Water bill

[hahathor.livejournal.com]

My water bill from 8/15/06-1/15/06 is approximately four times my water bill from 5/15/05-8/15/05. According to the bill, I consumed 3 times as much water August to January as I did May to August. I can't think of any reason this should be so. Has anybody else seen anything like this, or is there some reason my water would go up so much - Gas I can see increasing in the winter, and electricity in the summer. But water? I mean, I watered my garden as much in the spring & summer as I did in the fall. More maybe.

Comments

[androidqueen.livejournal.com]

uh, you pay for water?

[frederic.livejournal.com]

The pleasures of not paying someone rent means a lot of bills and taxes you never thought existed...

[androidqueen.livejournal.com]

oh, boy! i thought that homeowners were just something i heard about in stories!

[frederic.livejournal.com]

They estimate in between readings. When they actually get around to reading your meter, the billing either goes up or down to make up the difference.

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

Do you have a running toilet?

[arcanology.livejournal.com]

That's the most likely source. Go find your water meter when you're not using water and see if its spinning around - that would be a leak. Then turn off the valve connected to your toilet and see if it stops.

Alternately, just listen to it. You can hear it.

Generally this is a bad seal in the flap on the bottom of the tank and you have to replace that flap.

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

My manager at work said there was a leaking toilet in their building (that gets a single water bill that is paid by the condo assoc which she is treasuerer of) and said the bill went up 5x for that period because of a SINGLE running toilet.

[arcanology.livejournal.com]

Yep, that happened in my building as well.

It was easy to hear once one was in the same room with it, though the owner of that unit hadn't... you just have to not be oblivious and when you hear a new noise, investigate.

[jadelennox]

or put a little bit of food coloring (or fruit punch or something) in all the tanks. An hour later, check the bowls. If the water is colored, you have a leak.

[julishka.livejournal.com]

there's a blurb on the city website about water bills (http://www.ci.somerville.ma.us/newsDetail.cfm?instance_id=771). hope that helps, although it's probably not the news you were looking for. :/