I want to ask you a very important question: Do you read your water bill? No, not just look to see how much you owe; but look at how many gallons you used during the last month? No? Not really even sure how? Or what you’re looking at? I understand! I feel that way about my phone bill!!
In this blog I wanted to point out several things to start looking at on your water bill. Maybe not every month, but at the very least each quarter or each season to check in and see how you are doing with your usage. This may run long though, so I’m going to break it into a small series of things to look at on your bill.
Today I want to point out what I consider to be THE most important place to start looking at on your monthly bill, because you can’t save water if you don’t even know how much you’re using! Right? And then, you’re going to need to know if that amount is a high number or low one. And what (or how much) is a “normal” amount of water to use each month?
Of course, I have no exact answer about how much water is “normal.” The answer depends on several factors, like the number of people in the house and their ages, the age of the home or the age of the appliances (like the toilets, dish and clothes washers, showerheads, and faucets), and whether your house has a water softener. I’ll discuss this more at the end.
So look on the front of the bill at the little graph that shows the gallons of water used during each of the billing cycles for the last year (note: chances are the billing cycle is not for the entire month, it’s part of one month and part of another). The x-axis (bottom) shows each month’s usage and the y-axis (vertical) indicates the gallons. See the upper bill picture, I’ve circled the water use graph in red. We measure the amount of water used each month in gallons—the same amount as a gallon jug of milk and you are billed by the thousand gallons used.
Another place to look at the amount of water used each month is the back of the bill. Here is written the actual number of gallons used for the current bill. See the bill at the bottom, I’ve circled that amount in orange. The water bill says “total consumption in gallons” and then 12,400 is to the side. That’s 12,400 gallons used this last billing cycle.
Now, many things can determine how much this number will be, as I’ve already listed a lot of those variables–number of people in the house, age of house and appliances, etc. I will tell you that here in Round Rock, our average winter bill is for 5,868 gallons and our average summer bill is for 12,252 gallons. How does yours stack up?
Also on average, we here in Round Rock use 75 gallons of water per person, per day. Of course, this is average because a baby isn’t going to use that much, yet a teenager may use more! You could make it easy for yourself and say each person in your home uses 100 gallons each day. The average billing cycle is 30 days, so that would be 3000 gallons for each person each month. If you have 2 people in your house that would be 6,000 gallons for your water use would be “normal” or expected.
This number can be greatly reduced by installing low water use (or efficient) fixtures, especially toilets and showerheads since they are used the most and the most often (multiple times a day). Don’t forget the City has a rebate program for water efficient toilets and clothes washers. Find out those details at www.roundrocktexas.gov/conservation If there was any one thing you wanted to do to reduce the amount of water in your home, I would say replace your toilets. If your home was built before 2000, I would replace the toilets with newer WaterSense models. This allows you to save water without changing anything, you’ll still flush the same way.
I will say those efficient appliances really do make a difference. My family of 4 (2 teenagers and 2 adults) uses right at 3,000 of water each month for all of us. We installed new WaterSense toilets, showerheads, and a Energy Star dishwasher when we moved in 2 years ago. Our house was built in 1999. We don’t have a water softener. We do have an irrigation system (that’s turn off currently!). The clothes washer is a front loader that’s about 6 years old. We do use them all several times each week! It really is possible to reduce your consumption without it being a chore.
Now pull out those bills and take a look! Next time I’ll point out a couple more places to look on the bill.
