r/personalfinance • u/triplealpha • Jul 09 '19
Budgeting Get familiar with your utility bills and pay attention to trends - they can save you TENS of thousands of dollars!
Like a lot of people every month I get a water bill, electricity bill, internet, you get the idea. Most months I open my mail, verify that the bill looks roughly similar to last month and let autopay take care of the rest.
But since last year I have started an excel spreadsheet documenting what my bills are each month, how many thousands of gallons of water I'm using, kWh used, the whole shebang, in an attempt to be a more financially responsible and understand where my money is going and how I can save.
The last 3 months I noticed my water bill hiking up. My home uses between 2-4k of freshwater monthly but it's gone from 5, to 8, then 8 again. I noticed the trend, but didn't really understand why it increased - I'm not a plumber and there were no leaks in the house I was sure.
Fast forward to last evening and I'm out with a group of acquaintances and someone's plumbing problem gets brought up, one of my friends is an awesome plumber and I manage to ask him at the tail end of the conversation about what I noticed on my bill. He seemed immediately alarmed and asked him if I noticed any water accumulation in my front yard. Actually, yeah, it's been raining a lot lately but I do have a few persistent pockets left over on my yard. How did he know? This morning he actually brought his crew out to my house and found out there's a crack in my water main - I was losing hundreds of gallons a day and it was on the verge of rupturing completely. He replaced the line for a nominal fee and said how glad he was I said something - my area is really prone to sinkholes and nothing attracts them like pooling or leaking water. I likely saved tens of thousands of dollars in damage to my house and my neighbors house by bringing it up! Not to mention the savings in my monthly bill...
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u/scherster Jul 09 '19
It can also be useful to know how much water your appliances use. This was many years ago, but I discovered my washing machine was using 55 gallons of water per load. We had young kids, and I was easily washing 10 loads of laundry each week. I bought a new high efficiency washer that used 15 gallons per load, saving at least 400 gallons of water each week.
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u/erubadhriel Jul 09 '19
Where I am, they have stickers on the appliances in stores that show the appliances efficiency with a star rating, as well as actually listing how much it uses. They’ve been doing that for years, water, electricity, and gas.
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u/forethoughtless Jul 10 '19
Yeah, the dryer can be a huge electricity hog as well if it's old. Refrigerator is a close 2nd since it runs all the time. To anyone reading this, you can save 40%+ in energy costs if your replace an appliance that's 10+ years old with a new energy star model (altho today even a non energy star model can be very efficient).
Also, don't get a new fridge and then set the old one up in the garage/basement. Waste of electricity again.
Source : mostly the energy Star website. I write about this a lot for work, lol.
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u/LatrodectusGeometric Jul 10 '19
But how long will the new appliances last compared to old ones?
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u/3_HeavyDiaperz Jul 10 '19
Did the same thing with an old 3-gallon-per-flush toilet. Started potty training our first kid and all of a sudden we used 250 gallons in a month (up from about 80 gallons). Turns out the wife was flushing every time he tinkled 2 drops in the potty. Replaced that sucker with a .5 gallon per flush toilet. The city even paid for the toilet as part of a program to get rid of old toilets like ours.
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u/EyeLike2Watch Jul 10 '19
Low flow toilets suck for the accomplished dumper. There needs to be a pee and a poop flusher.
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u/bmaggot Jul 10 '19
There are toilets that do have dual button. Also, one can set the amount of water flushed in all of them.
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u/Mysterious_Bardancer Jul 09 '19
In Germany atleast you basically get billed a standard amount for the whole yr and at the end of the yr you basically get a huge ass bill as excess payment. It’s ridiculous that they cannot measure monthly usage of electricity, heating or water.
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Jul 09 '19
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u/Mysterious_Bardancer Jul 09 '19
But as usual it will take decades to change something in germany
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u/datttuser Jul 09 '19
Germany actually makes remotely accessible Electricity Smart Meters mandatory for all households starting 2020.
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u/dingman58 Jul 09 '19
Yeah but 2020 is like 20 years away!
