water billed tripled!

[mikeinaustin]

got my city util bill today and my water usage tripled! not only month to month (6/08 compared to 5/07) but it is also triple compared to 6/07 or 7/07 or 8/07 (you get the idea).

I do not have any leak in house. I do not have any noticeable leak outside either. i mean there are no wet spots in the yard, no area that is excessively green, etc.

fyi, I have not had the time to check the water meter (gotta find it actually) to see if it was a bad reading.

any ideas what could cause such a thing? we have new neighbors and they constantly use their sprinkler system, could they have tapped into our line? they did do some work on it a few months ago, but the water bill has been normal until now.

 

[Steve S]

Have the meter checked.

 

[MrCPU]

One of the readings may hae been an estimate based on past usage, rather than an actual reading.

And have the meter checked.

 

[Shannow]

Down here, with electricity, they don't have to read the meter every time...or every second time, or even every year.

So in the case of a neighbour, they consistently under estimated his meter for 6 bills (presumably they picked low so if he checked the meter it would always be more than the last bill).

When they DID get around to reading the meter, his under $200/quarter bills leaped to over $400.

 

[ThirdeYe]

Maybe one of the flappers on your toilet has a slow leak to it, and it has to constantly re-fill itself? I know we had that problem with a toilet downstairs and we wondered why our water bill was in the hundreds. Turned out that sometimes the flapper wouldn't close all the way and it would just keep trying to refill itself, until the handle was jiggled, etc.

 

[crinkles]

do you have very sandy or gravelly soil underlying your house. if so a leak will soak away without you noticing it. moreso if your on a bit of a slope. if you have clayey soils it might puddle at the surface, it might not. leaking services may affect your foundations.

maybe try meter it at your house so if there is a leak between the street connection meter and your house you can find it so.

could well be someone mistook a 3 for an 8 when reading it or something like that.

 

[crinkles]

shannow, what kind of kW.hr per day are you guys using. Just to cross check, i think we use an embarrasing amount...

we are buying 18 kW.hr per day of "green power" through country energy - any good? extra $6 per week... wasting money?

 

[Shannow]

crinkles,
we use about 12kWhr/day of electrickery during winter (NG bill is up 'though...$900 electrickery and $1,100 NG bill per annum)

Fibro house with no wall insulation...we live a bit cool in winter (wear another flanny), and warm in summer (drink another beer)

If you are paying for green power, then you are certainly getting it, in an auditable manner. But if you weren't paying for it, you'd still be getting it courtesy of the snowy scheme.

Just wait until Dilemma sells us.

 

[crinkles]

Originally Posted By: Shannow
crinkles,
we use about 12kWhr/day of electrickery during winter (NG bill is up 'though...$900 electrickery and $1,100 NG bill per annum)

Fibro house with no wall insulation...we live a bit cool in winter (wear another flanny), and warm in summer (drink another beer)

If you are paying for green power, then you are certainly getting it, in an auditable manner. But if you weren't paying for it, you'd still be getting it courtesy of the snowy scheme.

Just wait until Dilemma sells us.


good point RE the snowy.

we use 22 kW.hr per day. poorly insulated aussie architecture (read, freezing in winter, boiling and humid as [censored] in summer). no gas up here though. we pay about $300 - $350 per quarter for electricity.

i worked out if we can not use the dryer we could get it back down to 18 kW.hr and be totally covered by indirect green power. problem is, it rains up here, a lot. clothesline does not help oftentimes.

 

[oilyriser]

On an old TV science show the guy tried running the spin cycle on a washer a second time, and it spun out about 300 mL more water. He calculated it took less electricity to spin out the water than it would take to evaporate it in the electric dryer. There are also some high speed centrifuges you can buy, to get clothes really dry without evaporating the water.

things like this:
http://www.spin-x.com/

 

[Schmoe]

Find your meter, turn everything off and then go watch it. It shouldn't be moving at all. Do the same thing when your neighbors are watering there yard. You should see no movement on the meter, if so, your water is going somewhere.

 

[mikeinaustin]

toilets are fine, all inards are new (less than 1 year old). they are fairly loud so you can easily hear if they are occasionly refilling or even slowly leaking.

yard is basically like farmers dirt, dark brown and very good for planting.

i will check the meter today, did not have time yesterday since i looked at the bill late.

it is true they might be estimating, but i can't believe they have done so for two years. i have the usage records (austin energy keeps them on their website for 2 years) and the current bill is triple anything in the last 2 years.

 

[Gary Allan]

Water and sewer fees are my borough's main revenue generator for the borough council. It allows them to appear to keep property taxes low (unlike our school board). Although being an "end user" type tax, it ends up being a poor tax since they charge landlords of multi-units about 5X the regular residential rate. This is naturally passed on to the lower income renter (older urban environments don't have "new" apartment complexes built and newer ones are available just outside the borough for more economically viable renters).

I pay over $200/month for water, sewer, and trash. A leaking toilet in my garage apartment cost me $700. It cost my son's store $1200 since his ran for about 2 weeks (seldom used bathroom) and bridged two billing cycles.

Not that this has much bearing on your big bill ..but don't be surprised if your shepherds just entered into some big enterprise.

 

[Schmoe]

I was going to add two things similar to what Gary said. I know they have been raising rates like crazy over here. Turns out they can raise sewer and garbage pickup without having to go to a vote. Also, this may sound stupid but it has happen to me, did you really pay your water bill last month? I know one time my bill did that and then got to checking that somehow I forgot to pay it. Stranger things have happened.