Question about Irrigation Bill usage
 

Hello,
This is my first post, and I hope I'm doing it correctly.

I have been watching my water bill from Minnesota, and the last several months the usage has really jumped compared to last year. We've had our home watch guy check the lawn, and there are no soggy areas. The irrigation has been turned off for the last month due to all the rains. A call to the CDD said this is normal. Does it look normal to you? If not, what is our next step?

Thanks for any ideas, or thoughts you have on our bill.

Cheryl & Richard

Diaphragm problem on one of your shutoff solenoids? Are the areas around the sprinkler heads wet?

My irrigation uses close to 1,000 gals every time it runs. If my bill showed the 8,750gal usage that yours does I would assume it ran twice a week for four weeks: eight times for 8,000gals.

You write that the irrigation is turned off - the bill appears to show otherwise.

OP, IMHO, you need to contact an irrigation specialist and have your entire system checked. I have had my Hunter control change ALL of the settings apparently on its own, I also somehow had enabled the A, and then B, C and D programs causing lots of water usage. A specialist should be able to determine exactly what is going on.

Is it just shut off at the box in your garage, or at the box in the ground? If just the box in the garage, it sounds like you have a leak somewhere.

Or your neighbor turned it back on and pointed all of the sprinklers toward his lawn :)

I don’t have separate irrigation, but I imagine it has meter box? If so you should be able to cut irrigation off look see it meter still shows movement. If not you have no leaks from meter to shut off valve. Now with valve turn on watch meter reading see if the numbers are going up? If so you have leak from shut off valve out to yard some where? I would at least try to isolate it. I don’t know how the charge for irrigation water? Maybe their minimum charge whether use it or not?

He is in Minnesota…………….

We had similar problem and had all valves replaced and stopcock put in irrigation line (already had one for inside water) so we can "properly" turn off the irrigation, rather than just at the timer.

our home watch guy check the lawn, and there are no soggy areas“

Have the home watch guy do it or get someone?

Irrigation Usage
 

Even with all the rains, a well-maintained irrigation system & new rain sensor, our irrigation bill increased 77% over last month. I've contacted the community district and asked them to come back out to read again. No reason for the increase!
Ernie & Lee Ann

Looks a bit low and normal unless it has been turned off.

Here is my usage chart from last month. I live here all the time in a Courtyard Villa. I think my sprinkler system is on twice a week for ten minutes in the back and three times a week for ten minutes in the front.

Two years ago I lived in a home in The Villages with a larger yard and a pool. My water usage was around 12,000 to 14,000 gallons a month. My first month in my Courtyard Villa, my irrigation was 38,000 gallons! Turned out a pipe was completely broken off and running without restriction whenever the irrigation was running—which was daily for a half hour. And the water was coming out on the neighbor’s property.

When installed it's programmed by that company. Typically there is a feature that has seasonal as part of the setup. Of season in this mode it is set to run 1 time per week then in warmer months it is twice per week. You can easily check the watering days now and it is likely 2 or even 3 days a week. You can turn off the seasonal function on your own.

i need to have my how is good in the villages

We had a leak under ground in the pipe between 2 heads. We only discovered it when our bill was high, although it was shut off, and we did a really thorough exam.

Village Tinker always gives the best advice. Have a pro give it a go

So if you’re not there why is your water usage 900 gallons in August when in June and July it’s zero ? You should have your watch guy open the meter boxes and make sure there’s no water in them. That could be a sign there’s a leak right after the meter.

Truth

OP, one thing you can do is to look at your neighbors' water bills. They are public information and available to view on "districtgov.org".

A slab leak is also a possibility.

Not anymore. Recent change. I couldn't even see my own for a few days.

(If I'm wrong and there is still a working link, please post it)

Last month was very dry , this month lots of rain. Hard to tell from afar, you need a sprinkler person to check things out.

You are correct. They have recently added a PIN, which is needed to access water bills.

Call Joe Tucker, an irrigation technician who is very good. He'll find the problem.
352-430-5615

Did you turn off water to your toilets? If not, it could be you need to replace the toilet stopper because it's leaking. Just a thought. That could easily cause your water bill to go up. Have your housewatch guy turn off the water supply to all toilets.

The toilets have nothing to do with irrigation water usage. Irrigation water and potable water (toilets) are two separate water systems.

No they don’t but he had a total water usage of 900 gallons. That would mean he’s losing thirty gallons of water per day from toilets, which is unlikely but could happen. He has got leaks somewhere after the meters. Odd that he has high usage on potable water and high usage on irrigation which he claims was off for most of the month he’s questioning.

