Water Usage - My power/water company popped up showing my water usage from December 2023 vs 2024, it claims I used 24 gallons last year and 13 gallons this December. That can’t be right… how much water do you use each month?
I fill water for chickens outside, water two small garden plots, obviously dishes, showers, toilet, bidet, and the washer machine should be using a lot more than that…
With two adults in a house, we shower (no baths) plus two dogs who get showered as needed. We use 10m³ per month. That’s 2641 gallons.
The least precision expressed on my monthly utility bills is 1000 gallons. Usually I either get rounded down to 0 or up to 1000 Gal. Check your bill again and find out what sort of units apply to 13 and 24 – it isn’t gallons/month.
I think they may be assuming I knew gal meant something other than gallons, I posted a screen shot below somewhere… they didn’t put a gal(100) or anything, strange
I use 2-3 m3, but I live alone in an apartment in Europe.
2 cubic meter = 528 gallon (US)
I live in a 2 br apartment and use like 3000-4000 gal per month according to our water bill. Be sure to check if there is a multiplier or if it’s in “units of 10” or 100. Our bill used to show multiples of 10 gallons but now it shows in units of 100gal.
Actually if you don’t mind me asking, 689kw, in a 2 bedroom. This place forgot insulation, and you can feel/hear the walls move when the wind gets going so it may be hard to compare. Does that match about what you are using? I used less in Florida with higher average heat, but I also usually had an apartment where you get surrounded by neighbors that insulate you on 2 sides.
I don’t have a pool or anything, I set the heat to 65 F and I don’t bother switching it to cool this time of year. (It’s easy to tell your insulation is shit when every house on the block has snow on the roof and your’s does not). Thankfully we have only had 1 snow day so far here.
Sure no biggie, I keep pretty meticulous records so it’s easy to check. My old place in the Boston metro was 4br and used 600-1200kwh, peaking in the summer. Natural gas heat and central AC. Now we’re in a 2br in a complex and get more free heat from our neighbors and it ranges from 800-1100, with central heat pump heat and AC, but since the heat isn’t gas anymore the heat is included in that.
Okay so the electric usage seems about right, so just the water units are off
I’m starting to wonder if my water is accidentally getting recorded for the neighbor (duplex) and maybe only the outside hose I use for the chickens/garden is getting recorded. December is fairly rainy, but even then I assume I fill 10-15 gallons a week just on the hens
My two water tanks are filled every 3 weeks. They typically are only 1/2 empty. Each tank is 1300 gallons.
So around 1300 gallons every three weeks, around 1700 a month.
See that seems like a reasonable amount. There must be something off
Compare your bill meter read with your meter. They likely guessed for some reason and guessed incorrectly.
In Florida they would come by and you would have a gauge by the road to check it. I don’t seem to have one of those here (I mow the lawn so I would have noticed it, as I’ve dodged much smaller objects like baby bunnies).
I assume they must use some digital reading, my sewage relief is out back.
TBH, I just pay the bill, I don’t look at usage.
Looking at that on the bill, they do something weird… they read the meter quarterly, but bill us monthly.
Previous meter read: 2596
Current read: 2623
Usage: 27
Sewer volume: 6Appears to be in CCF.
Great, now I can drive around wirelessly scanning these numbers and find out where you live.
/jk
If you find my place come in for a drink, I’ll give you a dozen eggs on the way out haha.
Your water provider most likely bills by the 1000’s of gallons. Do you get billed monthly or quarterly? If it’s quarterly I would say based on the little bit of information you provided, that should be about right. You may have just used more water last year when compared to this year which does happen. If it is monthly, you were using a lot of water last year, you may have had something leaking and had fixed the issue at some point. My normal suggestion when anyone asks about high usage, always check your toilets for possible leaks. You can get small dye kits to test, or if you have some cold/ room temp coffee, you can use it to do the same test.
