rebelgtp wrote: I just checked mine. $0 and $0. Gotta love being on a well with septic. When it is all working.
I had a well/septic combo for years and it worked. Until it didn't and then the costs were insane. The electricity to run the well pump wasn't free.
In reply to Sine_Qua_Non:
They measure my bill in something called CCF. I use 3.21 of those. The back of the bill says 100 CCF is 750 gallons of water. If my math is right that would be 21 gallons, which sounds way off.
i have the best of both here, city water and septic. no sewer bill, and water is cheap.
however, check the details if there are any. last year there were electric company trucks all over the area putting in new equipment. the next month all our bills jumped $200 a month for a couple months for "infrastructure upgrades" or some such nonsense that should not be legal to be passed to the customer but is due to lobbies and whatnot. it'd be like me charging a customer $500 more for their floor because i decided to get a nicer table saw for myself.
The big scam going on around here is installing treatment plants. Everyone in the town shares the expense even if you are in some remote area that will never have use of it. They spread the bill out over 30 years and it goes right into your tax bill. If you sell the house before the 30 years is up, you are required to pay in full what's due. There is a big push for a public water supply in our town. The people pushing it are bigwigs in the town that mostly have a history of developing properties or are large landowners. There are a few concerned citizens that just have crappy water in favor of it as well. The developer guys are trying to sell it like this; the reason we have no large business in town is the lack of a large public water supply. Install water, and you can bring in tax dollars, and your tax bill will go down. As a plumber I can tell you, you don't need a large water supply for businesses. We have berkelying cranberry processing plants that go thru water on an epic scale. You need a dependable public water supply for multi family dwellings like housing projects and condominiums. But, people are stupid and they believe the spin they are feed. Put in water, they will build housing, more kids in the schools, tax bill skyrockets, rich developers get richer.
moparman76_69 wrote: In reply to Sine_Qua_Non: They measure my bill in something called CCF. I use 3.21 of those. The back of the bill says 100 CCF is 750 gallons of water. If my math is right that would be 21 gallons, which sounds way off.
Your math is right, the Back of the bill is wrong.
1 Ccf= 100 cubic feet, or approximately 750 gallons of water.
100 Ccf= 10,000 cubic feet, or 74,805 gallons of water.
You consumed 321 cubic feet of water, or 2401 gallons.
A cubic foot of water is roughly 7.5 gallons and weighs 62.5 pounds. Just in case you want to pick it up.
Fueled by Caffeine wrote:rebelgtp wrote: I just checked mine. $0 and $0. Gotta love being on a well with septic. When it is all working.I had a well/septic combo for years and it worked. Until it didn't and then the costs were insane. The electricity to run the well pump wasn't free.
...my pump is acting odd again....
Pump runs for a bit and shuts off, but hasn't reached the proper shut-off psi on the gauge. A minute later it restarts and runs, some times getting to the psi shut off, some times not. It will continue to cycle this way until proper pressure is reached. I'm guessing the thermal switch is kicking in? Pump is a 1hp shallow well jet, 3 years old, noisy and cheap.
Gearheadotaku wrote:Fueled by Caffeine wrote:...my pump is acting odd again.... Pump runs for a bit and shuts off, but hasn't reached the proper shut-off psi on the gauge. A minute later it restarts and runs, some times getting to the psi shut off, some times not. It will continue to cycle this way until proper pressure is reached. I'm guessing the thermal switch is kicking in? Pump is a 1hp shallow well jet, 3 years old, noisy and cheap.rebelgtp wrote: I just checked mine. $0 and $0. Gotta love being on a well with septic. When it is all working.I had a well/septic combo for years and it worked. Until it didn't and then the costs were insane. The electricity to run the well pump wasn't free.
After just moving from a well/septic combo it's a love/hate relationship. Love the $0 bills, hate the maintenance. Just replaced the cistern tank pump(again) to the tune of $250 about 15 days before we close on selling this place. The pressure tank keeps loosing pressure over time, so the pump kicks on too much and burns out the start capacitor.
But this sewer billing annoys me. I'm getting charged for more sewer usage but not all my water goes back into the sewer. If I wash my car, its with the city water, that just goes back into the yard, I shouldn't be charged sewer for that. Right now my bill is about $60 combined, 4 of those bills and that's the cost of that pump.
In reply to t25torx:
Our town offered the option for people with swimming pools to get a separate meter to track usage that does not go directly into the sewer. No, it never was abused at all... 
Still, might be worth asking if your service offers anything similar.
I know in some places people with sprinkler systems can also get a separate meter for that reason
tr8todd wrote: The big scam going on around here is installing treatment plants. Everyone in the town shares the expense even if you are in some remote area that will never have use of it. The people pushing it are bigwigs in the town that mostly have a history of developing properties or are large landowners. There are a few concerned citizens that just have crappy water in favor of it as well. The developer guys are trying to sell it like this; the reason we have no large business in town is the lack of a large public water supply. Install water, and you can bring in tax dollars, and your tax bill will go down. As a plumber I can tell you, you don't need a large water supply for businesses. We have berkelying cranberry processing plants that go thru water on an epic scale. You need a dependable public water supply for multi family dwellings like housing projects and condominiums. But, people are stupid and they believe the spin they are feed. Put in water, they will build housing, more kids in the schools, tax bill skyrockets, rich developers get richer.
We pay a sewer system "fee" on our taxes even though we don't have sewer service. But, if we have our septic tank pumped, it gets disposed into the local sewage treatment plant and we get a refund. It covers about half the cost of having it pumped.
