water usage warning letter
 

We received our second consecutive warning letter about our water use. Before we left Florida on August 16th, we seldom had the sprinkler system on because with all the rain we had it wasn't necessary to water.
According to the letter, designer homes should be using 7,200 gallons a month. We are using 27,960???

Seems way out of line. My sprinkler system is set for twice a week. I have six zones and the run time for all six zones is nearly three hours. We were not there for the last two weeks of August, thus the showers, dishwasher, washing machine were not in use. Is my water usage out of line? Is my sprinkler system running too much?

I didn't get the actual bill as of yet so I can't see where the excess water use is. Could have a leak somewhere. Should I worry about it?

Irrigation water and house water are two different charges on your bill, Tom. 27,000 gallons is a lot of watering. I have a very large lot and my last bill for irrigation showed 11,000 gallons for irrigation. Lots of zones for us also. Me thinks you have a leak somewhere.

Your home is new, right? Should be a warranty on sprinkler system.

Tom,

No way should a zone be set for three hours. Way to much. I can see why you get letter. My longest time is 40 minutes!!!!!!!!!!!

I assume you mean the total time for the 6 zones is 3 hours. If you mean 3 hours on each zone it would be taking you nearly a day and a night to water. You need about 45-50 min on rotary heads and 30 on the popups.

Tom , if all of your 6 zones are totalling 3 hours or 180 minutes then each zone is probably set for 30 minutes which sounds normal but then you say this is twice per week which doubles those numbers. Even so that number of gallons seems excessive. I would suspect a leak. Right now during the rainy season, my system is on manual and has been used very little the last couple of months with all the rain we have been blessed with.

Tom,

I miss read your post. Sorry about that. Have someone check your system.

We had a water usage problem when one of the popups was chopped off by the lawn service. The popups often fail to retract and are severed when the lawn is cut.

Have the sprinkler heads and the panel checked. We had ours checked back in June and they found five leaking sprinkler heads, which were replaced. With our lot being about 12,000 sq feet we have not had an irrigation bill higher than 15,000 gallons used yet this year.

Yes, I mean 3 hors total. I have one zone at 46 minutes, two at at 41 and a few others between 15-24 minutes.

Tom,

A couple of things you can do.

1. Look for the water meter cover in your yard. If it is a newer home, it will be flat in the yard and will be a green plastic rectangle. Lift it up using a screwdriver and pliers. Be careful not to break any wires. There on the water meter is a little triangle. When there is no water going through your meter, the triangle is not moving. Where water is flowing, the triangle goes around. Make sure you have no water turned on in the house. If the triangle is turning around, you have a leak.

2. If you do not feel comfortable doing this yourself, call the VCDD Utilities at 748-0000 and ask them to send a technician to conduct a flow test. It is a free service.

Hope this is helpful to you.

I am in NY so doing what you ask me to do is impossible. But have no fear. My friend is going over today to check it out.

This happened to my neighbor and they asked me to help. What I found was that they indeed had the system set to run twice a week in program A.

The also had it set to run in program B :doh:.

There are three programs on the Hunter controller and people mis-configure them, even professionals. Have your friend check all three programs.

You can hire a company like Massy to look after your sprinklers while you're away. They operate them manually from the outside so they don't need inside access to your home. If they find a broken head they will fix it for an additional charge. Hope this helps.

:agree: I would bet money that is exactly what is happening....had the same situation with our system and running programs B & C. $100 extra a month it was costing me.

I forwarded Disney's and AJ's post to my friend who will be stopping over my house to see what the problem is. Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. This is what TOTV is all about.

OK - same boat as Tom here. Over 30K gallons per month.

1> There is no leak on mine - meter not moving except when water is running through.

2> 6 zones set for just over 3 hours total X 2 per week.

3> The measured gallons per minute from zone 1 for example was 16.8 gpm. If you do the math that is just under 2 gpm on each head in the zone. If you look up the rating on the head that is what it is supposed to be.

So my question is this: Do those of you that say you have a much smaller bill actually do the math on comparing your lot and number of sprinkler heads to Tom's (and mine) or are you just guessing since your bill is lower?

If someone who has a smaller bill please count the number of actual sprinkler heads and report it to us that would be very useful in determining if we have some other weird issue. Thanks.

My neighbor with a similar size grass area (large cul-de-sac type with 6 full zones) has the same numbers and the same bill.

Interesting facts, Living Large. For what it's worth, I have a large pie shaped property (Cul-de-sac) and when I cut back on watering in the past, my lawn began showing brown spots. I feel, in the hot months I need to run the sprinkler system twice a week. If I were there to monitor it, I could regulate the water use by watering when I needed it. PS: I did add a soaker to Zone 3 41 minutes) to protect my three newly planted palm trees. I still can't believe of my 27,960 gallons usage.

Hunter contol
 

Hv new system. Set up by builder. I can see program A but can t move it to Program B or C to ck them. How is it done? Thank you

Sometimes you don't have a B or C
 

I have a designer home with a Hunter system and only have an A program, so you might not have a B or C.

Should be instructions inside cover. If not you should have a users manual. If not go to the Hunter site.
Did you press the program button?

water usage
 

How long have you have you had your home? You should be able to compare you monthly bill to see the increase in usage. It looks to me like you home is in Buttonwood which is south of 466.For homes south of 466, the water you use for inside your home is shown separately from the water used for irrigation on your monthly bill. Homes north of 466 have the inside water and irrigation water calculated together. So not being in the home and using inside water would not affect the amount of water that is being used for irrigation.

