$428.98 Water Bill!!!!

[affan]

Unfrigginbelievable. Last month, my water bill was 103 dollars which was weird, because the two occupants of the house spend only 12 hours in the house, from 9:30 PM to 9:30 AM daily. But I went ahead and paid it because I didn't want to go through the hassle of this and that. And now I got this bill and it reads $428.98!!! I do have a 225 gallon tank, and a 55 gallon sump. I make 14 gallon RO/DI water changes every fifth day and 2 gallons top off a day but there's no way water is THIS expensive? In my area, they did double the rates as of last month, but even before that I never had to pay more than 30 bucks a month, tops. So even after the rate hike I shouldn't be paying more than 60 bucks. Nothing in the house seems to be leaking so I'm thinking maybe a busted pipe somewhere under the house? Any feedback would be appreciated. I want to make sure that this isn't related to the water usage for the tank.

TIA

[JR719]

I would be checking with the others as to wether or not they have left water on. Also, check for a busted pipe. That bill sounds too high for normal tank maint.
May also check if the neighbors are stealing water from the faucet.

[poppin_fresh]

That sounds nutty! I would call the water department and see if they can come out and assess the situation. You might have a bad meter, or a bad reading. $428.00 would equate to thousands of cubic feet of feet of water, there is no way a normal household would use that much.

[ppht]

Damn I have a 13500 gal pool and totally refill it and it wasnt that much.

[sreefs]

Make sure your ro unit is not running 24/7 sending all that water down the drain. Also check your toilets that the flapper is sealing correctly. Something has to be running 24/7 to use that much water. Go to your water meter they have a gauge that spins when your using water make sure nothing is using water in the house (wash machine, dishwasher etc..) the gauge should not be spinning when everything is off.
HTH.
Pat

[Agu]

The police will show up shortly to find out if you're running a hydroponic gardening center. They'll get to the bottom of your water bill for you.







j/k

[pad]

Man i was away for a week one time and came back to find a toilet running and a note on my door. It was over $600. The worse thing is my neibhbors were watching the place and they said they did not use the bathroom.

[W Ellis]

Sounds like a busted pipe to me. Start at the meter and work your way to the house looking for soggy ground. If you have a crawl space check under there too. With a price like that it sounds like more than just a leaky toilet. I do property maintenance and i had a busted pipe in a 5 unit apt building and had like 8-900 dollar bill from it. If you have a concrete foundation there should be a company in your are that has some kind of machine to detect water under the foundation. Hope you figure it out.

[Crepusculum]

That is an insane water bill. When I had my pool refilled my bill was about 130. Although my father had the main water line to his house decay and leak and he didn't know it until his 600 dollar bill came. So maybe it's something to that nature.

[AZDesertRat]

Read you water meter every day, morning and evening for a few days and record your usage. The meter should have a little triangle or diamond shaped leak indicator on the face, if its turning at all water is going somewhere. Check all toilet floats, swamp cooler floats, pool levellers and any other automatic device. Listen to the waste line on your RO/DI for continous flow. Check any sprinkler heads and time clocks. Thats about all you can do. Its amazing how much water can go down the drain over a weekend due to a stuck toilet float while you are away from home, I make it a point to check every device in the house before leaving for a trip.

[wakskat]

I know some one who had a sprinkler pipe burst in their dry creak bed that had a drain at the end so they never noticed the water gushing. They did however notice the $10,000 water bill they got for that month.

Mark

[Airman]

In my area if your can show that you have a leak they will refund your money. Check your leak indicator on your meter.

[EB847]

I had a $233 bill once and had the water company send out a person to evaluate everything water related (free). She told me that 90% of your water usage is outside (sprinklers). That is where the problem was. She tested every sprinkler and flagged the issues (including a broken pipe that was sending a buttload of water down the drain at 3 am when the sprinklers came on). cut back on watering the lawn and fixed the leaks. -problem solved. Got them to refund $100, but was very difficult to get out of them!

[W Ellis]

My water company compared the previous bills to the leak bill and charged me for the water but credited for the sewage charge,

[Nano Chris]

Huh, you pay a water bill every month? I think we get ours ever 3 or 6 months, not sure but i think its 3.

[Nano Chris]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8126006#post8126006 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Agu
The police will show up shortly to find out if you're running a hydroponic gardening center. They'll get to the bottom of your water bill for you.







j/k :lol:

[newtophish]

The easiest way to check is make sure everything is off and then look at your meter. If it is still turning you have a problem.

[Sk8r]

Important to contact the water company. If there is a leak promptly reported, they will cancel the bill in many areas. Also in some areas, if they can't reach the meter, they guesstimate and straighten it out later, but this sounds more like a catastrophic leak.

[ERICinFL]

If you have a water shut off valve on the exterior of your home (between your house and meter), turn it off and check your meter. When my water bill jumped, that's what the water company advised. Unfortunately, they weren't responsable for repairs after the meter, so I had to find the leak myself and fix it. Good luck.

[affan]

Well, much thanks to everyone for their responses and secondly, I haven't yet had a chance to check the meter and things mentioned by everyone, but one thing's for sure: if the neighbors are stealing my water, I am going to shoot their dog tomorrow :lol:




Just kidding .. :lol:

[miwoodar]

My electric company bills me on a 'projected usage' basis. Once a year I get a whopper that puts all the other months bills to shame. There is great advice elsewhere in this thread; however, I would be on the phone with the water company if you don't find anything a miss.

[jasert39]

definitely start checking you have a pretty serious problems somewhere. $600 bucks is crazy good luck

[Waxxiemann]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8125902#post8125902 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by sreefs
Make sure your ro unit is not running 24/7 sending all that water down the drain. Also check your toilets that the flapper is sealing correctly. Something has to be running 24/7 to use that much water. Go to your water meter they have a gauge that spins when your using water make sure nothing is using water in the house (wash machine, dishwasher etc..) the gauge should not be spinning when everything is off.
HTH.
Pat

I agree, make sure that your RO is working correctly.

[boxfishpooalot]

Sux

Would be cool if everone on RC could off you a penny! With 134,548 members at .01c each you would have=

$1344.55 to pay that water bill. :lol:

And still have enough for some votecs, or tunze streams!

[jerryz]

First thing to do ia make sure that your RO unit isn't a problem. With your description that was my first thought. Not leak. Well leak in a way I guess ;) When was the last time you changes ou the membrane in your RO unit? If it's highly inefficient it may be to the point hat it takes several thousand gallons of water to getr your 2 gals of RO daily.

[steve the plumb]

Thats one thing I don't pay for is water.We have a yearly tax of $300(It may be a bit more) I don't have a meter.My friend lives in 5 year old home and he has one.Still it isn't more that a few hundred dollars a year.But we are taxed to death on other things in Quebec(property tax ,school tax,income tax,sales tax(15%),gasoline,and many more)In the end it comes down to the government wants to take as much money out of our pockets so as to feed themselves on our backs

[spoiledcats]

This happened to me several years back. My bill was between 300-400, and though rates were raised, I thought that excessive. I checked the water meter, and that little triangle thing was going around sometimes fast (when water was running in a sink) and sometimes slow, when I had nothing running. Now it went around very slowly, but when everything is turned off, it should not move period. Turns out, I had a leaky toilet, that didn't make enough noise to notice it. I found it by trial and error-turn off the water to a particular thing, go check the meter, etc. Fortunately it was about the 3rd thing I checked. After my husband fixed it, the next water bill was about $200 less, and that's with 5 people in the house. So you could have a leak that isn't making anything wet, and still runs up your water bill.