Water bill for Landscaping
 

Hi, We have a CYV in Duval Village. The lot is 7563 sq. ft. and the house is 2176 sq ft. We use approx. 13000 gallons a month watering our landscaping (lots of grass and shrubs). Is that a lot of water for that size yard? The grass has always been a problem and is not real green. If we water less it looks worse. We water once a week for 45 mins. per zone and have 5 zones. Any one want to share there stats or comparisons? We always get a letter from The Villages Water Conservation Authority telling us we are using too much water. If I had desert landscaping like we do here in AZ then we wouldn't be using that much water. Plan to make changes when we move there full time hopefully in 18 months or so.

We have a designer on a corner lot and water about 4,000 sf of grass and bushes. We follow the Water Conservation guidelines and water twice a week. We use 16,000 gallons per month and never get a letter.

My designer is on a slightly larger lot than usual (no "kissing" lanai), but not quite so big as a corner lot. My average usage for the past year is just short of 11,000 gallons, with 5 zones, twice a week, roughly 25 minutes per zone.

Never had a letter, even for the several months when I used better than 12,000.

SWR
:beer3:

I don't live in TV (yet) but can someone tell me how much 11,000 gallons of water costs per month ? Do you also have to pay a sewer charge based on water usage ?

You may be over watering. You have to know how much water your lawn is getting measured in inches (not minutes). The amount of water delivered per minute is dependent on the size of the nozzle ( gallons per minute), the pressure and the area that nozzle is covering. That can be done mathematically but that is a hassle. The easy way is to actually measure using a rain gauge. Empty tuna fish cans will do very nicely. Place them around the lawn at various location the night before you irrigate. Read them the next morning. You can now change nozzles (gallons per minute) and timing to obtain the coverage you want.

Another area to explore is leaks. A broken sprinkler head will spew out a lot of water in 45 minutes.

We also experienced very high use of water and even when we were snowbirds away for the summers. Eventually learned that we had a broken sprinkler underground in one of the zones. Had it repaired and our water bills were more within reason.

We also would receive notices re using too much water (and we weren't even there)!!
Also had the water meter checked and that was ok. Good luck....b

We have a slightly larger lot (8200 sf) and used 13000 gal last month too. 5 zones, 2 at 45 min (rotors) and 3 at 25 min (fixed spray) once a week.


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Pauld

The rates on my Sept bill was as follows:

0 - 7K @ $1.82 / K
7 - 14K @ $3.04 / K
14K up @ $4.23 / K
+ $5.27 base & 5% tax

The more you use the more expensive it gets.

BTW, I have a corner CYV with no grass. Just stone shrubs and palms. I used 6,300 Gal.

Bob

So your bill was less than $12.00?

According to the folks at the water system, add all the minutes you have timed on your controller, multiply by 25 = Water used each cycle.

I have a designer on a large lot and use about 16,000 gallons. Have lots of grass and three large planting beds.

During periods when water restrictions were in place, it would be between 7,000 and 10,000 gallons, depending upon how much rain we had.

Using the 25 GPM rule my usage would have been 16500 Gal but used 13000 Gal or 20% less.

Another water usage rule we used at work: 100 LF 1/2" garden hose at 65 PSI water pressure equals 30 GPM. We would compare large water usage to garden hoses (150 GPM pump was 5 garden hoses; 1200 GPM pump was 40 garden hoses, etc)

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It take more than just water to have a nice green lawn. It needs to be fed with nitrogen it needs iron and the soil ph has to be right.