Hope you can successfully find the solution to your problem!

I have only been in The Villages for five months. I have no real guide to judge by.
And yes, we get three bills for water. The problem is, the overuse letter comes before the actual bill, so I have nothing to reference the usage. I also have alarge property. Cul-de-sac is pie shaped and there is something like 119 feet wide at the largest point. I do have more to water than the average house. But I haven't been home since August 16. I'll keep you posted. My friend is going over today to find out the problem.

what did the water dept. say when you called?

The water company said I am using too much water. Without me not being there to monitor the problem I can't do much.

My friend came over and checked the irrigation system for leaks and there are none. This is a good sign. I told him to reduce the percentage from 80% to 50%. I am watering twice a week. This should cut the usage. He will keep an eye on property. If grass starts turning brown, he'll adjust it accordingly. Not much else I can do at this point.

did he check all three programs??

Yes, he did. Only one is running. He mentioned something about seeing the third cabinet door to 3 & 10. Not exactly sure what that was about but he said, "The manual said the readings should be at those settings."

Has anyone (living south of 466) who says they have a lot smaller bill watering two times per week counted the number of heads they are using? that is the only real way to judge since each head puts out X gpm of water. If your lot has 20 sprikler heads (x # of rotary, x # of etc.) and my lot has 50 then I'm using 150% more than you. Othewise everyone is just guessing at the problem. It might be that Tom (like me) has a large # of sprinkler points. Since neither of us has a leak it might be that our only recourse is to lower the total time.

If your bill south of 466 is less than $100 for irrigation water last month, I'd love to find out how many sprinkler heads you have. Mine was almost $200 just for irrigation water. I'm back home right now but I'll count mine when I get back next week.

By nature I abhor excessiveness because of its self-centerness. On the other hand I kind of resent the water police here. Those mcmansions further down the coast are not policed and they use more water in one day then some of us do in 6 months or more...and they only have one water rate unlike our three tier. My wife and I check our accounts on a continuum so we don't need their intrusions..................I'm just saying

Its a form letter triggered by a computer.

Tom by now you probably have the problem figured out but to give you some idea i looked at my usage which i keep track of monthly to give you some idea of what might be close to normal usage. Heres what i averaged per month for the last 5 years.
2010 6308
2009 5741
2008 4883
2007 6533
2006 8400

I watch my irrigation system like a hawk and when it rains i always shut off my system if we get enough rain. Have a rain gauge which is a great help.

I have no idea how many sprinkler heads we have but we're on an interior designer lot which is approx 5525 sq ft and have five irrigation zones. We've lived here for three years and the irrigation portion of our water bill has never been above $20 per month. For the calendar year 2011 our total irrigation costs have been $112.00. We manually turn it off when we're getting rain and run it twice a week when it's dry. Our lawn is in great shape.

I can't imagine paying $100 or more a month just to water the lawn.

thanks - but remember this - if my lot is 11K sq ft and our houses are the same size then the remainder is lawn! Your home probably takes up the majority of your lot, mine does not. I'll bet the actual grass area of my lawn is 4-5 times yours based on the math. So $20 X 5 = $100. I just think people are comparing apples to oranges. If you don't have a leak then it very simple.

Personally I plan to take up much of the grass area with low water landscape. Hopefully that will help.

I have almost a 12,000 sq ft lot...then the house and lanai and cage take up around 3000 sq ft leaving around 9000 sq ft to water. Have three large planters, but they have to be watered so they are not excluded from watering. Last month we used 11,650 gallons of irrigation water for a charge of approximately $32.00 We have lots of sprinklers though I'm not sure what number are pop-ups and what number are rotary. Others have mentioned that certain sprinklers are better than others and utilize water better. A watering bill as high as you seem to have Tom, suggests that it might be time to have someone from a landscaping irrigation company take a look and determine if some sprinklers can be replaced with more efficient ones.
Alas, I can offer no suggestions as to whom you might contact.

I will do something once I get down there in November. Until then, I have to eat it.

thanks - something's going on then. I do have lots of rotarys

My problem is solved by BILL- a mystery neighbor who wrote to me saying "He walks his dog everyday past my house. Everyday the sprinkler is running."

Somehow I had two programs running. Program "A" was running twice a week. Program "B" was running everyday. My friend fixed the problem after resetting the system. Not sure what happened or how program "B" was activated but it is corrected to avoid any further overuse. Thanks Bill, whoever you are.

Fantastic! I know you are happy to have that problem solved...and resolved! That was nice of mystery neighbor Bill to let you know what he observed!

Hooray, I'm so happy the problem has been solved! You have a very nice neighbor, Tom... :)

I wish that were my problem. Only on twice a week and for less than recommended and 50K gal of water. Yes 50K! I've checked it many, many times. No leaks and only running twice as mentioned.

I'll have to rethink when I get back down.

Hi Russ. You might have the same problem I had (with a hidden program running) When I'm by in November I'll pass your house and see how often the system is running. What are your scheduled days and times? 50 K sounds like you might also have a leak. I can check that on the outside meters if you wish. I assume your water is off now. If the meter is running at all, it will indicate a leak.