Using city water, how does your comsumption increase

Am curious, my utility company said I had excessive water use in September.  It was a very dry month in Virginia and yes, I watered quite a bit (even with the chlorine, etc).

Can you guess how much extra water that you use during dry periods?  I haven't yet had someone check for leaks in my water lines but this might be an extra expense that my gardening doesn't need.  Saving every extra penny for garden supplies is more important than paying someone to do something that might not be necessary.

I hear no water running in the house like would be IF one of the toilets was leaking.

How big is your property and how many CCF or gallons did you use?

Excessive water charges are kind of a trendy political way to tax without saying the tax word, IMHO. Here in SoCal, water allocation I basically calculated at number of people in an apartment and any watering of land is "excessive"

Warning! Shock coming - - - our water bill minimum is about $22 a month. It went up to over $200 last summer, due entirely to watering the yard - - - no we don't have a lawn. Yes, Hubby does over-water. Never during drought years, however. I think $78 was our highest bill back then.

I don't know what the water meters are like today, but when I was a kid my father tested our water to make sure there were no leaks.  So he read the meter in the morning, then we couldn't use the water during the day, and then he read the meter again at the end of the day.  He found there were no water leaks based on the fact that the meter reading did not change during the day.

Yolos -thanks so much for the suggestion to check the water meter - saves a plumber bill. 

 My utility company says I've been using something like 200 gal/day - sounds a bit excessive but with bathing, etc AND the garden - might be close?

That's not a lot.

The older standard for water billing used to be HCF notated as either HCF or CCF on the bill.  It stands for hundred cubic foot.  The equivalent of 748 gallon per HCF. 

You're using 8 HCF a month which, IMHO, isn't much.   However, most water agencies base their usage levels off of the number of people in the house.  Efficient indoor use is around 50 gallons/day per person just for indoor use of .  Slightly higher with one or two.

You can estimate here:  http://www.home-water-works.org/calculator

Once you complete the info, you can answer questions about specific items like showers/baths/laundry loads, outdoor watering. When you're done, you can get a report page that will compare your results to an average and waterwise home with the same number of people and landscape as you for your zip code area.


The basic nutshell is urban planning is focused on indoor use, consumption and people count, so if it's just one or two of you living in the house and you're trying to water outdoor landscaping, you're kind of out of luck.

Thanks so much for your input, guys.  I'll fill out the form but think I'm on target with garden watering.