Boise Leak Adjustment Requests: What to Gather Before You File

If a leak pushed up your Boise sewer charge, the city has a process for asking for an adjustment. The catch is the evidence. The City of Boise's request page says plainly that incomplete requests are denied, so the work is really in collecting the right papers while the leak is being found and fixed.

What follows summarizes the city's published requirements as of this writing. Check the current page before you submit.

Does your situation qualify?

The city considers increases between October 15 and April 15 that came from something unforeseen, such as an inside leak, an outside leak, or a temporary increase in household size. Summer irrigation use doesn't count, because the sewer charge isn't based on summer readings anyway.

Gather this before the repair

• Your last few bills, showing the jump.
• Any Veolia blue tag. The city's page refers to these leak check notices. Keep it.
• Your own meter notes: date, time, readings, and how long you watched. How to take them.
• Photos of anything wet: a soggy yard, a crawl space, a ceiling stain. Time-stamped is better.

Gather this from the repair

• An itemized invoice from the company that found and fixed it. Ask for it to name the leak (for example, "split supply line in crawl space under hall bathroom") and the date. If you fixed it yourself, the city accepts receipts for parts.
• The start and end dates as best you can tell, and a plain explanation of what caused it and how it was resolved. The form asks for both.

Gather this after the repair

• Veolia readings showing use dropped, and/or a Veolia blue tag showing no leak. The city asks for one or both. A meter reading or two after the fix, compared with the leak period, tells the story.

Filing

The request goes to the City of Boise's Utility Billing Services. The page lists the account details it needs and an upload limit for documents and photos (under 8MB total at the time of writing). It also asks for account verification. Adjustments apply to the next billing cycle unless you dispute the bill within 15 days of receiving it, so don't sit on a surprising bill.

Common reasons requests fall short

• An invoice that says "plumbing repair" and nothing else.
• No proof the leak stopped.
• Dates that don't line up with the readings.
• A leak that was seasonal irrigation, not a leak.

Where finding the leak fits

None of this works until someone can say where the water was going. If the meter says there's a leak and you can't see it, that's when a locate makes sense, and the visit becomes part of your paperwork. High water bill checks.