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Just received our second water bill, which was a lot larger than expected. First bill was ~$46 (for about 11 days) and the second bill is ~$300. I'm very new to this homeowner thing with maintaining the lawn and all, so it may as well be perfectly accurate. We did have the "new meter" installed about 3 weeks after moving in, so I'm a little suspect. However, I am also leaning towards the fact that I may be over-watering the lawn? I initially had my sprinklers set to twice a week for 20 minutes (8 zones, if that matters). Then I noticed that the ground was pretty soggy most of the time, so I backed it off to once a week for 20 minutes--seemed like it worked because things dried out just enough.
It's just my wife and I living in our house and we supposedly used over 22k gallons in 36 days. Is that high? I don't have anything to compare it to as we've only been in the house since July 15th. When I contacted the TOC, they said that I'm watering WAY too long and should probably get down to about 5-10 minutes, 2 days a week. As far as I can tell there is no leak in the house that I know of (haven't tried the food coloring test yet), but wanted to get some advice/opinions as well.
Just received our second water bill, which was a lot larger than expected. First bill was ~$46 (for about 11 days) and the second bill is ~$300. I'm very new to this homeowner thing with maintaining the lawn and all, so it may as well be perfectly accurate. We did have the "new meter" installed about 3 weeks after moving in, so I'm a little suspect. However, I am also leaning towards the fact that I may be over-watering the lawn? I initially had my sprinklers set to twice a week for 20 minutes (8 zones, if that matters). Then I noticed that the ground was pretty soggy most of the time, so I backed it off to once a week for 20 minutes--seemed like it worked because things dried out just enough.
It's just my wife and I living in our house and we supposedly used over 22k gallons in 36 days. Is that high? I don't have anything to compare it to as we've only been in the house since July 15th. When I contacted the TOC, they said that I'm watering WAY too long and should probably get down to about 5-10 minutes, 2 days a week. As far as I can tell there is no leak in the house that I know of (haven't tried the food coloring test yet), but wanted to get some advice/opinions as well.
Start with shutting all the water off in your house and looking at the meter to see if it is still spinning. 22k gallons of water is alot of water.
I just checked my meter and I have our timer on 15 minutes a day, only 2 zones, and 3000 sq/ft of coverage for the last 2 weeks and have used about 6k gallons so far with a week to go before the next bill.
I agree with turning everything off and going to look @ the meter. If it is stopped, then you *probably* don't have a leak. If you turn on your sprinklers, and it starts going like crazy, then you might have a leak in your sprinkler system.
I am going to DM you with my yearly average - you can tell when we water our new seed in - because our usage jumps, but we are a family of four and we don't use near what you are using. For 30 days, at 22k you are talking >700 gallons a day. wow. Something isn't right somewhere, IMHO.
I sometimes wonder about the "average use" or "normal use" in this area. I've checked "average uses" across the country, and the alleged "average use" in the Triangle is rather low in comparison to many ... perhaps even most.
It makes one wonder ... what is, indeed, the "average" user or group of users here?
Are apartment-dwellers factored in with homeowners? Are families with working members or members outside of the home for several hours factored in with families who may have one or more people who spend most of the day at home? Are those who have irrigation systems factored in with those who don't have one? These were questions raised by posters on the News & Observer's message board back when the new system came into place, and they were never addressed by anyone ... probably because it would be too difficult to answer, even though I feel those matters should have been mentioned.
Right now, we're using about 10 - 12K for a family of 3.5 (one member lives in another state for several days at a time .... I didn't divide a family member in two!) Most months, we stay under that dreaded Tier 3, but sometimes, we don't, for some reason. (Good question why .... maybe I wash too many dishes in one month and should use paper plates or something! However, I would then have to buy paper plates and cups, so I'm not sure if the cost savings would be that significant.) Like many, we have checked for and repaired any leaks that we know of. So yes, your usage does seem a bit high to me. But I don't have an irrigation system, so this might be comparing apples with oranges.
Now that your outside watering should start to decrease, you might get a better idea of what your non-irrigating usage will be soon, and at that point, you might be able to better determine what is going on. In the meantime, it wouldn't hurt to check for leaks. There might have been something that the builder or a previous owner forgot to mention, or didn't know about at all. Good luck with this water system!
My opinion is something is definitely wrong...2 person household even with sprinklers couldn't use that much water...Single household here and I average 3500 gallons per month. I'm new to this TOC water billing myself and feel your pain.
TOC is also behind on billing, make sure it's not a combined bill for more than a one month cycle. I just received my bill for the 7-19-11-8-19-11 billing cycle and it's October 7th. They had sent a letter out and printed in the local paper about their billing being behind. I am still waiting for the bill for 8-19-11-9-19-11 and the current bill which will cycle on 10/19/11. They were supposed to go on a 3-week billing cycle to get caught up but haven't seen anything reflect this.
My wife and I average around 3400 gallons/mo. It can spike higher but that's pretty much our steady state number. During the drought we managed to cut another 500 gallons per month but that took a fair amount of effort.
As far as the OP's problem - turn the water off at the meter too ... hopefully you get a dead stop on the meter then. Then work your way to the whole house shutoff, etc.
It's just my wife and I living in our house and we supposedly used over 22k gallons in 36 days. Is that high?
Seems high, even with all that lawn watering. We were told that "on average" one adult uses about 60 gallons of water a day. So the two of you should be using about 3600 gallons a month plus the lawn watering.
In four of the five months we've lived in Cary, we (3) have used 3,000 - 4,000 gallons a month. End of July to end of August, we supposedly used nearly 12,000 gallons.
Does not compute. We installed new Toto low-flow toilets and a new HE front loading washer. Never watered the lawn once this summer and did not water the garden beds during this time as I had been watching our rain gauge and we had over an inch of rain each week.
We are back to 3,000 gallons for this month. So if there had been a leak between the meter and the house, it apparently repaired itself.
Utility company came out and checked our meter. Said everything was okay. We've checked it by turning off all the water and watching the meter. Nothing.
We still have the old style meter. I dread to think what the bill will be when the new meter is installed.
My bill was big this month, but it's because I had a leak between the meter & the house. Darn polybutylene piping! At least the house was replumbed years ago...
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