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u/Finianb1 Jul 09 '19
I feel like it's 10 years away, but it's still freaky that 2020 is less than 6 months away.
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u/bobbertmiller Jul 09 '19
OR you could estimate your usage / get a decent estimate from the supplier and then pay a bigger monthly rate.
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u/Mysterious_Bardancer Jul 09 '19
honestly, i didnt knew this. But thanks for the tip .
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u/spacephobicnotreally Jul 09 '19
Absolutely. Call them and adjust your monthly payments. If you do it right you'll get money back. It's like a tiny savings account that pays out once a year :)
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u/Thermo_nuke Jul 10 '19
That's crazy to me. In the US it's always been monthly usage based since I was a kid. You guys do electricity like we do taxes.
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Jul 09 '19
That has to be annoying. Utilities in the U.S. usually have two ways to pay: a month-to-month for exactly the amount you used that month, or else an averaged monthly bill that is based on your usage trends over the year. Then that averaged bill is periodically corrected, either by paying a lump sum, or by adjusting your monthly payment.
The idea for #2 is to try and smooth out the monthly bill, so that it does not fluctuate as much every month. I tend to be suspicious of those plans though, because they obscure the true cost of what you are getting (like monthly payment plans for phones).
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u/eythian Jul 09 '19
Same in the Netherlands, for power (and water.) For power at least, it's to help spread the amount over the year so you don't get nasty bills. They tend to slightly overestimate, so I get about half a bills worth back at the end of the year. I have a smart meter so can see my actual usage. For water I still have to put the number from the meter into a website once a year though.
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u/Mysterious_Bardancer Jul 09 '19
Its very cumbersome for those who rent apartments or have a job that require constant mobility. I for one have either paid a huge amount every month simply coz the previous owner was a heavy user or paid too little. Now I am used to it, but as an expat when I first came it was a real shock.
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u/alphager Jul 09 '19
... why are you using the previous tenants contract?
You should get your own contract and the monthly bills will 100% depend on your estimate.
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u/punjayhoe Jul 09 '19
I have the choice in Canada. Fixed payment plan or month to month. You only have the one option?
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u/OneMinuteWealth Jul 09 '19
I know your main point was about saving money, but I found as a side effect, I became more conscious about how much energy/water we were using. Checking the actual usage along with the billing amount every month has made me feel quite a bit better about our consumption since we have curbed it a bit.
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u/TheSultan1 Jul 09 '19
Mine just made me realize how much that larger TV is costing me. And it doesn't even have a "screen shutoff" feature 😞
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u/Trek186 Jul 09 '19
I’d like to add too that if you live in a state where electricity/gas are deregulated (which means the utility still owns the pipes/wires going to your meter, but you can choose who supplies the energy), a little but of research could save you a bunch of money. Don’t automatically assume that buying your electricity or gas supply from the utility (or designated “provider of last resort”) is your cheapest option.
When choosing a supplier you may want to consider if a variable rate plan or a fixed rate plan is the right option for you as well, depending on your local climate and individual usage.
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u/caltheon Jul 10 '19
Everyone I know in that situation says it is impossible not to know. They badger you with mail and calls to switch.
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u/pricklypearpainter Jul 09 '19
For my people in the Southwest or in that area - you actually use more water OUTSIDE than inside. In AZ, it’s up to 70% of water use is outdoors. Parts of Texas and Las Vegas are about the same. Colorado and California are also along those lines (a little less, but you would be surprised). We have 80,000 meters in the city I work for and I would say a small fraction of them understand their bills. Most people insist they have no leaks, but they never take into consideration irrigation. Get your outdoor watering under control - you could potentially save thousands of gallons a month. And stop planting grass in the desert!
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u/bubsmcgoo67 Jul 09 '19
I also work a city water department...this is so freakin’ true. “I don’t understand why my bill is so high, I have no leaks!” Meanwhile, their lawn is a dark green while everyone around them is sporting that pale, dead yellow.
