. Write down every digit on the meter, black and red, wait at least an hour (overnight is best), and read it again. If the numbers moved, water is leaving the pipes on your side of the meter. The black digits are kilolitres and the red ones litres, so a short test is read off the red digits and the small dials.
Put a few drops of food colouring in each toilet cistern and wait fifteen minutes without flushing: colour in the bowl means the cistern leaks. Check the geyser overflow pipe outside for a steady drip. If neither, close the stopcock where the pipe enters the house and read the meter again: if it still moves, the leak is underground between the meter and the house; if it stops, it is inside.
Leaks on your side of the meter, inside the property boundary, are the owner’s to repair, and the water they lose is billed. A leak at the meter itself or on the street side is the municipality’s: report it to them. If a hidden leak has run up a large bill, ask your municipality whether it will review the account once the leak is repaired, and keep the plumber’s invoice.
Municipal water is sold on rising blocks: the first kilolitres each month are cheap or free, and each step up costs more. Whatever you add on top, whether a leak, a garden or a pool, is bought at the top of your ladder, so it costs more than your bill divided by your use. In Cape Town sewerage is also charged on 70% of the water you use, which raises it again.
No. The figures are the part of the bill that moves with the water you use: water, and sewerage where the municipality charges it by volume. Fixed monthly levies, refuse, rates and any sewerage charged on the size of your stand are separate lines on the account.