I want to give a shout out to an exceptional person that I encountered at this company. My normal water bill runs about 50 to 70 bucks. I got notice of excessive use and checked for leaks and running toilets, etc and could find nothing wrong. I set the sprinklers back two minutes on all 4 stations and just figured that the notice was about a little extra use. When the bill for a month came it was a shocking $1339.23. I could not believe it and called Eastern Municipal Water to inquire about how I could incurring such high bill. She reviewed every thing and said that at certain times my home water use was in the thousands of gallons. She recommended I look on the EMWD website for a more complete understanding get a leak detection company. I said that for all that much water my house should be in a sink hole and the ground around it like quick sand. I was very upset, needless to say, being retired and on a fixed income about I could pay this huge bill. I called a few companies and found out that someone could come out for between 250.00 to 300.00 to detect leak and apply the fee to repairs.
**Now this is where it's important. I called a few companies and left requests for a technician to call me back to set an appointment. I called Inland Empire Leak detection also, but while I was ringing them up another company called back and I switched over to answer. This guy at the other company said that his guy could com the following afternoon for a $250.00 fee so I made the appointment and hung up. A few minutes later Dale from Empire called me. He said that he was calling me back because he had answered my call but could not hear me. (In actuality I had switched over and then hung up.) He asked me what type of problem I was having and I relayed the details including my panic about paying the bill. Then he asked me several specific questions about the water usage such as was it continuous, was it during specific times, had anything I'd done made any difference in water consumption, did I have automatic sprinklers or a water softener, etc.. Then he explained that because the high usage was during specific times followed by regular hours on consumption and that my house was not sinking in mud, that the culprit was very likely the water softener. He said that it was malfunctioning and purging water right back down into the sewer, thus no evidence. He said that any technician taking the time to examine the facts could have figured it out just as he had but that they would rather just get that fee than really help solve the problem. He also told me about how to deal with the water company to get an adjustment after fixing the usage problem. I was floored that Dale had troubled himself to call me back and take the time to help me out so freely and completely, as he had. He didn't ask me to write this but I wanted to recommend this kind and competent plummer and this company. Seldom do you come across someone that puts their willingness to help ahead of profiting. Want to give kudos to this đ man and his surprising ethics.
