Holy water bill! (Austin, Avery: vs, moving, estimated)

[G Grasshopper]

Also, Austin has this (I think) strange system where they charge you for "waste water" rather than charging a set fee for sewer services. The amount you are charged depends on how much city water was used in the previous December through March. (I think those are the months - I'm not quite sure.) At any rate, if the people who lived there before you had a leak, or used huge amounts of water, that will be reflected in your current waste water price. The good news is that if you can get your water usage down by the fall and can really cut back during those months this next year, your waste water rate will come down for the following year. I know that doesn't help you with the immediate problem of whether you have a leak, but it is just good to know.

[CptnRn]

You can look up your wastewater averaging period here, it varies depending on where you live. http://austintexas.gov/department/wastewater-averaging

[cBach]

I had two toilets that ran and after I replaced those toilets, my water bill was cut in half, from $100 a month to $50. I run sprinklers once a week on 1/3 of an acre.

[Gorfml]

We can easily use 60,000 gallons a month watering twice a week...

[motherofthree]

Originally Posted by Gorfml

We can easily use 60,000 gallons a month watering twice a week...

I was thinking the same thing. Some irrigation heads put out a lot of water. I would suggest putting out some containers with a straight side, like tuna can, in each zone. Run for 15 min and measure the amount of water collected to give you an idea of how much water your irrigation is using. I have some zones that would only be 1/4" and other zone the tuna can would be full. I water 1/4 an acre once a week, with a family of 5 and we use about 25k gallons of water a month in summer. Winter we are about 7k.

[TexasHorseLady]

We live in the country. We have animals (cows, horses, donkeys, etc.) to water. With that, our water usage runs in the 7,000-10,000 gallons per month range. That's even watering the lawn occasionally. Our water bill jumped dramatically one month (to about five times what it had been), as did our usage, and had developed an underground leak. We could tell it was there by using the "turn everything off and read the meter" technique, but it took 2 months to find it. (Involved finding a leak in a pipe that we didn't know exactly where the pipes ran except they were somewhere across a 10 acre field.)

[riaelise]

Our water averages around 35k in summer. We water twice per week. Family of four. .25 acre lot. About $70/mo.

[Burritogeek]

Double check the dates on your water bill. I've moved into a new place in the fall (renting) and had the water company put all the charges from the summer when the house sat empty on our bill. They assumed we didn't switch the service over right away after moving in. The previous tenants canceled their service, but the landlord didn't put it in their name and still used the water to keep the lawn green while they tried to find new renters. We were able to clear everything up when we provided a copy of our lease with move-in date on it to the water co.

[ITO]

My water bill this month in CP is $179.

No leaks, 3 kids, (was) watering 2 a week.

We have low flow shower head too.

[tickledpink]

Our water bill was a lot higher than expected this month as well. It's just my husband and I, and we had our sprinkler system OFF for most of the month on account of all the rain we were getting. Yet, we apparently used 14,000 gallons of water and had a 115 dollar water bill. We live in CP.