High Water Bill

[doster]

We have a court yard villa and are part timers. I spent 2 nights there within the last month. Got a notice from the VCDD utilities of extreme water usage. Meter reads we used 23,670 gallons of water in one month. I took 2 showers and the sprinkler system has been on. My father in law went over and looked at everything and can find no evidence of a leak. Our usual reading is maybe 900 gallons a month. I plan on calling today and getting them to check the meter. Has anyone else had this problem?

[mak44070]

Yes, we had the same problem. We've been in Upper Paradise since May, but we supposedly used inside water last month. I called the VCDD and they re-read the meter and corrected the billing.

[dfn8tly]

I had that same issue and found out that there are actually several (the number 4 comes to mind) timing programs on your control unit. When you set the days of the week and times to have irrigation you need to be sure you're using only one set of instructions. In my case the watering is always done at night and when my handyman checked he found that immediately following the end of the program timing my system would start all over again. Therefore, I was watering twice as much as I thought.

Give it a look but the control box can be confusing.

[redwitch]

doster -- is this for inside the home or the yard? If it is the home, have your father-in-law turn off the water. If it is the yard water, it is probably a ghost program. If your father-in-law doesn't know how to correct it, have him contact me and I'll happily drop by and help him out. Just send me a PM.

[cathie]

Just got another bill for $545. Have alredy paid $328 and $79 since moving in on August 11th. Neighbor is having the same problem.

[John_W]

We bought a new CYV on July 5th and our water bills have been between $202 to $212 and $135 of that is the amenity fee. So actually the inside water and outside irrigation, sewage and garbage has been averaging about $75 a month.

Our sprinklers had been set to run for 32 minutes on Tuesday and Friday mornings at 5am in each of the three zones. For the past month they have been reset for 16 minute cycles. So if you have a recent CYV and it's not a corner lot and your bill is more than this, then you either got a bad meter or a leak in your system.

[getdul981]

Just got another bill for $545. Have alredy paid $328 and $79 since moving in on August 11th. Neighbor is having the same problem.

If you have a new home, you should call the landscape people and they will come by and go over the system with you and make sure everything is set properly. If it's a pre-owned, you'll need to get someone to do this for you. When we purchased, our system was set to run for over 4 hours twice a week. The landscaper came by and changed the settings and now it runs for much less than that.

[Arrachme]

When I bought the little blue house. I had it inspected but as you know the Inspector missed everything including the sprinklers. I received Warnings for 5 months, usages of 45,000 gallons of water for an empty 2/2 villa and a $300 consistently water bill of which I had to pay. I slowly replaced things but this is what I should have done in the first 5 days to eliminate the problem completely. I replace all the old sprinkler heads, the never hooked up rain sensor, pulled the gages( sprinkler cylinders) up out of the ground so they were visible because they were leaking underneath, and last of all, the sprinklers were set to go on too often. It was a combination of all these things that equaled 45,000 gallons. Let me break it down.
1. Every time your sprinklers cycle they uses apx 10,000 gallons (you do the math)
2. The rain sensor is on top of your house, it stops the sprinklers from coming on, by law it has to be on, unfortunately some, like mine, were never hooked up (17 years ago)
3. The cylinders control the sprinklers coming on and off. You can tap them to come on and say see, they are OK. They re located in the box in the ground. To see if they are leaking underneath would take a magician. It would be best to just raise them up our of the ground. It is suer easy to do the plant pretty plat in from, now you can see wait is happening with your system.
4. The sprinkler heads- they now have energy efficient heads. You should replace them anyway. It is easy. it is impossible to tell whether they are leaking, even small amounts. Even new ones can leak. So just emplace them with the new kind.
5. A PS. Check the donuts. Lawn mowers weight sometimes crush the sprinkler heads. While checking I found that the weed wacker cut halfway through the cable line so I saved a future problem. I hoped this helped. It took me 5 months to solve this problem. If I new all this I could of solved it in 5 days.


We have a court yard villa and are part timers. I spent 2 nights there within the last month. Got a notice from the VCDD utilities of extreme water usage. Meter reads we used 23,670 gallons of water in one month. I took 2 showers and the sprinkler system has been on. My father in law went over and looked at everything and can find no evidence of a leak. Our usual reading is maybe 900 gallons a month. I plan on calling today and getting them to check the meter. Has anyone else had this problem?

[kathy and al]

I think you have a serious problem with your "Inspector". Sure would like to know his name so that his incompetence is not passed on to others. These are serious oversights and I would have concentrated my efforts against him as opposed to the route that you took.

[billethkid]

we have a very large lot compared to almost all others in TV....8 zones...twice per week at 40 minutes per zone....water usage runs 19,000 to 23,000 gallons per month.

you definitely have a problem. Contact the water department. They will send a tech out to check for leakage as well as the meter.

It has also been known to happen here in TV that lightning or other sources of power spikes can impact the water meters accuracy/usage.

btk

[ajbrown]

I have seen quite a few with a mis-configured controller. In the cases I have seen it it is simply that the controller has been told to water in other programs. MY controller is a Hunter SRC. It has three programs, with four start times in each. That is possible twelve start times. Most likely you only need one. If you have one of those try this to see how many start times are setup:

At controller:


Turn dial to System OFF, wait until display says OFF
Turn dial to Set Watering Start Times
Hit Next (right arrow) and read display for all 4 start times in this program. In the display there will be a time or it will say OFF
Hit PRG button to go to next program
Hit Next (right arrow) and read display for all 4 start times in this program. There In the display there will be a time or it will say OFF
Hit PRG button to go to next program
Hit Next (right arrow) and read display for all 4 start times in this program. There In the display there will be a time or it will say OFF
Hit PRG again and you should be back to first program.


On my system I get the following
6:30, OFF, OFF, OFF
OFF, OFF, OFF, OFF
OFF, OFF, OFF, OFF

Hope that makes some sense and maybe helps find a phantom.

http://www.hunterindustries.com/Resources/PDFs/Owners_Manuals/Domestic/lit185a.pdf

[REDCART]

Don't overlook the obvious, an error in meter reading. My brother-in-law got an unusally high "potable" water bill last week and when he compared the reading on the bill with the water meter, it wasn't even close. He called, they came back out to read the meter and they're giving him a credit. So don't just assume the meter reading is accurate. I've never checked my meter before but I will now.

[nandan]

We're closing on our new home at Bridgeport at Laurel Valley on December 28th. We know that we have to apply with SECO to establish a new account for electric. But what do we have to do for water? Is it included in the amenities fee or do we have to open an account with the water department?

[Bill-n-Brillo]

We're closing on our new home at Bridgeport at Laurel Valley on December 28th. We know that we have to apply with SECO to establish a new account for electric. But what do we have to do for water? Is it included in the amenities fee or do we have to open an account with the water department?

Your water, sewer, irrigation, trash, and amenity bills are all lumped together into a single monthly invoice. If you're closing via TV/Citizens, it'll all be set up via them - nothing for you to take care of.

Enjoy!! Hope everything goes smoothly with your closing.

Bill :)