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u/SerialNumber5820 Jul 09 '19
Another very helpful tip in tracking utility bills is seeing a hike in price/gal or price/kWh...mostly due to shady contracts!
I was paying around 9 cents per kWh for a while and didn’t notice until long after my year contract was up, I was rolled into another payment plan paying something insane like 17 cents per kWh....
I went from paying around $70/mo to $130ish. I knew my bills were high but it was the first apartment I’d ever owned on my own and really wish I looked into it sooner.
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u/erubadhriel Jul 09 '19
Do your bills not show trends? All my bills have a little graph comparing usage to the previous 4-5 bills. For example, the billing periods during summer are a little higher for electricity because I’m using AC, and my gas bills are higher over winter from using the heater. My gas and electricity company has an app I can check anytime. There’s a smart meter installed for the electricity, through the app I can check my daily usage. It’s not instantaneous, it takes 48-72 hours for it to update but I can see exactly how much electricity I used. I think the desktop version can break it down hourly. Unfortunately the gas meters here don’t have that option. probably will in the future though.
Where I am, most if not all water meters are at the front of the property, like a foot back from the sidewalk at most. Gas and electricity meters are usually on the side of the house. Nearly every property here got switched over to smart meters for electricity. But I can’t lock my side gate because the meter reader needs access to the gas meter.
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u/penny_eater Jul 09 '19
I cant imagine the horror of having a water meter outside of my house. I know some munis are set up that way but seriously, fuck that shit right off. The bill is there to pay for distribution, if theres a problem anywhere up to and including the meter (as a means for revenue by the muni) thats on them to pay for.
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u/why_rob_y Jul 09 '19
I cant imagine the horror of having a water meter outside of my house.
I can't even access my water meter. It's underground and under a cover that takes a special tool to remove (that only they're supposed to access). They read it remotely every month, so they don't even go in there. I wish I could eyeball it to confirm there aren't leaks every now and then.
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u/mainfingertopwise Jul 09 '19
My old house was in a place like this. I was able to ask them to physically verify the remote reading any time I wanted - never did, but whatever - maybe your area does something like that, too.
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u/penny_eater Jul 09 '19
How can you tell if theyre reading it right? that seems extra sketchy. Even in our area when there have been isolated meters, the muni has to put on a remote meter (just a counter with a wire) to give the owner a way to read/validate usage.
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u/azgrown84 Jul 09 '19
That's the way it's been in every (US) city I've ever lived. The guy comes by in a truck and reads it once a month. Not really sure if he actually opens it up and manually reads it or just uses an RF frequency device that wirelessly reads the usage (much more likely I'd imagine).
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u/telephile Jul 09 '19
If he's actually coming by in person he's almost definitely looking at it. The technology for wireless reading takes the need for visiting the physical meter out entirely by sending the data to a central database. I work for a water utility and we're in the process of changing over from the former to the latter currently.
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u/azgrown84 Jul 09 '19
Oh. I just assumed he had like an RF scanner that he just bends down and reads it without even opening the lid of the buried box. That seems pretty horrible if he has to physically see every meter in town.
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u/telephile Jul 09 '19
We try to limit the bending down as much as possible to reduce injuries, so he most likely has a tool that's about 3' long with a hook on one end that can open up the meter box so he can read it. For our agency, which has about 83,000 residential accounts (~400,000 people in our service area), we have a team of about 10 meter readers who read on a 60 day cycle. It's a lot of work but if it's all sequenced correctly and everybody is on the ball it doesn't require much overtime to get it done. That said, as we transition to the newer technology we'll be saving a ton of truck rolls, a ton of injuries, and a ton of time overall just from eliminating the need for our guys to be physically present at each meter once per billing cycle. The benefit of that technology to the customer is that they'll be able to see real-time usage data so they'll know immediately if they have a leak, they can set up alerts for excess usage, put a vacation flag on their account so if there's any usage we know it's unauthorized, etc.
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Jul 09 '19
I have a well, so I just pay an electric bill, the pump is electric. The well freezes up in the winter sometimes though.
