White House Utility District Rip Off? (Hendersonville, Gallatin: for sale, lease, new home)

[bran_smith]

that was messed up srry....but also check your meter when you get your bill and see if they see the samething
bc when we got our first electric it was like 800 and it was for 15 days...
soo they read it wrong....

[rossc]

A quick meter test would be to shut everything off, read the meter and fill a 5 gallon bucket 10 times. If the meter then reads 50 gallons more than it did, the meter is working. If it doesn't, you need stay on the water company until it's fixed. When they come and test the meter, they don't test it's accuracy, they just make sure it turns when the water is on.

Another possibility is that they don't actually read the meter every month. When I lived in NH they did that with the power. They just assumed that your monthly usage was roughly the same month to month. They would check the meter about 4 times a year. I figured that out when I went away for 2 months and shut the power off at the main. My bills for those two months were within a few dollars of the month before.

If this is happening to you, they could be averaging your usage based on an abnormally high usage month from the previous owner. Could be the PO wasn't concerned about the high bills because they were actually using that much water.

I would also read the meter daily and write down the dates. Then when your bill comes you can add up your actual usage for your billing cycle.

[CaliCouple]

My Husband and I just purchased a home in White House. We will be there at the end of the month. What's with the water bills there? Great! Why do some people have cheap bills and some have very expensive ones? Our home is a 2003 so the plumming should be pretty good, but now I'm getting worried. LOL Is it that bad? Water bills should not be hundreds of dollars a month. Anyway, hopefully ours will be OK.

[46Barb]

CaliCouple, you can ask your realtor to get you the water charges for the house your buying for the past year. The realtor can either get it from the homeowners or the utility company.

Back to the original posting, I'm wondering if there is a water leak somewhere in the lines under the ground which is not being detected. We use our washing machine & dishwasher a lot and only have bills around $21 a month. We don't have sewers, but it still wouldn't add up to that high of a bill. We also don't water the lawn at all. Only one person in my neighborhood waters his lawn all the time with a sprinkler system, and that's because he owns his own landscaping business.

Have you asked any of your neighbors what they are paying each month? This will give you an idea of how off your bill is.

Forgot to say that one of my neighbors where I used to live had a similar problem, and it turned out to be a problem with the meter.

[Decepticon]

Thanks for the great suggestions! We never thought about the meter spinning faster than it should. The bucket test is a great way to test that! My husband is going to do that. It sounds like something has to be wrong. Now just to figure it out and prove it to the water company.

[Mary Sunshine]

We were told by a neighbor that the reason for the high water bills is due to the enormous infrastructure build for the water and sewer sytem construction in northern Hendersonville. We are basically subsidizing that.

I know you said that you don't have sprinklers but for those that do you can call WHUD and ask them to do something called "Sewer Averaging." We were able to save doing that.

[CaliCouple]

Originally Posted by 46Barb

CaliCouple, you can ask your realtor to get you the water charges for the house your buying for the past year. The realtor can either get it from the homeowners or the utility company.

Back to the original posting, I'm wondering if there is a water leak somewhere in the lines under the ground which is not being detected. We use our washing machine & dishwasher a lot and only have bills around $21 a month. We don't have sewers, but it still wouldn't add up to that high of a bill. We also don't water the lawn at all. Only one person in my neighborhood waters his lawn all the time with a sprinkler system, and that's because he owns his own landscaping business.

Have you asked any of your neighbors what they are paying each month? This will give you an idea of how off your bill is.

Forgot to say that one of my neighbors where I used to live had a similar problem, and it turned out to be a problem with the meter.

Thanks Barb, good idea about the water averaging from Mary Sunshine too. They do it in Los Angeles. It's only my husband and I so it's not like we have a house load of kids using water all the time. But I will check out what the last owners bill was too. Maybe that's why they sold the house! LOL LOL I know if you have a septic tank the water bills are cheaper. I knew about this water problem before because of the forum here, and we we always seem to be looking in Cottontown for a house, but we ended up in White House with the High Water Bill problem. I'll keep this thread posted after we move in next week and let you know what are bill turns out to be.

[Porcupine]

I can't believe I found an entire room where people are as sickened by the water/sewer bills in WH as I am. I was shocked when moving to WH three years ago from Hendersonville. My water bill in H'ville was maybe $40 a month and that was when my teenage daughter (and all of her friends) showered at least twice a day. I argued with WHUD when first moving here only to be told to check for a leak. After about a year of "checking for a leak" I realized that there was no leak just a ridiculous sewer rate. The neighboring towns charge around $5 per thousand gallons. The rate in WH is over $20 per thousand. That is INSANE!! Please, please, please if you are thinking of moving here and your utilities are budgeted, please don't move here. You will be sorry. Most months my water/sewer is much more than my electric bill. The town is lovely and I love most of the people. But between the police pulling you over for everything under the sun (no tickets received, just warnings because the car in front of me slammed on their brakes when they saw the police car and then I was following too closely) and the water bills it is really not worth it.

[MiddleTNresident]

Are you within city limits of White House or on the outskirts?

There's more than one sewer service provider in the White House area. That may be why some of us are OK with what we are paying and some of us are not.

If you're within WH City limits like me, your provider would be City of White House Sewer Dept. Otherwise, it would be White House Utility District.

SEWER RATES (in City):
CITY OF WHITE HOUSE SEWER DEPT
minimum bill: 0 to 1,000 gallons = $14
all over 1,000 gallons = $6.65 per 1,000 gallons
The above rates are on the WH website here:
http://www.cityofwhitehouse.com/documentview.asp?DID=17 (broken link)

SEWER RATES (outside City):
WHITE HOUSE UTILITY DISTRICT
0 - 2,000 gallons = $27.50
Over 2,000 gallons = $27.50 + $4.24 per 1,000 gallons over 2,000 gallons

WATER RATES:
WHITE HOUSE UTILITY DISTRICT
0 - 1,000 gallons $9.50
1,001 - 2,500 gallons $16.50
Over 2,500 gallons $16.50 + $4.75 per 1,000 gallons over 2,500 gallons

WHUD has several coverage areas for water & sewer. Water rates are the same for all, but the sewer rates vary a quite a bit.

Map of the coverage areas:
http://www.whud.org/images/WHUDSewer...rea_092208.png

Rates for the different coverage areas:
White House Utility District

So the story is much more complicated than how much water a household uses.....it has a lot to do with where your house is located and who is providing your service.

But if you're on the Sumner county side of WH, you're paying less for property taxes than those of us on the Robertson County side. Does it balance out? I have no idea! I've never seen cities split between counties and service providers before I moved to Tennessee. It's absurd.

[lovinTN]

Don't look at the dollar amount, but look at your usage. Compare your current usage to what your usage was at your previous location. That will give you an idea of whether there is a leak somewhere or not. I know when I moved closer to the city, my water bill tripled. At first, I thought I had a leak, but I didn't. We used the same amount of water as before. We just had a much higher water charge. A friend of mine is single and lives in a rural community in Williamson County. His water bill just for himself (no washing cars, no watering grass) is $100/mo.