In our town we have public water and sewer. My bill is outrageous!!!! I spend at least $100-125/month average. The owners previous to us spent half that and they only had 1 person less than us in their household and even the water company said our bill was high. In our old town we spent $35-40/month on water and sewer.
I wish I had some advice. We are having the same experience. I talked about it here Do you have a well?. In the past maybe 6 months, we have jumped from around $50/mo. to $125/mo. It's crazy!
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"Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever."
We are billed every 3mths here in our town. It averages about $189.00 every 3mths.
With your water/sewer bills being so much higher than the last owners you might want to check and see if you have any water leaks anywhere. Are any faucets dripping constantly? Does your toilet run too much. Sometimes a leak from the toilet tank into the bowl goes undetected and can really run up your water bill (happened to us). Just place a couple drops of food coloring into your toilet tank before bedtime and in the morning if there is color in the toilet bowl then you know you have a leak. Of course don't let anyone flush the toilet overnight before you look.
Check your basement and crawl spaces to make sure pipes aren't leaking. You could always request that they re-read the meter, one time we actually had a meter reader read one number wrong because of a dirt smudge was covering part of the #3 and he wrote it down as #8.
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"Go on, get outside, get the stink blown off ya!!"
We have a septic tank, so no monthly expense there.
Catch rain water to water your plants.
Don't let your water run when you brush your teeth
Take quick showers, and if your kids are little, bathe them together.
Wash clothes and run the dishwasher, only with full loads.
And like Country mouse suggested, check for leaks!
That is a great idea about the food coloring. I'll try that tonight. Our toilet does run on occassion and you have to jiggle the handle to make it stop. The kids dont always do that and I'll walk by the bathroom and hear it running. It's an old toilet with a huge tank. Maybe we should get a new one that is water efficient? The pipes in the basement are fine, dh checked them. Our faucets do not drip. The bill has been consistently this high since we moved in.
Maybe the ancient toilet is the culprit. Could 1 toilet be wasting that much water?
We have a septic tank, so no monthly expense there.
Catch rain water to water your plants.
Don't let your water run when you brush your teeth
Take quick showers, and if your kids are little, bathe them together.
Wash clothes and run the dishwasher, only with full loads.
And like Country mouse suggested, check for leaks!
Thank you for the suggestions! The rain water one made me laugh though because we have had rain almost the entire month of June, one thing I keep telling people is at least I dont have to water my garden.
Water leaking from a toilet tank can really add up over a month's time. If you can't afford a new toilet tank right away, try putting a filled half gallon or a gallon(if it will fit) plastic milk jug inside the tank to take up more space to conserve water. Also check to see if outside water faucets are not dripping constantly.
We had a dripping outside faucet at our old house and the guys who worked for the city water/sewer department asked if we put a bucket under the faucet how full would it be at the end of the day? I told him almost to the top. He said that water adds up really fast over a one month period. Once we got that fixed, we saw a difference on our water bill.
Good Luck, i hope you can find some answers.
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"Go on, get outside, get the stink blown off ya!!"
YES 1 toilet could be causing that much $$$$.... When I lived in an apt my water bill was at most $25/month and when I was out of town my water bill came in at over $150 so they came and fixed it with out me even being there and re embursed me some money on that bill. We didn't even notice that toilet leaking.
Our water/sewer bil for a fam of 3 with watering the lawn is 50.48 this month. It is about $10 more wtih watering the lawn.
We just got theese tables that go in the tank in this months bill to check for leaks.
If its brown Flush it Down if its yellow let it mellow. Conserve on flushing or but something in your toilet tank to use less with each flush, check for leaks, water less.
Our bill is typicaly is between $40 and $65 a month. (we are also in an area that doesn't have drought issues ever)
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Kimberly Proud Mommy to Bethany Rose April 2006 &
Organizer of the Coupon Clippers of Tacoma
Town water and sewer bills
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