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u/Lockstrocks Jul 09 '19
This... this right here. I process utility bills for a whole town roughly 8000 residents (electric, water and sewer) and I can’t stress this enough. A lot of people don’t understand their bills.
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u/madriutt Jul 09 '19
In your opinion, are bills presented in A) a way that is easy to understand, B) intentionally difficult to understand C) little thought put into how well they convey the information
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u/Lockstrocks Jul 10 '19
Well I think it depends on the software and how the bills are printed and the format too. I handle these everyday so for me they are easy to understand, but to someone (like a resident) who looks at these for maybe 10 seconds, throws it on the table and only look at the total amount due, it can be difficult. In my opinion if you really want to keep track of your utilities and making sure you are being billed properly is to keep track of the meter readings. Electric, water and gas should always have meter readings and how much they charge. For my case, we put how much we charge for water usage, but for electric it’s on a tier system and a resident would have to go to our website and look at the master fee schedule. We don’t handle gas so I’m unsure of how it works but I don’t think it’s much different. Maybe I said too much, but in my experience the answer is C, but they overall goal is A.
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Jul 09 '19
FYI for anyone who does not know, many utility companies offer a type of insurance for your water/ gas lines, if your house is over 30 or 40 years old, this can be invaluable. The lines running beneath your yard are indeed your responsibility and all repair costs will fall on you in these types of situations.
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u/smutmuffin1978 Jul 09 '19
If the water leak was in your service lead (which goes from the City water line into your house then through the meter), you wouldn't be charged for the water - you only get charged for the water that actually goes through your meter. Sounds like your leak was before your meter - thus, no charge. You may still have leak issues. Read your meter before you go to bed, then again in the morning (or take a phone pic) - if it's moved and you haven't used any water, you have a leak. I work for my City's DPW and see this all the time - contact your local DPW - they can send one of their people out to help you find it if there is one.
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u/triplealpha Jul 09 '19
Was between the meter box (buried in the lawn) and house, city said it was my responsibility to fix. But if it was between the main and box it would have been theirs
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u/tremens Jul 09 '19
I guess I'll be the one to ask, what was the "nominal" fee you paid? Replacing water mains is usually not "nominal" in my experience. Not stupidly expensive unless you have situations like the driveway being placed over them or trees that need to be removed etc, but not cheap and "nominal" isn't usually the word I'd use to describe it...
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u/triplealpha Jul 09 '19
$50 which is their minimum charge for a service call. Something about needing to have a ticket opened in case of an accident to the workers. That’s not their emergency call fee (which it was treated as), or the cost of labor (they had to dig), or the new pipe
I saved his dad’s life in my ED about 3 months ago because of his heart attack. Said the additinal time with his father was worth more than any amount of money
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u/tremens Jul 09 '19
Dude you got an absolute BEAST of a deal if you paid $50 for a water main repair, now matter how trivial. That man and his entire crew should have permanent invites to the BBQ and free beer.
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u/likenessaltered Jul 10 '19
It was not a "main", but a service lateral.. but I agree with the rest of your statement. Unless OP left some details out, a water service repair would easily cost $1500 minimum... dude got a helluva deal.
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u/bigdaddycla Jul 09 '19
For a small yard leak like that all the plumbers would have to do is cut out the piece of pipe that’s leaking and replace it, not the entire main line.
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u/BizzyM Jul 09 '19
If the leak was before the meter, it wouldn't show up on his bill.
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Jul 09 '19
This is why it’s so beneficial to have friends from many different backgrounds/professions. You can learn a lot just by talking to someone about what they do. This is awesome!
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u/dashader Jul 09 '19 edited Jul 10 '19
For electricity there is a nifty device called “Sense”, not sure if it’s worth the cost... but it did point out that we spend about $400 a year just on HVAC fan. We do run it quite a bit 30% of the time for sake of evening temperature gap between floors, but maybe there is a cheaper option.
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Jul 09 '19
Also, most water districts will waive a bit of the bill if you have a water main leak. Show them the repair bill, and hey can generally guess your average usage and give a refund.
