Water bill.... (Austin: how much, house, moving)

[woodinvilleguy]

Holy crap...... My jaw dropped when I just got my latest water bill.

I was wondering how many gallons is average for others in Austin. It feels like we must be doing something wrong.

We were at 43,100 gallons last for August.

[HappyTexan]

Wow..maybe you have a leak ?

I use average 3000 gal/month for $17 (Manville Water)

[Trainwreck20]

Our worst months (maybe one a year) are usually around 18000 gallons, and that is a corner lot, but it is not acreage or anything.

[woodinvilleguy]

I am going to check out sprinklerr system. Maybe it is watering longer than I thought

[killer2021]

Could also be an underground leak. I had one of those and I didn't find out until a sink hole formed on my law. Good thing it was small.

[Mike78613]

Dang 43K gallons. Are you trying to make your own lake?

Wait,, trying to fill up a new pool? You must have some very green grass!!

[centralaustinite]

You have a leak! Are you in the City of Austin? They will usually do a leak detection test for anyone who uses over 29,000 gallons.

We average about 7000 gallons a month, up to 11,000 if I am trying to keep the grass green.

If you don't have a leak (and really, you most likely do) you might have sprinklers that are going on every night while you are sleeping. If there has been a power outage, even just for a few seconds, and your system doesn't have a battery back-up, it can default to everyday watering. If it is in the middle of the night you won't even know. So that is a possibility, but a leak is more likely.

Good luck!

[xsloane]

I agree with everyone else, you must have a leak. We try to be "water wise", our usage so far has varied from 4 to 11 thousand in a little over a year here.
A very easy way to initially find out if you have a leak is to make sure no one or nothing (including ice maker in freezer) is using water in your house and go and check your meter. Judging from the huge number you have, you should actually be able to see it moving, assuming is a big leak.

[Trainwreck20]

Well, actually, if you are watering quite a bit and have a decent size yard, you CAN water 30 or 40k gallons in a month. Our water usage goes from 3 or 4k in the winter up toe 12-18k in the summer, and we are pretty careful in how much we water. So, basically, we are watering 10-15k in the summer. If you are running your sprinklers 'double' (via a combination of frequency and volume), then you can easily get to 20-30k just from watering......

[tourbound129]

Make sure you aren't running any water then just look at your meter. If it is spinning, you have a leak.

But I agree, depending on the size of your yard and how much you are watering, you could easily use that much water with a sprinkler system. We have a corner lot (about a 1/4 acre). I have been using 20K+ gallons/month during the summer just watering 2 days/week.