Is Water Leaking? Check Your Meter

Two meter readings with nothing running, and what the leak they reveal is costing you at the top of your WUC bill — where water is nearly twenty times the price of the first block.

Francistown's water mains were laid in the 1970s and the city's own officials describe them as leaking daily. Between that and a bill you cannot explain sits a question the bill itself cannot answer: is the water you are being charged for actually reaching your taps?

In August 2024 Botswana's water minister said that when WUC looked into complaints about high bills, "around 65 to 70 per cent of the time, the issue is a leakage rather than a metre malfunction" (reported by the government's own Daily News). Your meter can tell you which it is, and WUC charges water in six rising blocks, so a leak is always billed at the dearest rate you pay.

Turn every tap off, note what the meter reads, wait, and note it again. The full steps are just below the boxes.

First reading

Second reading

Hours between the two readings

Half an hour is 0.5. Overnight is about 8.

Or tap how long you waited

What the meter says

Fill in both readings and the hours between them, and the answer appears here.

What it is costing you

What you normally use in a month (kL)

Your bill shows the meter reading at the start and the end of the month; the difference is the kilolitres it charged you for. Use the figure from a recent bill rather than a guess — it decides which block the leak is charged in, and that changes the answer by a lot.

Is your home connected to the town sewer?

WUC charges wastewater only to customers connected to the central wastewater system, on the same number of kilolitres as the water. If your bill has a wastewater or sewerage line, you are connected — and a leak then costs you twice over.

How to take the two readings

Turn off every tap in and around the house, and ask everyone not to flush, wash or water anything until you are done.
Go to your meter and write down the whole reading, including the small figures. It is measured in kilolitres (kL).
Leave it. An hour is enough to find a big leak; overnight finds a slow one.
Read the meter again and type both readings below.

WUC measures water in kilolitres — one kilolitre is 1,000 litres, or fifty 20-litre buckets. Write down the whole reading, including any smaller digits after the kilolitres: on most dial meters those are the red figures or the small sweeping pointer, and they count single litres. They are the ones that make a short test work.

If your meter shows only whole numbers

WUC's own terms say meter readings are rounded off to the nearest whole kilolitre, and some meters show nothing finer. If yours has no red or small digits, a one-hour test will show nothing at all — one whole kilolitre in an hour would be a burst, not a leak. Leave it overnight, or a full day, and use that as the gap.

If you are on one of WUC's prepaid smart meters there are no dials to read. Note the credit left on the meter instead, leave everything off for a few hours, and see whether the credit has fallen. The money side of this page still applies, but check your rates with WUC, because prepaid accounts are billed on their own terms.

Before you trust the number

The test only works if nothing in the home drew water while you waited. A toilet flushed at midnight will read as a leak.
A meter that moves with everything off means water is escaping after the meter — inside the property, not in the street.
This is arithmetic on published rates, not a reading of your account.
The numbers you type are worked out on your own phone. They are not sent anywhere and nothing is saved.

What leaks that fast

Costed at 15 kL a month, the figure used above. Change your monthly use and these change with it.

Leak	Litres a day	A month, at your rate
A dripping tap, one drip a secondA washer or a tap seat. The cheapest thing on this list to fix and the easiest to stop noticing.	31	P 17.17
What leaks cost an average homeNot one fault but the usual collection of small ones: a tap, a cistern, a garden fitting.	96	P 53.16
A leaking toilet cisternLift the lid and look: if water is trickling down into the bowl or over the overflow, that is this. Usually a worn flap or a float set too high.	274	P 138.25

Where to look

Every toilet cistern. Lift the lid; water trickling into the bowl or over the overflow is the single most common cause, and the biggest on the list above.
Outside taps and the garden line, including any standpipe at the gate and any hose fitting left connected.
Under sinks and behind the geyser, and the geyser's own overflow pipe outside — a dripping overflow there is a fault, not normal.
The ground between the meter and the house. A buried pipe leak shows as a damp or unusually green patch, or water rising after the supply comes back on.
Anything you turned on during an outage and forgot. WUC asks residents to keep taps closed after a burst repair, because the water returns without warning — and an open tap left over will read exactly like a leak.
Find your stop cock while you are out there. WUC's terms require one in the service pipe within a few metres of the meter, though never inside the meter box, so that you can shut your own supply off.

