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I have a couple of questions about utilities in the Boise area
1. Since water is irrigated in are water bills high? Would anyone want to share their average bills?
2. What are the means for cooling and heating-is it all electric or is gas an option for heating?
3. Trash pickup-how does that work? Hoping there is recycling available
I am looking to but a single family house anywhere from 1500-2000 square feet-just as a gauge for you all
Most heat here is gas. Historically it's cheaper to heat with gas than with electric.
We have no-sort recycling in a big blue wheeled cart. Much easier than the sorted bins we started out with. They don't take glass. Only pick up every other week. No grass clipping recycling, but they do have a period in the fall when they will pick up leaves for composting. Must be packaged in recyclable bags.
I have no idea about summer water bills. I don't use it for lawn but mine is usually under $15 a month -- billed every other month. Sewer costs depends on which sewer district you're in. Mine is billed by city of Boise along with trash and is about $25 a month for both, also billed every other month.
Irrigation is not a given; it depends on where you are. Also, note there is a difference between water providers in each city, in the county, etc. In Boise water is provided by United Water (now Suez); in Meridian the water is provided through the city.
Whether or not you have access to irrigation depends on where you live. I've owned 4 homes in the valley; 3 of them had irrigation rights, 1 did not. I could not access irrigation in 2 of the 3 homes, even though I paid a nominal fee to the irrigation district ($5/year - the issue was the irrigation lines were across the street and at the back of the neighboring street's lots).
Our current house has irrigation, but the schedule is so convoluted and complicated it's not worth it to us to bother (beyond the pumping, screening, and filtration issues - I don't want irrigation water, which has a lot of weed seeds and fertilizer runoff in it, mixing in my yard). I think our time is 3:30 am on a Tuesday evening or some crap. It's completely local - some church down the street is the "water boss."
Anyway, for Boise, we pay Suez about $35 every two months for the low-water months (Oct-Mar), and then between $90-$140 for the higher water months, depending on how we decide to water.
I don't think this is sustainable. Right now Boise is so "pretty" in large part because the city doesn't regulate water use on lawns like a lot of other communities (think California, Colorado). However, our climate is just as arid (or more so) than many places in California and Colorado. It might be 15 or 20 years, but we will soon have the same low water use regulations and landscaping other places have. So enjoy it while you can.
Re: recycling - this is a bugaboo with the city. On one hand, they like and want to promote recycling. But as Lilly pointed out, it's non-sort, which is easier for all of us (and in my opinion, promotes the use of recycling), but the sorters on the other end hate it. I heard that they only pull something like 15% of actual recyclable product from their recycling collection - they have to throw the rest away because it is "contaminated" - meaning, it's trash, or has food/drink product on/in it, etc.
About 50 percent of the material Western Recycling receives is mixed paper, another 30 percent is cardboard, 8 percent is plastic and 2 percent is aluminum and tin.
The remaining 10 percent is non-recyclable, which adds up to almost 400 tons of trash each month that must be manually pulled off the sort line and hauled to the landfill.
Most heat here is gas. Historically it's cheaper to heat with gas than with electric.
We have no-sort recycling in a big blue wheeled cart. Much easier than the sorted bins we started out with. They don't take glass. Only pick up every other week. No grass clipping recycling, but they do have a period in the fall when they will pick up leaves for composting. Must be packaged in recyclable bags.
I agree, the current system for recycling is a big improvement over the initial/limited service that required sorting. And indeed, you cannot put glass into the blue no-sort bin, but I learned recently that they do offer curbside glass collection for an additional fee. Who knew ?
I don't generate enough glass to justify having the service, so instead I put my glass in a container in the garage, then 2-3 times a year I take it to one of the 15 glass drop-off sites located all over the city - one of them is always on my way to somewhere - very convenient.
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