Todd: The scenario with the water is probably because a lot of towns or cities get into the utility business to soak large industrial clients (selling water, natural gas or sewage service). Then the plant closes and the town is doomed to a slow death because of the lost revenue. Several towns around here have gone or almost gone bankrupt when local brick plants or texile mills closed. They bought a LOT of nat gas and/or water. The resdietnial usage doens't cover the cost of runnign the utility.
Mine works out to about equal: ~$28?mo for water (up to 4K gal) and $100/qtr for sewer (base-rate, I think). Our twp sold their public utilities to private firms a few years ago. Everyone's costs went up substantially (about double). Sucks.
There isn't easy way to make sense of utility bills because towns often have different set-ups. For example, a co-worker lives in a town that is their own electric company (e.g. the town buys HV electricity and owns the high voltage to medium voltage substation as well as the various medium voltage distribution to residential and commercial transformers and meters). They are one of only a couple of twps in NJ set up this way. While they are currently in a $10M project to upgrade move the substation, the system overall generates a lot of income for the town.
There's one thing I just recalled that may be happening here: The city utilities have winter and summer formulae for figuring sewage. In the summer, you are washing your car and watering the lawn, so a lower percentage of your water is going down the drain. That's figured as one percentage. In the winter, they figure you are not washing your car or watering the lawn, so a higher percentage of the water is going down the drain and that has a different percentage. If you are having a warm winter and are watering/washing more, they could be using the high rate in the sewage caclulation when you should still be on the low summer rate. I've seen that happen before, and the cities just treat it like a windfall tax, like "Woo-Hoo!! We're rich. You guys suck, HA HA HA."
Sine_Qua_Non wrote:moparman76_69 wrote: Just got my bill. $18 for the water and $30 for the sewer., that is dirt cheap. How many gallons of water was that?
That's about what I pay. For me, amount doesn't matter. Flat rate, no meter.
Remind me never to complain about my bills. Listening to you guys, I've got it dirt cheap for all my utilities.
My water/sewer/trash/recycling (which is lame that we pay for that) runs about $60 a month. It'll fluctuate between 55 and 65 a month. It breaks out to $25 for water, $15 for sewer, and $20 for trash.
bmw88rider wrote: Remind me never to complain about my bills. Listening to you guys, I've got it dirt cheap for all my utilities. My water/sewer/trash/recycling (which is lame that we pay for that) runs about $60 a month. It'll fluctuate between 55 and 65 a month. It breaks out to $25 for water, $15 for sewer, and $20 for trash.
Same here. Our water/sewer bill for a family of four runs about $22 a month. We pay something like $16 a month for garbage service.
Dr. Hess
Not here. Same rate summer and winter.
Hmmm. My water and sewer are combined but not broken out individually on the bill, although they do show a bar graph comparing this year with the same period last year. It averages about $55/month. It's a system owned by the city, no private systems in this area that I am aware of.
Now, our rental properties are on the exact same system. One is a triplex, the dumbasses at the property management company clicked along paying ~$125-$150 a month then paid one for $890.00. No that is NOT a fatfinger, $890.00. It dropped back to ~$150 for a couple of months, then there was another for $450. So now we are locked in a battle with the water system to get a refund.
Gearheadotaku wrote:Fueled by Caffeine wrote:...my pump is acting odd again.... Pump runs for a bit and shuts off, but hasn't reached the proper shut-off psi on the gauge. A minute later it restarts and runs, some times getting to the psi shut off, some times not. It will continue to cycle this way until proper pressure is reached. I'm guessing the thermal switch is kicking in? Pump is a 1hp shallow well jet, 3 years old, noisy and cheap.rebelgtp wrote: I just checked mine. $0 and $0. Gotta love being on a well with septic. When it is all working.I had a well/septic combo for years and it worked. Until it didn't and then the costs were insane. The electricity to run the well pump wasn't free.
The footer valve at the bottom of the well line is likely leaking the water pressure backwards down into the well. That's why the pump keeps kicking on. It kicks on, pumps up the pressure, shuts down, and the pressure bleeds out. Not a hard thing to fix with a shallow well.
Compounding it you may also have a water logged surge or pressure tank. When these get water logged the system builds up pressure very quickly, but also looses it just as quickly. If you've an old open air type, you can likely re-fill it, but it will again water log. Replacing one of those with a newer diaphramed type is a very good thing to do.
PubBurgers wrote:bmw88rider wrote: Remind me never to complain about my bills. Listening to you guys, I've got it dirt cheap for all my utilities. My water/sewer/trash/recycling (which is lame that we pay for that) runs about $60 a month. It'll fluctuate between 55 and 65 a month. It breaks out to $25 for water, $15 for sewer, and $20 for trash.Same here. Our water/sewer bill for a family of four runs about $22 a month. We pay something like $16 a month for garbage service.
Yep. Hard to compare these things across the country. I don't pay for trash/recycling at all - part of my normal taxes. Considering I put out roughly one (huge) can of trash per month, on average, I'm glad I don't "see" how much I'm paying for trash service. Otherwise I'd probably not pay for pick-up and take my trash to the dumpster at work.
I testify in utility regulatory cases for a living. I agree with Dr. Hess that it sounds like it may be winter averaging, as you wouldn't see that much of an increase without some public outcry. What part of the country do you live in?
Got my bill today. $40.21 total for 3,000 gallons.
Water was $12.90 Sewer was $27.31
I live less than 2 miles from the water/sewer plant.
Also a year or two ago, my bill used to be quarterly. It was around $67-$100 quarterly. Now, it's obvious they are making more money billing it monthly.
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