Check the bill first

Before you trust any of this, check the bill. Look at whether the readings printed on it are actual readings or estimates. WUC said it stopped estimating readings in October 2022, but Botswana's Auditor General reported in 2025 that P187 million of customer debt had been created in error through mis-read meters and "repeated estimation where customer plots had not been visited". An estimated reading can invent a leak that is not there — and if the figure you type in above came off an estimated bill, the answer this page gives you is only as good as that estimate.

Who pays for it

WUC's own supply agreement is blunt about this: "All pipes and fittings beyond the meter are the responsibility of the Customer including maintenance and repair thereof." So water that leaks past your meter is yours to pay for, at the top of your block, and WUC publishes no leak allowance, rebate or capped-excess scheme — we looked for one and there is none in the terms. The one adjustment that is written down is a meter test: you may ask WUC to test the meter for a fee, and if it reads outside tolerance WUC bears the cost of the test and adjusts your charges; if it reads within tolerance, you pay the fee and the bill stands. The agreement also says the meter reading is "prima facie evidence of the amount of water consumed" — which is to say, the meter wins unless you can show it is wrong.

Water coming up in the street or on the pavement is on WUC's side and worth reporting even though it is not on your bill. WUC's own report form at www.wuc.bw/reports asks whether the leak is inside or outside your plot, and an outside-plot report needs no account number and no login. You can also use the toll-free line 0800 555 555, SMS 16299, USSD *186#, WhatsApp +267 73 042 819, or contactcentre@wuc.bw.

A leak found late is more than a cost. WUC's terms say that if a bill is not settled within 30 days of the billing date the supply may be disconnected without further notice, and reconnection then needs the full outstanding amount plus a reconnection fee. The same terms allow WUC to report a defaulting customer to a credit bureau and to add collection costs. If your bill is already behind, say so when you ring: there is an escalation route through the WUC office, then the CEO's office, then the ministry.

The WUC domestic rates these figures use

Monthly use	Water, per unit	Wastewater, per unit
first 5 kL	P 2.45	P 0.46
over 5 up to 10 kL	P 11.41	P 2.86
over 10 up to 15 kL	P 13.43	P 5.03
over 15 up to 20 kL	P 25.15	P 5.38
over 20 up to 40 kL	P 38.69	P 7.18
over 40 kL	P 48.38	P 8.98

WUC's terms say customers are billed monthly in arrears, and the blocks are per month: they start again at the first kilolitre every month. That is why the figures here assume a monthly bill. If a bill in front of you covers two months, the blocks on it covered two months too, and nothing on this page will match it.

WUC publishes these rates with VAT already included, so nothing is added on top. The first 5 kilolitres carry no VAT at all, which is part of why that block is so much cheaper than the rest.

Water Utilities Corporation (WUC) publishes these rates; the arithmetic here is ours. Finding a leak does not by itself change a bill already issued — that is a separate conversation with them, and the page below says what they do about it.

Official pages

WUC — report a leak 0800 555 555Choose "Report Water Leakage". An outside-plot leak needs no account number; an inside-plot one asks for your customer number.
WUC — Revised tariffs (from 1 April 2025)The signed tariff sheet the rates on this page come from, with the business and government rates as well.
WUC — Agreement for Supply of Water, terms and conditionsWhere the quotes above come from: who is responsible for which pipes, how a meter test works, and the 30-day disconnection rule. Read 30 October 2026.
WUC — Fixing leaks at homeWUC's own page on household leaks.
Department of Water Affairs — Conserving waterBotswana's own advice, including the meter test: if the meter is running when all the taps and toilets are off, you may have a leak.

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