Do you have a water meter?

[SandrA9810]

And only for city water. I know there's a ton of people on here with well water, and that's not metered.

Is it common to be billed flat rate or to have a meter on city water??

I've always lived in Florida, and every place has always had a water meter and the city bills you upon your own usage. So I find it strange out here in Cali that they're billed a flat rate and people are whining about the city installing meters on each house.
I know for me, I'd be all for it. On average I don't use more than 1500 gallons a month. And I try to be very conservative on how much I use.

 

[sydneysmom]

we've got a meter in our town (Mississippi). The bill varies each month only by a few $$, but I can tell when we've been watering the lawn, etc. (it goes up) We try to be very conservative in our water use as well. Our town lumps in water, sewer and trash into one bill, so it works out pretty well.

 

[abmitch01]

I have a meter but still get charged a flat rate. Which makes no sense to me

 

[SandrA9810]

In Miami, it was water, sewer, trash lumped into one bill, and my grandmother got billed 6 months at a time.
In Kissimmee, Water and sewer were lumped with the electric bill monthly. I don't know about trash because we were in an apartment and that was part of our rent.

I just think some one is going to be in for a very rude awakening when they see how much their hour long showers, hour long daily watering of the lawn... and anything else you can think of, is going to cost them.

 

[Good Morning Dewdrop]

Here in Raleigh NC we get both sort of

there's a flat fee for water usage (less than $10) then you're billed on usage - same for sewer -flat fee plus usage. They base that usage on your water meter which to me is a rip off since if you're watering your lawn (which we don't) you're paying for the water to go through the sewer system and it doesn't.

They do nicely tell you how many gallons you use per day - we're a family of 3 so our target should be 75 gallons/ day. Most months we're right there - last month we used 83 gallons / day. Normally our bill is $32 and change in fact I suspect that's the minimum we'll ever have (haven't seen it lower).

 

[gillenkl]

We have a meter and get billed quarterly.

 

[bartleby1]

Our water and sewer bill is a flat rate of $250 per quarter for sewers and the first 10,000 gallons of water used. After the first 10,000 gallons, we are billed per gallon (not sure of the rate).

 

[pixiewings71]

I'm in CA and I have a meter. We pay a base usage fee and then we are billed for anything over that we go. We usually go a bit over, but we don't take hour long showers nor do we water our lawns for an hour a day......

 

[SandrA9810]

i'm so used to the water restrictions of florida. You can't water your lawn more than 2 times a week, and during a dry spell, only once a week and only certain times. Out here, they're just now starting water restrictions for lawns, 3 times a week. It's still st augustine, or maybe bahia grass which doesn't need a lot. The park just a block over is green as can be and there's no sprinklers at all.


There was always a service fee, i think like 7-8$. But i hate that sewer is like 10x as much as the water rate. Which is what kept the bill at like 20$

 

[pixiewings71]

We usually water every other day but sometimes (drought years) we have major restrictions or we are just told we can't water at all. I think we need to look into the Bahia grass tho.....I wonder how that would do here? Did you guys pay in FL every month? We pay every 3 months and our bill is around $100, usually less than that but somewhere between $90-100.

 

[SandrA9810]

bahia and bermuda are thin grasses, st augustine is a thick blade grass. So never try to mix the two cause weed killer for one will kill the other. But they can all be conditioned to grow well in seasonal rain. You just have to wien it off all that water.

A good healthy lawn, shouldn't require more than 3/4 of an inch about once or twice a week.
A good way to figure out how long to water, is to place tuna cans throughout the lawn and wait for them to fill. Your best watering time is early in the morning so the sun doesn't evaporate the water as it falls. And watering at night can ruin the grass, between morning dew and watering, it's too much moisture for it to handle.

 

[wmharley]

And only for city water. I know there's a ton of people on here with well water, and that's not metered.

Is it common to be billed flat rate or to have a meter on city water??

I've always lived in Florida, and every place has always had a water meter and the city bills you upon your own usage. So I find it strange out here in Cali that they're billed a flat rate and people are whining about the city installing meters on each house.
I know for me, I'd be all for it. On average I don't use more than 1500 gallons a month. And I try to be very conservative on how much I use.

We are county water in Fl, and all the homes that get water from the county or city are all metered. its building code.

