Water Bill
 

I jut received my first water bill for my CYV I bought in Buttonwood last month.

The total for the water was almost $200!

I do not have grass but do have rock beds with shrubs and flowers. The previous owner had the sprinklers set to rune twice a day , 3 days a week. My usage for irrigation was 51,000 gallons.

Is this the usual amount of water for a CYV or should I be looking for a problem or something else?

Mark, If you don't live there full time, does your neighbor have a pool?

No pool on either side of me.

The largest amount was shown to be a part of the irrigation water line item.

Hi Mark,
WELCOME TO YOU! Sounds like you either have a leak or someone is stealing your water. Pls call the water dept and get them to check for a leak. Keep us posted

The total bill was for $358.00 including the amenity fees.

The water just for the irrigation was $200

51,000 gallons for a CYV is very high .... assume you have an average size lot and not a large corner lot.

We have a 9,500 sq ft lot and when I was watering twice a week my max irrigation water was about 30,000 gallons for a month.

Twice a day, 3 times a week watering will certainly add up. First thing to do is adjust the irrigation timer.

Mark, I live in a Ranch with an average yard and our water is $200 to $250 including the amenities fee, depending on whether we are home or not. There is a minimum even of you don't use any water!! Could you have a deposit on the bill if it is your first one?? I agree, call the water department. You also need to verify what your water restrictions are. don't know where you live but there are restrictions to what days and how many time you can water, even for how long I think. Water department can tell you that also, based on address.

We just received our first water bill for our CYV as well. Our (builder-hired) landscaper/sprinkler guy told us for the first 30 days we needed to water twice a day seven days a week (because of new sod/landscape plants). We’ve since adjusted the irrigation schedule, but for the first 30 days we used 39 thousand gallons. Again, that was watering 2x a day 7 days a week...so unless you have a really large lot, I think you might have a leak.

Since you had a previous owner, I assume you do not have new sod.
The settings, if this is the case, is way over board, all zones twice a week should be enough.
Here are suggested usage figures.
http://www.thevillageswaterwisdom.com/

Mark, you don't say how many minutes the sprinklers run. I have a ranch and water twice a week if there is no rain. We've been getting some rain lately so I go about once a week now. Do you have a working rain sensor?
BTW my combined water bill is about $60/month.
Also, about $190 of your total bill is amenities, trash and sewer.

Your timer may have defaulted and is running more than twice a week. Also consider that Water Utility here has a three tier pricing scheme. I read an article in WSJ concerning watering in Palm Beach florida. apparently they have a single tier pricing scheme and those 87000 McMansion are using millions of gallons of water. So how does Palm Beach get away with a single tier system? I suspect some will post by saying we all need to conserve. And to that I reply why then are developers allowed to expand and why is it the Water Utility allows companies to draw 500,000 plus gallons out daily at no cost for bottle water that will be sent to other states. There is plenty of water but developers/relators want to conrol it and pay politicians, etc plenty to keep it that way....What a country!

Are these bills for a quarter, or monthly? Also, are the irrigation water charges different from the consumption water? These amounts used seem so high.

Mark I have a CYV also and do not have grass but do have rock beds with bottle brushs and flowers. Our usage was 550 on irrigation. We keep the irrigation shut off and turn it on only when needed. Maybe once a week or so if we think things need watered, and then we only run each zone for 10 minutes only. Our highest usage over 2 years was 2420 and that was May to June of last year.

I think if I were you, I'd be checking for a leak.

You need to check to see how long your sprinklers are running or if there is a leak someplace. If you are running them 2 times a day, 3 times a week that is 6 times per week or about 25 times per month. You said you used 51000 gallons. That means you used over 2000 gallons each time they turned on to water plants and flowers. That seems way too high to me.

Great link, Bogie - thanks!

Bill :)

Thank you everyone for your input.

I was down last weekend and noticed that my sprinklers came on at 6:00 am then again at 8:00 am. I went out and shut down (I think) the second round of sprinkling. I also saw that each zone was running 30 min each. I cut that back to 15 and made sure it was running only 3 days a week.

The house is still under the one year warranty. Would a broken pipe in the irrigation system be covered?

I believe it's been raining so much you probably don't need to water.


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Under the District’s year-round water conservation measures, lawn and landscape watering remains limited to a two-day-per-week schedule, and residents may only water before 10 a.m. or after 4 p.m.

I think I remember something about the sprinkler systems only being under warrenty for 90 days. I would call the warranty department.

Utilities/Amenities office located at:
3201 Wedgewood Lane
The Villages, Florida 32162
Phone: 352-750-0000

If you had a landscaper in and he changed anything on the lines that voids the warranty if I remember correctly. At least that is what we were told when we discovered a leak after we had our landscaper in.

The new bills that started this month have a graph that tells how much water was used in previous months. Was there a large jump? Maybe the other owner did not pay his bill.

Twice a day, three days a week is a lot of watering. Change it to once a day twice a week. You are better off watering fewer times with a little longer time.

Water bill -- my 2 cents
 

We just got the water bill for our new CYV, big corner lot but we don't live there now and all original landscaping, and our usage was 23,020. We also received a letter from the Water Conservation Authority saying our usage was too high. If the Water Wisdom website is correct, we're three times what we should be. I'm looking into it, but 51,000 seems outrageous. Must be a leak or something.

Can wait to put in those rocks.