Moore County, NC Water Use Rules: Leak Reporting Duty (2026)

Moore County Code § 13-164 lets MCDPW credit a customer's water and sewer account for metered water lost to conditions beyond the customer's normal and reasonable control, and it also covers unexplained high usage. The customer bears responsibility for promptly discovering and immediately repairing any unusual condition; the county requires no undue delay in stopping the loss or making repairs, and the policy expressly excludes losses from a lack of maintenance or improper operation of faucets, toilet flush controls, fill valves, hose bibs and similar controls, so a running toilet a customer ignores gets no relief.

To qualify, the customer must submit a written request with a repair bill within six months of the occurrence, and all leaks must be stopped before any adjustment is made. Usage must run at least 50 percent above the customer's average for the corresponding three months of the prior year, calculated using the same billing month and the months immediately before and after it from the previous year. Average usage is billed at the regular rate; everything above average is billed at MCDPW's lowest water commodity charge, except meter-leg leaks, which are billed at the same amount as the same month a year earlier.

If lost water never reached the sewer system, the sewer portion drops to average usage. Only one adjustment is allowed per 12-month period, though a customer may buy back a smaller loss within the same year to claim a larger one, and the administrative services manager must approve every adjustment before it posts.