If you are in a townhome or condo (or even apartment but I won't discuss apartments now), then usually, especially the older ones, don't have individual meters due to how they were constructed.

The HOA/COA at that point, get an overall bill for the community, which the Boards and management companies break down per unit and includes in the monthly maintenance fee. The downside of that is there could be heavy users in some units, but others rarely use it, so one gets screwed, the other lucks out. Its very expensive to retrofit the buildings that way.

I'd insist the city or county I was in installed meters if I didn't have one, as long as the cost wasn't passed to me.

i've heard of some places with no county water, would be assessed thousands if they wanted water and sewer lines to be extended and installed to their houses.

 

[Luvchefmic]

Have city water here & a meter billed monthly..its a very small city & their payment policies are horrible! Can't take a cc for payment, no online payment, and the office has cut back on personnel hours so much that they are only open 3 days a week. If your bill is due the 25 th and they don't have your check by then on the 26 th the truck comes down & shuts you off! can't tell you how many times a midnight run to the drop box has been made not just by us but by neighbors

Don't water the grass here but have animals & truly the bill isn't bad about $18 to $20 month..just so darn hard to keep track of it I need to make a big sign & post it over the hose connection or something ;-)

 

[vegasnative]

We have a water meter and we are billed for our own water usage. It was the same when we lived in Las Vegas.

It's weird coming from Las Vegas where water conservation is HUGE and big time frowned at if you sprinklers hit the driveway at all, to Washington state where water is very cheap and I've seen plenty of people trying to make the concrete grow!

 

[wdwfan16]

Every where we have lived that was city water was on a meter. The sever bill was based on the water meter reading.

 

[rock_doctor]

From our experiences:

In FL:
City water meter for drinkable water charged per gal, sewer was a multiple of the amount of fresh water used, non-drinkable water (reclaimed water) was a flat rate per month (we used this for flushing and outside use). Drinking water in this area was reverse osmosis water from the Gulf of Mexico, so the water bill was a minimum of $200 a month since they had to make it.

In PA
City water meter for drinkable water charged per gal, sewer was a multiple of the amount of fresh water used

In NJ
City water meter for drinkable water charged per gal, sewer is a flat rate per month

 

[magik]

I have a meter, but in my county, there's a minimum water charge for the first x number of gallons. I have never gone over the minimum charge, so my water bill is exactly the same very quarter, except once when I had a water main leak that I didn't know about, and that quarter I went WAY over.

 

[Terrie..]

On Long Island, we have water meters and are billed quarterly based on useage.

 

[pixiewings71]

bahia and bermuda are thin grasses, st augustine is a thick blade grass. So never try to mix the two cause weed killer for one will kill the other. But they can all be conditioned to grow well in seasonal rain. You just have to wien it off all that water.

A good healthy lawn, shouldn't require more than 3/4 of an inch about once or twice a week.
A good way to figure out how long to water, is to place tuna cans throughout the lawn and wait for them to fill. Your best watering time is early in the morning so the sun doesn't evaporate the water as it falls. And watering at night can ruin the grass, between morning dew and watering, it's too much moisture for it to handle.

Thanks for the tips, we do water in the morning but we had a power outage so the sprinkler timers need to be changed. I don't even know what's planted here, the lawns were planted when we moved in, the dogs up some grass in the back so we reseeded but again it was just seed the previous owners left in the shed. lol It worked, it came up great and the back looks great now. We put in a neat black fence so the dogs can't go to the grass at all, they can only go on the concrete and to the dog run.

I have a meter, but in my county, there's a minimum water charge for the first x number of gallons. I have never gone over the minimum charge, so my water bill is exactly the same very quarter, except once when I had a water main leak that I didn't know about, and that quarter I went WAY over.

That happened to us too, we asked the water company if we could have a discount since it was a broken pipe and we'd lived in the house less than 6 months, they said nope.....lol

 

[QVCshopper]

Meters here in SE PA. I pay about $150 per quarter for trash (1x/week), water, and sewer. We usually use about 6000-7000 gal of water during that time, which I think is fairly low for a family of 4 in a 2 story house. We're home a lot, but I try to really conserve (think only flushing when needed, using cooled cooking water for plants, etc.)