Frosts can damage your water meter, or worse. File photo by Kate Healy.
With temperatures plummeting during Ballarat winters, you may wake to no water out of the tap if your water meter has frozen.
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Central Highlands Water say frosts can damage your water meter and freeze the meter to your home, or even burst your meter.
How to protect your water meter from frost
- Cover your meter with a wooden or foam box
- Or, wrap it in thick cloth like old carpet, a towel, a jumper or hessian sack.
- If you're a green thumb, you can grow small, soft shrubs around your meter - be careful to ensure plants don't prevent access to the meter
What to do if your water meter freezes
- It can take up to three hours to thaw out
- To speed it up, you can pour room-temperature water over the meter
- Do not use boiling water, which can cause the meter to burst, leaving you without water until Central Highlands Water can refit` the service.
CHW says if a number of properties have frozen meters, there may be a wait before they can help.
To report a fault or outage with your service, call 1800 061 514.