I get billed monthly and honestly don’t ever check into it much as the price has never been ridiculous. I’d get a bill that would be around $130 for gas/electric/water/waste removal this time of year and I’d say it was normal (excluded internet because tiers/varies drastically by location). But yeah, if my bill stays $200 and under in summer when I know insulation is bad (renting) I never bothered checking it. New portal gave me a thing to easily see it so I figured why not click, and boom, rabbit hole
I have no idea. No way to measure it, and the mountains around my house has a practically unlimited supply.
Mind if I ask what mountain range it is? Sounds nice. I moved to Tennessee a few years back but haven’t made it to the Appalachian mountains as of yet
Norwegian west coast. More mountain than flat ground, and not a whole lot of people per town.
Nice, sounds beautiful. Hope you love it out there
It’s alright. It rains a lot which contributes to the watersupply, so I guess that’s nice in the context of this question.
My partner has a friend she talks to from an online game that lives way up north there. I’ve seen some pictures but she is so far north I’m sure it is different all over. Here I was told it was going to get down to 14f this upcoming week and was dreading it. That’s -10 Celsius. Not sure I want to find out that’s normal temperatures for you or something haha, though you mentioned rain, so it cant be to often
It’s pretty normal further inland. I grew up near the coast way north, and temp fluctuates a lot with wind direction. -10 is pretty normal.
Her friend I want to say was from Havoysund? The letters probably lack accents, but if that’s near where you grew up it be pretty coincidental
I’m guessing you mean 24,000 and 13,000 gallons rather than just 24 and 13, or are you talking CCF or some other measurement?
Anyway, my partner and I use around 6,000 gallons or about 8 CCF per month on average and a couple of thousand more in summer when I have to water the lawn and flower garden.
24 seems like a lot, but does your meter get read every month? They usually use estimates and then just read the meter once in a while and then correct for it that month, so it’s much better to look at averages.
It’s not saying x100 or x1000… which would be useful info. Thanks for your response!
It sure says gal there but based on your annual chart and common billing in the US I’m guessing the actual billing unit is 1 HCF, which is 100 cubic feet or 748 gallons. You could call and ask your utility company to be sure.
I’m thinking the same. Water billing in the States is often by CCF/HCF.
I’m between 3 and 8 depending on time of year.
With outdoor use the OP’s 13 CCF sounds right, but 25 is way high and may indicate a leak somewhere.
My guess is that the label is wrong. My water bill has the same chart with about double the usage as yours, but same ranges. On mine, the label is “gal (in hundreds)”. I’m betting that some developer just didn’t put the full label on the screen.
Seems likely, they changed our payment portal recently, so it could be that. The only good thing I’ve found about this company is they do internet as well. So if your lazy like me you can pay electric/water/gas (heater)/ and Internet all in one bill. The internet isn’t great, but it’s definitely been better than what spectrum was when I moved here.
https://www.cpws.com/account/rates-fees/
Looks like they charge based on 1000 gallon increments. Their website is horrible…
So, this suggests that you are using a LOT of water, but not nearly as much as last year. For reference, my wife and I typically use between 1400 and 2000 gallons per month.
This is their new website, updated November 11th? Ish I believe. Have to remember I live in what was a smaller town not long ago, growing pains all around infrastructure and such. No sidewalks, most areas don’t have reflectors on the roads or street lights bright enough down back streets that you can see anything.
The music video for “Try that in a small town” (Jason Aldean) was filmed in our town square, people were pissed when they found out he was drawing more attention to Columbia.
But to get a feel for where it’s located, President Polk lived here, and if you drive very near you hit where the KKK was founded.
Bit different than where I grew up.
Edit: Saturn used to have a manufacturing plant here, also Nissan I believe. GM owns it now, it’s where they are making their EV batteries. (Big place)
If you login through the website itself it might tell you. I checked their site to see if it says anything about what unit it uses on their bill and all it would give me is $ per gallon prices for residential customers.