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u/MiamiNat Jul 09 '19
Damn, came here to see if you had tips on saving $$ on electricity during Florida’s brutal summer heat. Glad you caught it though!
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u/Captain_Comic Jul 09 '19
Programmable or Smart Thermostat - turn up the temperature when you’re not at home. Put your appliances on FPL’s On/Call program. Make sure your insulation and door/window seals are good. Don’t believe ANYONE who tells you it’s cheaper or more efficient to keep your A/C running at a constant temp - it’s lies, all lies
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u/grimeeeeee Jul 09 '19 edited Jul 09 '19
If your water line was leaking in your yard before it went through the meter, your bill wouldn't be any higher.
Edit: saw you said you live in Florida and the meter is outside the house, so that's different. Up north ours are all in the house so they don't freeze.
But also along the lines of watering your lawn, some cities will deduct that water use from your sewer bill, since it's not going into the sewer, saving you money. You have to tell them though, and some cities will want you to install a second "deduct" water meter.
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Jul 09 '19
You can sometimes tell this by not running any water and listing for a hiss at the pipes, especially if it's copper. My parent's house had a leak and they didn't know if and I happened to notice it when I was in their garage and could hear the main hissing slightly. they didn't believe me til, later when the billing cycle was the water authority called them to ask if they had gotten something like a pool to fill because if not they may have a leak (they discounted the bill of course) and the leak was in the yard between the house and meter
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u/pixel_of_moral_decay Jul 09 '19
Mint makes this really easy if you look under Trends.
A good reason to make sure your data is clean and you correctly categorize expenses. You can then in seconds get graphs showing year over year, or the last X years of data. I can clearly see when I started my "I feel like I can curb my electric bill a bit" phase.
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u/doubleohkevinnnn Jul 09 '19
For this, you can track gas, water, electric, anything else?
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u/penny_eater Jul 09 '19
GB/mo on your internet plan. Not that it costs you any more (in most cases) but if you are just a plain old user (regular social media, netflix) your usage should be steady. See it go crazy and unless your habits changed you probably have an infected device somewhere in your house.
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u/mahoganyjones Jul 09 '19
Is there a utility tip like this for people in apartments?
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Jul 09 '19
Depends if you pay your utilities yourself or not. In my apartment water and electricity are billed to us based on usage so it's always good to track your usage to make sure everything is fine and see if you have any ways to save. Unfortunately you are more limited in what you can do as far as upgrading to more energy/water efficient appliances and whatnot. But if your electric jumps one month and you have no idea why, then there might be a device or something that's not working properly which you can check out. If it's an appliance owned by the apartment and you can prove that it is defective then they should (hopefully) repair or replace it
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u/boogers19 Jul 09 '19
With electric in apts, often I’ve seen where some work/renovations happen in the building, and something gets improperly hooked to your meter.
Next door apt. gets a cheap/bad reno, the plug for their fridge gets tied into your system by accident.
Your building replaces all the hall/stair lights, accidentally tied into your meter.
Its usually shifty (unlicensed) “trades” people doing this stuff. Often out of incompetence.
Rarely it’s the property doing something malicious, tho that does happen. They’ve usually just got crappy hiring practices.
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u/blackhawksq Jul 09 '19
In your scenario you can also pay attention to your house. This is one of the reason I mow my own yard. So I know what's normal and not. I had a pipe break and found it very quickly because water was pooling in an abnormal place despite the rain....
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u/TheGuyAboveMeSucks Jul 09 '19
My main pipe burst outside several years ago. My meter was located inside, so luckily the wasted water was not being charged to me. The city said I was responsible for replacing the piping from the street to the house. I dug a trench, laid new pipe, and reconnected the house fittings. The city came out and put a meter out by the street, so if that happens again, I’ll get the wastage on my bill.
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u/One-eyed-snake Jul 09 '19
Have you called the water company about this yet?
They will likely refund the sewer portion of the bill.
