WATER BILL??

[BobT]

so this is telling me that 750 gallons is $2.17 and this states that i used roughly 76990 gallons in one month??

That works out to about 1.75 gal/min average over 30 days.

I did a little quick search and learned that it is assumed that the average person uses approximately 150 gallons of water per day. That works out to about 600 gallons per day for the four of you. That adds up to 18,000 gallons per month.

Using that figure we can estimate that your “leak” accounted for about 58,990 gallons. Your “leak” then would account for about 1.35 gallons per minute loss. It wouldn’t take a very significant leak in your toilet to add up to that much water used.

The amount doesn’t seem that surprising to me.

[chillincarp870]

thanks for the help guys. the landlord just called me but i was in class and i returned the call 10 minutes later and no answer. ill keep you guys updated. ive been doing research also and it has got to be wrong.

[CJH]

Keep diligent and document everything. I would dispute the accuracy of the meter. If the toilet is faulty, then your landlord shares the responsibility.

[chillincarp870]

i just talked to the attorney at school and he told me in his lawyer terms to ask who reads the meters. it should be the city. how did he calculate the usage and how much they charge per unit. ask for a copy of the bill from him for our usage and the entire complexs' usage from teh city. and what they did to fix our bathroom when they came in. He told me not to dig in and get after the toilet because they should cover maintainence responsibility and there is no way that he could prove it was 100% the toilet if he takes us to court.

[SkunkedAgain]

Just remember that sometimes attorneys think in a very litigious manner. Be careful not to be too confrontational with your new landlord or this could be a long year in his building. That was why I suggested paying an amount that seems fair for the water bill. It shows that you aren't trying to rip him off, just trying to get to the bottom of an unusual situation in a fair manner.

All of those suggestions from the attorney are good.

[chillincarp870]

i understand that and that is what i told the landlord and that is what we are going to do as of now. we have a meeting with the landlord within the next 20 days he said he will get all his information and meet with us.

[SkunkedAgain]

Great, good luck

[BobT]

Not the same thing but a thought to consider.

In the summer of '08 I got an electric bill that seemed a bit high. When I compared my monthly usage to a year earlier, it was about double but because we use electric heat I thought maybe we used the heaters longer than we did the year before so I didn't think too much of it.

The next month's bill comes and it is nearly triple what I was expecting! This time I knew we hadn't used the heating system so I began to wonder where it was coming from. A few days later I happened to be home alone and was outside walking past our well when I noticed that the pump was running. I hadn't been in the house for over an hour so I knew there was no water being used. I checked to see if the horses were using water from our automatic waterer but they were across the pasture.

Turned out that the check valve went bad on the submersible pump and so it would pump up pressure, shut off, the pressure would then drain back into the well, restarting the pump. This cycle would repeat about every 15 minutes or so.

It doesn't take much to add up to a few $$$$.

[perchking]

OK, I am a landlord and my wife is an atty. We always pay the water bill on our properties, because if the tenant defaults it stays with the property not like Gas/Electric, those bills stay with the tenants if they default. So I jack up my monthly rent to reflect the water bill. I have also had an issue with a leaky toilet and they don't flush, they just keep running and it is sometimes hard to hear. I tried to fight my $100/quarterly bill but lost, in court. The bottom line was pay it or your water gets turned off. So I told them to turn off the water, and I was going to get a well dug, then they said I would really be looking at some fines because this house was in city limits. At this point I knew I was screwed and just paid the bill. One way to check if your water is leaking in your toilet is to the food coloring trick. Make sure your tank is full then add food coloring to the tank, come back in a few hrs, if there is any coloring in your bowl, your money is literally going down the drain....

[PierBridge]

Quote:

would a toilet running really rack the bill up to $222?

Absolutely can ring up the bill that high for the month. I've heard of much higher actually!

[DTro]

Heck my bill is close to that during the summer months without any leaks

[Scott K]

Heck my bill is close to that during the summer months without any leaks

I pay about $130 per month for water and sewer. I have had a leaky toilet, and had a $300 bill, so yes it is very possible!

[Powerstroke]

Whoa whoa whoa!!! Everyone needs to slow down a little bit here. People are thinking way to hard about this.

The rate states that the $2.17 is only if you used more than 300 units. Even at $2.17 you used 102 units....so you would have been paying the price of 3.13 per unit since you use less than 300units. Since you have a monthly service fee of $4 plus all the taxes and fees, I'm using $200 as the total charge for the actual water consumed. That would be about 63 units which comes out to around 48,000 gallons. This amount of usage is actually not that high.