I don't think his potable water usage is high. He used no potable water in June and July. I doubt that he has a problem with his toilets, but that is something that the home watch company should check. Personally, I would turn off the water supply valve to the entire house and would not allow the home watch company to ever turn it on.

OP, (greetings fellow Minnesotan!)
It may be helpful if you could provide more details regarding your house/lot and irrigation set-up i.e. is this a courtyard villa, designer, veranda ... and how many irrigation zones are there and the time set for each zone and how many days a week the system is set to run.

The current and previous reading values would seem to indicate that his probably isn't a new home, so you may also want to provide details on which controller you have.

If you are remote during the summer, as we are, you may want to remotely monitor your irrigation controller. Our house has a Hunter controller which allows for remote control/monitoring via their "Wand" and app. If that is not available to you, you could install a Rachio controller (we have one in MN and works well).

By remotely monitoring your controller, you can tell if the rain sensor is preventing the system from running on wet weeks.

Your irrigation values may be "normal" for your yard. I looked at our usage and it looks similar (designer home, 4 zones that run twice a week)

Sprinkler controller backup batterIES
 

There are 2 backup batterIES behind the controller face. A 9V and a watch battery. If either is bad, the settings will be randomized.

If you are referring to a Hunter controller, the batteries have nothing to do with the current settings. They are not backup batteries. When you lose power, the settings are not affected. The batteries are only there to allow the installing contractor to do a system setup if the house does not have power when they want to do an initial system set up.

They are only published if there is a positive "owed" value. I have negative balances and the bills never show up in the districtgov.org location.

A bit of clarification might help. When did you vacate the house? From your bill, I would guess mid-May billing period as that is when your potable water usage stopped.

Do you control your irrigation by APP? You mentioned that the irrigation was changed (Shut OFF) due to recent wet weather. Who shut it off? When?

Next, your potable water usage started up again. What caused that? Did you have the house washed or painted. Driveway resealed or anything that would cause outside water spigots to be used? Any expected guests that would have used water?

Water meters are your key to find problem. They record usage. If you have leaks consuming water after going through water meter, it would be consistent, not off and then back on.

Thanks, Everyone!
 

Thanks to all of you who gave us such great advice on trying to solve our irrigation spike issues.

I will add one thing to answer some questions - we DID come down for a few weeks (leaving in 2 days) so the water usage from the house is us, not a leaky toilet.

While here, we turned off the sprinkler system due to all the rain we have had. Then, the day I made my original post, I received our bill which has been strange for several months - when I compare it to last year, it's very different.

So, with all your great ideas, we DID get in touch with Joe Tucker, and he will be coming out next week (unfortunately he had no openings while we are still here.)

We are very, very grateful for all your wonderful suggestions! Hopefully Joe will be able to get to the bottom of this mystery.

Cheryl & Richard

Hi
Can you please send me the name of the company you used to find the leak? Thanks

I replaced my Hunter controller with a Rachio 3 Smart Sprinkler Controller several years ago. I can control my sprinkler from anywhere in the world with a wifi connection. It will skip watering when rain is expected and paid for itself in 4 months. It is retails for $149.00 but is on sale through tomorrow for $99.00. If the link does not work, go to their website and enter code MYSTERY99 to get that price. Very easy installation but I recommend you take pictures of your existing wiring connections before you remove your current controller (in case you change your mind).


Rachio 3 Smart Sprinkler Controller | Rachio

High irrigation.
 

We had a high bill last month so we turned down the minutes it waters. We only water twice a week. The bill went higher this month. We used 17000 gallons of water. We ran all the zones to check the sprinkler heads and pressure. No idea why the bill even went higher. We had our neighbor to check our settings and he says it’s the same as his and he uses a lot less than we do. The water company is coming out to check the reading and to make sure everything looks good.

You can read your own meter, you just need to find the box, open it, and lift the cover on the meter. They are activated by light so you may need to make sure it isn't shaded when you try to read it.

Your meter is probably not read on the first of the month. Depending on what days you water, you *might* have watered more days on this reading than last.

I have a small lawn with five zones and water for about 80 minutes. From my water bill it seems I use about 12gals/min or about 960gals each day that I water. In a normal month I use about 7,000gals which would mean seven or eight watering days.

17,000 seems very high, especially if your neighbor's is much less.

Something you might try:
- Find the meter and make sure it is not moving with no zones turned on
- Run each zone for two or three minutes and write down how much water is used
- Is there a zone that seems to be using much more water than the others?
- Can you use the gals/min that you observed and the number of minutes your zones run to get the amount of water on the bill?

Do you have a Hunter controller? I don't remember the exact term they use but they have settings for both Program A and Program B and both programs usually run. If you have this controller and somehow have both programs configured then it could be that you are watering much more than you think you are.