If your water bill jumped and nothing about your household changed, an irrigation leak is the most likely cause, because a sprinkler system is the only thing on most properties that can move a large volume of water underground without anyone seeing it. The two biggest culprits are a broken lateral line or mainline and a valve that is no longer sealing shut. You can confirm it in about ten minutes with your water meter and the irrigation shutoff valve.
Why irrigation is the usual suspect
Indoor leaks announce themselves. A running toilet is audible, a dripping fitting stains a cabinet, a failed water heater floods a floor. Irrigation leaks do none of that. The pipe is buried, the water goes into soil that absorbs it, and on a sloped Piedmont lot the water can surface a long way from the break or never surface at all.
Scale is the other reason. Household fixtures move water in gallons per minute. An irrigation mainline moves it in tens of gallons per minute, and a mainline leak is under pressure twenty-four hours a day whether the system is running or not. A leak that never gets noticed for a full billing cycle can put a genuinely alarming number on a bill.
Confirm it yourself in ten minutes
This is exactly the test a technician runs on arrival, and doing it yourself first tells you which trade to call. It is worth the ten minutes.
- Shut off everything that uses water indoors. No dishwasher, no washing machine, no ice maker cycling, no one showering. Make sure the irrigation controller is not mid-cycle.
- Read the water meter. Note the exact reading, including the small sweep dial or the low-flow indicator if your meter has one. That little triangle or wheel spins on any flow at all.
- Wait fifteen minutes and read it again. If the reading moved with everything off, water is going somewhere.
- Close the irrigation shutoff valve. This is the valve that isolates the sprinkler system from the house supply. If you do not know where it is, see the guide on locating it.
- Read the meter again, wait, and read once more. If the meter stops when irrigation is isolated, the leak is in the irrigation system. If it keeps moving, the problem is on the house side and a plumber is the right call.
The specific irrigation faults that inflate a bill
Two of those have nothing to do with a leak at all. A controller with two overlapping programs waters everything twice and looks perfectly normal doing it, and a failed rain sensor means the system irrigates straight through a week of North Georgia thunderstorms. Both show up on a bill, and both are corrected at the controller rather than with a shovel.
| Fault | Runs when? | Waste |
|---|---|---|
| Mainline leak upstream of the valves | Constantly, under pressure | Highest — can be enormous |
| Valve not sealing shut | Constantly, while pressurised | High and continuous |
| Broken lateral line | Only while that zone runs | High per cycle |
| Broken or missing sprinkler head | Only while that zone runs | Substantial per cycle |
| Controller running a duplicate program | Every cycle, twice | Substantial and invisible |
| Rain sensor failed, system waters through storms | Every scheduled cycle | Moderate, adds up seasonally |
| Misaligned heads spraying pavement | Every cycle | Moderate |
Want this looked at rather than read about?
Diagnostic-first visits across North Georgia. Call 770.335.8595 or request service — you get an estimate before any work begins.
What it costs to find and fix
Irrigation Medics bills $125 for the first hour on site and $80 per hour after, with parts separate and an estimate before work begins. Leak work has the widest cost range of any irrigation repair, because locating and access drive it more than parts do. As a general North Georgia market figure, underground irrigation leak repairs commonly land between roughly $150 and $700 or more depending on depth, surface obstruction and how many breaks turn up. Those are market estimates rather than quotes — the cost guide has the full breakdown.
Weigh that against what a continuous leak costs per month. A mainline failure losing water around the clock generally outruns the repair within a billing cycle or two, which is why this is one repair worth doing promptly rather than at the end of the season.
Ask your water provider about a leak adjustment
Many Georgia water providers will consider a one-time adjustment on a bill inflated by a documented leak, usually requiring proof that the leak was repaired. Policies differ by provider and none of them are automatic, so contact whoever bills you and ask what they require. Keeping the repair invoice is the practical step here.
Related answers
- How Do You Find an Underground Sprinkler Leak?An underground irrigation leak is located by measuring, not by looking. A technician isolates the system at the irrigation shutoff valve and watches…
- Why Is My Sprinkler System Leaking When It Is Turned Off?Water moving while the system is off means something on the pressurised side is failing, because the mainline holds pressure around the clock even…
- Where Is My Irrigation Shutoff Valve?The irrigation shutoff valve isolates the sprinkler system from your water supply, and it is most often found near the water meter, at the backflow…
- How Much Water Does a Broken Sprinkler Head Waste?A broken or missing sprinkler head does not just leak — it becomes an open pipe, discharging far more water than a working head and at a much higher…
Services that fix this
Irrigation Leak Repair
Wet spots, bubbling turf and water bills that jumped — located, isolated and repaired without tearing up the yard.
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Diagnostic-first repair for residential and commercial sprinkler systems across Hall County, Gwinnett County, North Fult
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Every zone run, every head watched, every fault written down — before it becomes an expensive repair.
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Irrigation Medics repairs irrigation systems across Hall County and the Lake Lanier communities, the Gwinnett corridor through Duluth, Suwanee and Buford, and North Fulton and Forsyth — Johns Creek, Alpharetta, Milton, Roswell and Cumming. Same rates throughout. See the service area.