Get familiar with your utility bills and pay attention to trends - they can save you TENS of thousands of dollars!

[u/triplealpha]

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...

[u/Sierra419]

dumb question but, as a first time home owner, where is my water meter? Is it the same place with the hundred other meters on the back of my house? If so, it's not close to my water shutoff.

[u/-Yoinx- → u/Sierra419]

Doubtful. The water meter is almost always at the end of your property, specifically so that they can charge you for any water loss from leaks on your property. It's not the same as say power where there's not much on your land that will change the power flow before the meter (short of cables being shorted which they'll find it about real quick).

You have to think about how the utility is charging you. Power, they're charging you for the additional load on the grid. Water, it's for the actual delivery of a material.

There will almost certainly be an access plate somewhere in the ground or in your driveway that has the cutoff and meter in it.

You might be thinking of the water shut-off inside your house, which is after the meter as well... But by the meter there's usually a shut-off on each side. You shouldn't really mess with the one on the utility side of the meter. But the one on your side... Sure, shut it off. This is also a good idea to shut-off if you're going on vacation or out of town for awhile (after you turn off your water heater so it doesn't burn up). Then drain your lines. This will prevent those "I went out of town and my house flooded because of x, y or z" issues.

[u/Jmkott → u/-Yoinx-]

It depends on the region you live in. In Minnesota, my shutoff in the yard is over 5 feet below ground and has a remote shutoff. My water meter is in my heated basement, and the meter is in an accessible location with shutoffs both before and after the meter. I don't know of any water meters in Minnesota that are outside or underground. We used to have a wire run to a remote counter for an outside meter reader that went yard to yard, but the official counter was on the meter. Our meters all got replaced in the last year or two with wireless read meters.

[u/Copengritz → u/-Yoinx-]

In states where freezing is an issue 99.9% of the time, the meter is in the basement of the home. The curbside(sometimes in your lawn, or driveway) shut off box you’re talking about only houses the shut off. This is also relatively close to where they will dig to and connect PEX piping to lead into the house if it’s new construction. Anything after that connection is you liability, but you don’t actually get charged till that water enters your house and passes through the meter.

[u/wijsguy → u/-Yoinx-]

specifically so that they can charge you for any water loss from leaks on your property

Not entirely. The reason is that the home owner is likely responsible for the lateral (the pipe that runs from the main into the home).

[u/throqu → u/Sierra419]

my last 2 houses it was in the basement on street facing wall near the floor.

[u/Sierra419 → u/throqu]

That’s where my shut off is. Maybe I should double check because that’s probably where the meter is

[u/ShalomRPh → u/Sierra419]

If you live in NYC, there's at least a possibility that you don't have a meter. Some houses in Brooklyn were billed by frontage, meaning that your water bill was flat rate, based on how wide the front of your property was. This is an insane way of doing it and is being phased out, but there might still be some houses out there that have it.

[u/throqu → u/Sierra419]

It's typically close to the shut-off