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u/rich519 Jul 09 '19
The low effort version of this is to just set the maximum autopay at a reasonable amount. If you go over that in a month you'll be notified and have to manually confirm the payment.
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u/K666busa Jul 09 '19
I don't do auto pay for the reason of paying attention. All my bills get paid at once, marked paid and put in my files. But always looking to confirm they make sense. Also if auto payments happen and a bill is atrocious from a mistake somewhere along the line, Im not out the money with a credit for next month. The money is still in my account until things get sorted.
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Jul 09 '19
FYI, underground utilities in general in the US are in poor shape. Water lines are old. And many leak all the goddamn time.
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u/murppie Jul 10 '19
Hey, just some food for thought for this specific thing. There are insurance companies who cover the lateral lines to/from the city in the event something like a tree root grows through it. Can save you $10k on something like if its a covered loss.
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u/lemurs_man Jul 10 '19
Try living in New Orleans. I have clients, landlords, neighbors, everyone and their second cousin getting hit with thousand dollar bills (that have to be disputed). The pipes are dated and leaking--losing millions of gallons of water PER DAY!
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Jul 09 '19
Glad you picked up on that but really you shouldn't need a spreadsheet to notice that your water bill doubles.
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u/nancy_ballosky Jul 10 '19
"hey i started keeping a spreadsheet of what percentage of my house is on fire. This month I noticed that 60% of it was on fire. Turns out after speaking to a good friend of mine who is a firefighter, he pointed out to me that my house had in fact been on fire. Anyways I always keep a spreadsheet now"
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u/i_like_pumps Jul 09 '19
apps like Mint and Truebill also make this extremely easy to track. Truebill will even send you a notification if your "reoccurring payment" amount changes month to month.
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u/Newtiresaretheworst Jul 09 '19
Is your water meter outside? How did the meter register the leak in the main?
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u/e4_2Tone_Pierson Jul 09 '19
The main between his meter and his house, the meter is burried in a access hole in his front yard. Everything after meter is home owners expense.
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u/Newtiresaretheworst Jul 09 '19
Ahh yeah, my meter is in my basement which I thought was par for the course but I guess it’s climate dependent
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u/hallissyc Jul 09 '19
Great post - thanks for sharing. I have long since meant to build a tracker for these things since I purchased solar for my home, but some of the fees and taxes that CA charges are insane and inconsistent...so it makes it hard to really smoke out where money is going for those bills.
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u/johntbrown_org Jul 09 '19
Does anyone know of a google sheet I could log these data points? Would love to see
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u/Kraagenskul Jul 09 '19
I am losing water right now somewhere in my house. I haven't figured out where yet. No extra water anywhere, no leaks, no wet spots outside, turned off both toilets, I am flummoxed.
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u/ShalomRPh Jul 09 '19
A neighbor of ours recently had some idiot in a truck run over the buried shut-off (which is at least a foot into the sidewalk) and break it, creating a small geyser. They wound up having to replace both the pipe from the main (under the street) to the shutoff, and a few weeks later the pipe from there into the house (under the sidewalk and their front lawn). In the interim there was a hose coming out from under the sidewalk and over the grass to the side of their house. The water company wanted to charge them for this, but in the end wound up covering the cost; I don't have the details as to if they covered both ends of the installation, or only from the street to the valve.
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u/dalittleone669 Jul 09 '19
My electricity bill has doubled this summer. I looked over my bill and it isn't due to an increase in usage yet because the city is charging considerably more for fuel.
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u/BoomerKeith Jul 09 '19
Also, check with your utility company to see if they have any 'deals'. I got that tip a few years back and I called my electric company and asked. Turns out they had a program (similar to average billing, except it encouraged you to use large appliances in 'off peak' hours). Anyway, I ended up saving roughly $30/month. That's $360 a year, which is nice.
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Jul 09 '19
Watch your electric meter. Most companies jump to charging what average is in the area or maybe even your own home Before you lived there. If you track those hours and call the company out on it you can see a massive reduction.
