[CoachKandSportsguy]

Originally Posted by retiredguy123

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".

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.

[mtdjed]

Originally Posted by cfranson

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

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.

[cfranson]

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

[will1546]

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

[polirudb]

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

[Dvogler]

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.

[Bill14564]

Originally Posted by Dvogler

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.