Another thing to consider is that most utilities bill the sewer charge with your water bill because your sewer bill is based on your water usage. According to the Mankato site, sewer is another $7.51 per month plus $3.19 per unit. Cities bill these two items together. That would mean you're actually paying $6.32 per unit of water which would make your usage 31.5 units or about 23,700 gallons for that bill.

Running toilets consume a ton of water. Sometimes its a bad float, sometimes its a bad flapper, sometimes the flapper is not sealing and the water is running right out without even allowing the tank to cycle. Considering the "low" amount of water lost, I would say that the toilet was leaking and cycling.

When trying to estimate water usage, utilities estimate 100 gallons, per person, per day. That would be 15,000 gallons per month for 5 guys....since you live in an Apt, it would be less since you don't use the water for laundry and I know guys just use less water in general so a bill for $50 would seem about right for a group of guys in college. My family is me, my wife, and my two daughters, but my wife runs a home daycare. We use 14,000 gallons per month and we pay close to $6 per 1000 gallons. That makes my monthly bill almost $100 with taxes and fees.

Unfortunately you are probably on the hook for the charges. Your landlord cannot fix a problem he doesn't know about. Hopefully the fix it right away and may offer to split some cost.

As to why I am posting, I work in the water and sewer department for a metro suburb. I do water meter readings and billing every month and I hear these same arguments every month. Leaky faucets, toilets and softeners are the number one culprit. The other is watering lawns and gardens. Most people have no clue how much water can come out of a garden hose in an hour. Also, water meters are extremely accurate nowadays. Meters don't speed up, they slow down benefiting the customer. You actually are getting off pretty cheap, I see water bills much higher than that. We had a property where a comb was dropped in the toilet tank and got under the flapper. This place ran an extra 75000 gallons right down the drain without knowing, because they had elderly tenants.

And to the people who ask why we don't monitor this, we do!!! BUT, we can't go around every couple days and read the entire town's water meters. Where I work it takes 3 days to read all the meters in town, then 2 days to process the readings and find the abnormal stuff and then it usually takes another week to visit each place that had a high use or no use or tamper codes, or no signal etc etc etc. and verify the cause.

[Tom7227]

You can document all you want, argue all you want, measure all you want. You're SOL. It's not the landlords fault, and it's not the utlities fault. The chances of a meter error are infintesimal. If you try to escrow the money or hold it back during the dispute with your landlord you are going to be looking for a new place to move too by about December 1. Powerstroke gave you the real answer and he's the guy that deals with meter stuff.

[Redlantern]

Another thought, does this apartment building have an outside spigot? If so, whose meter is it running off of?

[Scott Stein]

chillin what appt building are you in? my girlfriend lives there too so i told her to keep an eye on the water bill now

[Powerstroke]

One neat thing I think every brand of water meter has is a leak detector. On the dial of your water meter there is a little star wheel that turns only when water is passing through the meter. It will detect the tiniest trickle of water.

If you're watching that leak detector and its turning despite you're not using any water than that means there is a leak somewhere. It could be a faucet, it could be a toilet, a leaky valve or a dripping pipe somewhere. When everything is tight and you're not using water there is no way for the wheel to turn. It should sit dead still.

[BobT]

How does it know the difference between a leak in a faucet or an open valve on the faucet since both are downstream from the meter?

[luckey]

BobT, In either case there is a "leak" somewhere.

[BobT]

Yeah, and depending on how open you leave the valve, it could be a doozy.

[giddyup99]

I think he means that you can make sure all your water outlets are shut off and go down and look and see if the wheel is spinning. The meter would not know or care the difference, but the person checking would know that no water was being consumed at the moment, and thus there is a leak somewhere.

[BobT]

Yeah, I had a brain dump.

[chillincarp870]

scott i live in 1329 #1. what building does she live in? everyone else in our building water bill was $50 max some as low as 25 all with 5 people living in the apartments.

[Scott Stein]

she lives in 1311 and ya their water bill has been $70 but what do ya expect with 5 girls taking showers everyday!

[chillincarp870]

we got i figured out. The land owner never did set up a meet with us guys. we are paying 1/2 of the bill. we just gave up after a while becuase we ahve better things to worry about. Thats the wrap. Thanks for all the help on this issue it is greatly appreciated