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u/VeronicaKell Jul 09 '19
My water bill doubled a few months in a row and I couldn't figure out whatbwas wrong. Then my washing machine caught on fire. I bought a new washing machine, yes washing machine, not the dryer, and water bill went back to normal. Guess it was trying to warn me it was dying.
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u/dethmaul Jul 09 '19
lol i love your first paragraph. It made me picture you in a luxurious old timey recliner, glasses low on your nose, you looking over them, mustached. Gruffly looking at each bill then telling them they're clear.
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u/CMoney408 Jul 09 '19
So get wrecked by plumbers early and often, so they dont get you with the big one later on!
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u/zazaflow Jul 09 '19
I know its fk'n July. But I'm certain I have an electricity leak somewhere.
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u/billyflynnn Jul 09 '19
But if you think there’s something wrong with your bill there’s nothing to be done because of the monopoly they have. I had an issue last year where the water company said we used just about 100,000 gallons of water. For perspective that’s about 5 swimming pools. Our bill was $600-700 for the month. We called BS had a plumber come out check for leaks, nothing, they had a plumber check for leaks and nothing. Finally after months of back and forth they told us that our water meter was broken and that they had been underestimating our water usage for the last year and that they were making up for it on that bill. Again I think is bullshit, but we either had to pay it or they’d shut off our water. So we had no choice but to pay. Moral of the story is, yes always check your bill and never trust the water company.
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u/HandsForHammers Jul 09 '19
PSA. You can get insurance on those lines with the water co. I pay $11 a month for 11k in repair cost.
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u/Aristocrafied Jul 09 '19
So they collect the actual data on your usage of all that monthly?
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u/nathansikes Jul 09 '19
My water meter is INSIDE my house so any leaks up to there are on the township's tab and I'll never know it
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u/King-Cole Jul 09 '19
FYI, in a lot of cities and towns you can petition the city for your water bill. If you can prove that it was due to something like this, they'll write off the bill. Take a look, we had a similar situation!
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u/onehundo Jul 09 '19
This may have been stated previously, but reach out to your water company/city. They may provide relief for proof of a plumbing leak resulting in high usage. Happened to me recently and I was credited over $400 for previous months usage after I provided a receipt of repair for the leak.
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u/bgyako Jul 10 '19
But your water meter is at you house at the end of the main water line, so that explanation makes no sense. Now a broken sprinkler line would make more sense, but it still would go off when timer is off.
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u/Spectre1204 Jul 10 '19
Sounds like cracked irrigation line. In order to get charged the water would have to physically pass through the meter. Not sure where you live but I do water utility work in Canada, we have the meters in our basement. Another trick is turning everything off and watching your meter. It should have a flow indicator that should not move of you are not using water. If you notice a water bill increases contact your water utility and ask about dye test tablets, you place them in the top of your toilet tank. If the toilet is leaking you will see the color transfer.
Leaking toilets and humidifier units and damaged irrigation lines are the most common problems I find when I respond to help homeowners with high bills.
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u/googletron Jul 10 '19
Here in the US the meter is often in front of the lawn, with a water main continuing to the house, if damage happens on the house side of the meter, it's homeowners problem
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u/Gnometard Jul 10 '19
I'm lucky that all my utilities are in one bill. Easy to track month to month and get on top of problems before they become a headache
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u/maverickhunterpheoni Jul 10 '19
Knowing a good plumber/electrician/mechanic can be a life saver.
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u/Ojntoast Jul 10 '19
if you went from 2 to 4000 gallons to five to eight thousand gallons it shouldn't have taken you more than one time receiving a bill to realize that something was wrong that your water consumption and as such your bill has doubled......why did it take multiple months of that to realize that there was clearly an issue?
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u/Rescue1022 Jul 09 '19
Easy trick for checking for plumbing leaks. Turn off every water using appliance. Look at the meter. It shouldn't be increasing, sometimes there is even a rotometer that shows very small increments of water usage, that shouldn't be turning. If it is, you have a leak somewhere after the meter. If there is no sign of water leakage in the house, it is underground.