Barrow County's Voluntary Leak Adjustment Program

What the county publishes

Barrow County Utilities' FY2026 fee schedule includes a line reading 'Leak Adjustment Program – Voluntary Participation' at $0.70 per month. That is the whole of what the published rate sheet says about it.

The rate sheet does not set out the program's terms: how much of a leak is credited, how often, what proof is needed, or the deadline. We do not guess at those here. The utility office at 59 Lee Street in Winder, phone (770) 307-3014 on the rate document, is the place to ask.

What the line does tell you is that participation is voluntary and billed monthly, so check whether your account is enrolled before a leak happens rather than after.

Questions to ask the county

Is my account enrolled, and how would I see that on my bill? What portion of a leak is adjusted, and for water, sewer or both? How many adjustments are allowed in a year? What documentation is required? How long after the bill do I have to apply? Does the leak have to be on the house side, the yard side, or either?

Write the answers down with the date and the name of the person you spoke to.

If you are a City of Winder customer rather than a county customer, the City's rules are published in its Water Service Policy; see the City leak page.

What a leak costs on county rates

On county rates, a leak in a normal month is priced at $7.75 per 1,000 gallons of water until the total passes 9,000 gallons, then $9.75, with sewer at $6.15 per 1,000 on every gallon.

On 4,000 gallons of normal use, a 5,000-gallon leak adds about $69.50; a 20,000-gallon leak about $308.00. A running toilet over a full cycle can sit anywhere in that range.

Use the calculator with your own numbers, and set the utility to Barrow County.

Comparing with the City of Winder

The City publishes its full leak rule: once every twelve months, usage at least 100% above average quarterly use, contest within 30 days of the due date, one billing period adjusted, 50% of billed gallons, and proof that may be requested for leaks over 20,000 gallons.

The county program may work differently. Do not assume the City's rules apply to a county bill.

Both utilities expect the leak to be found and fixed. Neither credits a leak that is still running.

Before you apply: find and fix

Turn off every fixture and look at the meter's leak indicator. If it moves, close the house shut-off. If it stops, the leak is inside; if it keeps moving, it is in the yard line.

Inside, test toilets with food colouring in the tank, then check the water heater relief line, outdoor spigots and irrigation. In the yard, look for soft or green patches along the line.

If you think the meter rather than a leak is the problem, the county lists a meter re-read at $50.00 and a meter test at $75.00.

Paperwork that helps

Whatever the program's terms, a repair record makes any adjustment request stronger: photos of the leak, the plumber's invoice saying where it was and what was fixed, and the dates. If the repair needed a permit, keep that too; in unincorporated Barrow County the plumbing permit base fee is $75.00.

Keep paying the part of the bill that is not in dispute. The county's late fee is $2.00 or 10%, whichever is greater.

Send a Free Quote Request to reach an independent plumber who can locate and fix the leak and give you an itemised invoice.

County tiers behind the numbers

The worked scenarios use the county's FY2026 tiers: $6.10, $7.75 and $9.75 per 1,000 gallons, with breaks at 2,000 and 9,000 gallons, and sewer at $6.15 per 1,000. A leak that pushes a month past 9,000 gallons is billed at the top rate for the gallons above that line.

Reading a Winder-area bill line by line

Start at the top of the bill and find the name of the utility. City of Winder bills follow the City's Form 520 rate sheet; Barrow County Utilities bills follow the county's FY2026 schedule. Everything else on this site depends on getting that first step right, because the two utilities use different tiers, different base charges and different leak rules.

Next, find the reading dates and the gallons used. Divide the gallons by the number of days in the cycle to get a daily figure, and compare it with the same cycle a year earlier. A household that normally uses a little over a hundred gallons a day and suddenly shows several hundred has either changed its habits or has water going somewhere it should not.

Then look at the charges. The base water and base sewer lines do not move with use. The volume lines do. If the volume lines jumped and the base lines did not, the change is in gallons, not in rates, and the meter test on the high bill page is the next step.

Finally, note the due date. On a City of Winder account, the 30-day window to contest a bill runs from that date, and a missed window cannot be reopened by the policy's own terms.

Keeping records that make every later step easier

Most of the trouble homeowners describe after a plumbing problem is not the repair itself but the paperwork around it: a leak credit request without an invoice, a permit nobody can find at resale, a disputed meter reading with no photo. A simple folder fixes most of it.

Keep the bill that showed the problem and the one before it. Take a dated photo of the meter dial when you first notice something odd and again after the repair. Ask the plumber for an invoice that names the address, the date, where the problem was and exactly what was replaced. If a permit was pulled, keep the permit number and the final inspection result.

Write down every call to the utility or the permit office: the date, the person's name and what they said. Policies change, and staff answers are easier to rely on when you can quote them back.

None of this costs money, and every piece of it helps if you later need a credit, sell the house or have to show an insurer when a problem started.

Sources: Barrow County, GA Utilities Department: Water and Wastewater Rates FY2026 (PDF); Barrow County, GA Planning & Community Development Fees, FY 2025 / FY 2026 (PDF); City of Winder, GA: Water Service Policy, Sec. 500.26 Bill Adjustments for Loss of Metered Water (PDF). Checked 2026-10-30.