Water Usage (Houston, Dallas, Lewisville: house, buy, living in)

[GuestDallas]

I received my first full month water bill recently, and was surprised by the amount. I live in a 2200 sq ft house on a typical 0.2 acre lot in the city of Dallas. During the billing cycle, I only watered the front/back lawn once per week for 15 minutes total, and there are only two people living in the house. My total water usage for this past month was 66 gallons, which translated to $75 total (water/wastewater/trash).

Just curious how that compares to similar households. What is your typical monthly water usage (gallons) and bill total?

[lh_newbie]

I think you mean 66 units of 100gals... or 6,600 gallons...

Based on how you describe your patterns, I'd say that's spot on average usage. We have 2 people living in the house and in the winter, when we aren't running the sprinklers, use 3,500 gallons. In the summer, when we're watering 2x week when it's really hot for ~ 15 minutes total per zone per watering cycle, we go up to 15,000 gallons. We also water the 2 zones around the foundation every other day for 5 minutes to try to keep the moisture levels around the foundation more consistent.

At 15K gallons, our cost goes up to $100 even... so increasing your usage a bit to ensure your foundation is properly maintained shouldn't increase your bill much.

EDIT:
Just to put usage into perspective... if 2 people take 10 minute showers each day and you have low-flow shower heads, that's 1500 gallons per month; watering the lawn, even if only 15 minutes per week, uses probably 2,500-3,000 gallons; then you have laundry, toilets, dishes and all the little things (brushing teeth, washing hands, etc). 6,600/mo in summer is quite low actually.

Brian

[GuestDallas]

Thanks for the clarification....I meant 66 units. My water bill in Houston used to be half the amount with similar usage. Sounds like Dallas charges a bit more. But if I use the comparison you used of 15k gallons at $100, and apply to my usage of 6.6K, I should only have a bill of ~$45. I looked at the city of Dallas website, and they refer to some type of Winter month averaging for the wastewater portion, so maybe I'm being charged a higher amount due to the lack of billing history ?

[lh_newbie]

During winter (don't recall the specific months), they use the average of those months to average your sewage (since you're not watering the lawn in the winter). That average is used for your sewage charges for the next 12 months.

Keep in mind your bill consist of three items: Water, sewer and sanitation (trash). Sewer and sanitation are going to be fixed rates; only your water usage is measured and varies on a monthly basis. You'd have to subtract out those fixed rate items in order to calculate what your bill should be. You and I both pay the same per unit of water; we pay the same for sanitation; we pay the same per unit of sewer as well. If you factor that in, your bill should indeed be $75.

Our usage charge for 158 units of water is $46.42 ($0.2938 per unit). I bet yours is about the same.

Brian

[superkaty]

Originally Posted by GuestDallas

Thanks for the clarification....I meant 66 units. My water bill in Houston used to be half the amount with similar usage. Sounds like Dallas charges a bit more. But if I use the comparison you used of 15k gallons at $100, and apply to my usage of 6.6K, I should only have a bill of ~$45. I looked at the city of Dallas website, and they refer to some type of Winter month averaging for the wastewater portion, so maybe I'm being charged a higher amount due to the lack of billing history ?

it may sound too simple, but according to an engineering friend, water bills in houston are actually cheaper because the water does not have to be pumped very far from it's source since they are so near the coast.

[bluescreen73]

We get our water from Lake Lavon, 25 miles away, even though Lake Lewisville is 500 yards from my front door. So we're paying for the water AND the cost of running the pumps to move the water a quarter of the way across the metroplex.

The asinine take-or-pay contracts the cities set up with the water districts don't help, either.

You buy x amount of water. You get charged for x amount of water even if you don't use all the water you bought.

So, conserving water actually drives your rates UP because the city still has to pay for the water they never used.

The water district also nails the city with overage charges if you go OVER the amount you purchased.

In order to maximize your benefit under these moronic contracts, you must use every ounce of water you've purchased, and not one drop more or less.

[Pete53FR]

The City of Dallas has continued to increase fees for trash,sanitation, and other stuff they make up like runoff water fees. The amount of water is actually a small part maybe 25% of the entire bill.

My bill has climbed to over 100 a month and there is very little that I can see that will lower it.