City water damage

Redland City Council introduced fees in April 2022 to cover the cost of damage to Council's water meters/services (known as damage to water infrastructure). Before this, Council was paying about $150,000 a year to repair avoidable damage to 0.5% of our water meters/services.

The repair fees Council charges are set in the Register of Fees under City Water – Water Supply.

The water meter is located on your property for the sole purpose of supplying water to the property. You have a duty of care to yourself and Council to ensure that it is not damaged.

The invoice you have received is issued under Section 40 of the Water Supply (Safety and Reliability) Act 2008.

40 - Recovery of costs

1. This section applies if—
   1. a person damages a service provider’s infrastructure; or
   2. a service provider suffers loss because a person—
      1. makes an unauthorised connection to the service provider’s infrastructure; or
      2. discharges material, if it is not material the service provider has authorised to be discharged, into the service provider’s infrastructure; or
      3. interferes with the service provider’s infrastructure; or
      4. pollutes the water in the service provider’s infrastructure.
2. The service provider may recover from the person as a debt the amount of the loss or the reasonable cost of repairing the damage.

Once Council's City Water team has been notified of damage to our water meter/service, we must investigate the cause, so a team member will visit the property to inspect the meter/service.

Once it is repaired, a Notification of damage card will be left at your property and an invoice will be issued.

Invoices are payable within 30 days and can be paid at a Customer Service Centre, over the phone or via Bpay as specified on the invoice.

City water third party damage notification card

The fees charged for damage to water meters/services are set in the Register of Fees under City Water – Water Supply.

Calculating the fee

These are just some of the factors we considered when calculating the set fee:

• Costs of labour (hourly rates) – the person who answered your phone call (business or after hours), the person who dispatched the job, the person/s who turned up onsite to assess the job and/or additional crew members required to complete the job, the person who issued your invoice and the person/s who processed the payment.
• Travel time
• Overtime/oncall allowances
• Vehicle costs
• Machinery/contractors
• Parts and materials used

Why is my bill not itemised?

Invoices for damage to water meters/services are for a set fee, so the invoice is considered itemised.

Council undertakes repairs to your water meter/service in accordance with Section 37 of the Water Supply (Safety and Reliability) Act 2008.

37 - Power to enter place to read, check, maintain or replace meter

1. An authorised person may enter a place at any reasonable time—
   1. to read a meter; or
   2. to check the accuracy of a meter; or
   3. to maintain or replace a meter.
2. In this section— meter, in relation to a place, means a device, including equipment related to the device, for measuring the volume of water supplied to the place and installed on infrastructure that supplies retail water services at the place.

If the water meter/service was damaged by someone else, it is the property owner's responsibility to recover the fees from the third party.

Our Responsibility for Water Meters page shows the sections of a water meter/service and who can work on them. In the case of the blue 'Council responsibility' sections, only a Council team member or person with written permission from Council may undertake work on this section of the meter/service. It is an offence under Section 192 of the Water Supply (Safety and Reliability) Act 2008 for anyone else to tamper with this infrastructure.

Council does not undertake any repairs on the green coloured area.

The invoice you have been issued is for damage to the blue section of the water meter/service. We are recovering this fee under Section 40 of the Water Supply (Safety and Reliability) Act 2008.

New water meter connections installed since the early 2000s have been placed inside the property line, at about 0.5m back and 0.5m from the left or right boundary.

Water meter/services installed prior to this may be aligned further from the side boundary, generally in line with the side of the house and/or outside water tap.

Water meters are installed a minimum of 100mm above ground.

If your water meter is:

• located more than 0.5m from your side boundary and you wish to relocate it to the boundary, or
• your meter is too low to the ground and you would like it raised,

you will need to complete a Water Application – Connection, Alteration and Disconnection and pay any relevant costs as shown in the Register of Fees.

New service/meter installed - min 100mm above ground

Minimum setback from driveway – water meters are utility infrastructure

Redland City Council installs water meters as per the SEQ Water Supply and Sewerage Design and Construction Code.

SEQ Code has standard drawings for the drinking water supply. The code details if a drawing is approved for use within a water service providers area.

Below is the Standard Drawing SEQ-WAT-1108-3 for an underground water meter installation. The water service provider that this standard drawing can be used in is highlighted in yellow. In this case this drawing/setup can only be used in the Unity Water area.

Standard Drawing SEQ-WAT-1108-3

Redland City Council standard drawings are:

• SEQ-WAT-1109-1 This drawing clearly states “Above ground meter”
• SEQ-WAT-1109-2 Showing the side view of the water meter installation with heights

Standard Drawing SEQ-WAT-1109-1

Standard Drawing SEQ-WAT-1109-2

In order for underground meters to be authorised for installation in the Redland City Council area, a change would be required to the SEQ Code.