I used HOW much water?

[phiferpharm]

Got my water/trash bill from the city I have my Miami house in. They charged me for using an average of 100 gallons a day of water. That's really interesting because I TURNED THE WATER OFF at the city side two months ago...

I had gotten my last bill three months ago and had a charge showing about 90 gallons a day of usage and since the house is empty, asked the city to come check their meter and they supposedly came out and left me a message it was working correctly. I figured I had a leak somewhere and would figure it out when I go back to Miami to get the house ready for sale/rental, so I turned it off.

I asked my neighbor to go out tomorrow and see if it is still turned off and read the meter for me. I wrote down what it read when I turned it off. It will be interesting to see what he finds and what the meter reads.

I have to go down to Miami next week and either way, I think it's in order to go to the utility department for a little visit

 

[aczlan]

Good luck.

Aaron Z

 

[RobertBrown]

When I lived in Tampa and use the city water, they told me they read the meter once every 2 -3 months.
When they did read it, they would correct for the actual usage and bill correctly. Not a big deal as it kept the costs down and it wasn't much money to begin with.
They bill on a scale that decreases with larger volume so the more you use the less you pay per cubic foot. I always used less than the lowest bracket so it didn't save me money to use less water.
I suspect that your next bill will most likely be a be a credit, So don't pay them any more money.
It is possible that someone is stealing your water, but it's unlikely. You could have a leak between the meter and the shut off valve.
That happened to me once as the mailman thought he could drive over the meter box to get to the mailbox. After many years of this the box broke the pipe.

 

[phiferpharm]

When I lived in Tampa and use the city water, they told me they read the meter once every 2 -3 months.
When they did read it, they would correct for the actual usage and bill correctly. Not a big deal as it kept the costs down and it wasn't much money to begin with.
They bill on a scale that decreases with larger volume so the more you use the less you pay per cubic foot. I always used less than the lowest bracket so it didn't save me money to use less water.
I suspect that your next bill will most likely be a be a credit, So don't pay them any more money.
It is possible that someone is stealing your water, but it's unlikely. You could have a leak between the meter and the shut off valve.
That happened to me once as the mailman thought he could drive over the meter box to get to the mailbox. After many years of this the box broke the pipe.

I hear ya Robert- This is the new 3 month bill and it was $150 in water usage and I asked them last time if it was a guesstamite or actual reading. They claimed it was a reading.

It can't be a leak between the meter and my cutoff valve- I cut it off at the meter. Many years ago the water guy left a cutoff tool in my yard, which I ran over with my mower. I remembered I had it and used that to cut it off at the street. I'm sure that is a no-no, but I'll claim stupidity if they have an issue with me turning it off.

 

[The kid]

Got my water/trash bill from the city I have my Miami house in. They charged me for using an average of 100 gallons a day of water. That's really interesting because I TURNED THE WATER OFF at the city side two months ago...

I had gotten my last bill three months ago and had a charge showing about 90 gallons a day of usage and since the house is empty, asked the city to come check their meter and they supposedly came out and left me a message it was working correctly. I figured I had a leak somewhere and would figure it out when I go back to Miami to get the house ready for sale/rental, so I turned it off.

I asked my neighbor to go out tomorrow and see if it is still turned off and read the meter for me. I wrote down what it read when I turned it off. It will be interesting to see what he finds and what the meter reads.

I have to go down to Miami next week and either way, I think it's in order to go to the utility department for a little visit

Sounds like the meter reader is reading the meter from the coffee shop.

 

[JamesHW]

When away I always shut down the water service (service main or pump, depending on whether the city or country place). Gives peace of mind and certainly would avoid this type of situation unless the leak was somewhere prior to where the service pipe enters the house.

 

[Bird]

Sounds like the meter reader is reading the meter from the coffee shop.

I, too, turn off the water at the meter if we're going to be gone overnight or longer. But when we lived down in Navarro County, I was on the board of directors for the water company, and I once had someone who knew I was a board member call me to say the bill was way too high and the employees refused to do anything about it. So I went over there, and sure enough they had used the reading for a neighbor's meter; wrong meter. Needless to say, that got corrected.

 

[The kid]

I, too, turn off the water at the meter if we're going to be gone overnight or longer. But when we lived down in Navarro County, I was on the board of directors for the water company, and I once had someone who knew I was a board member call me to say the bill was way too high and the employees refused to do anything about it. So I went over there, and sure enough they had used the reading for a neighbor's meter; wrong meter. Needless to say, that got corrected.

Bird, I worked for an electric utility in Nashville for 35+ years and know for a fact meter reader write down readings from month to month on very rural accounts and sometimes guesstimate those accounts when they want to get thru early. Several had been fired over the years after getting caught being reported by customers that watch their bill closely. I know for a fact they where estimating mine because it had a AMR (automated meter reading) head attached to the water meter and the display was dead. blank.. I had readings every month, but the display was dead (electronic) and the leaves on top of the meter where not disturbed. I figured as long as the bill was close every month, whenever they actually read it, it would correct itself.

I know of some small time water companies here in Tennessee that actually hire kids to read the meters. - robert

 

[Bird]

Robert, our little water company down in Navarro County only had 4 full time employees, so 2 of them spent 2 days each month reading meters.

But the electric co-op down there doesn't have employees reading the meters. Each month when you paid your bill there was a place on the form for you to include the current meter reading. In other words you read your own meter and were always a month behind in paying. The co-op was supposed to send someone out every 6 months to check and see if you'd been reporting it correctly, but the fact is that they didn't get around to doing that even once a year.

And when I was doing gas leakage surveys for gas companies, naturally there are some people who didn't think the gas company was reading the meters; thought they were just estimating it at times, so some people painted the lense on the meter so the meter reader would have to scrape it off to read the meter. I guess that's one way to tell whether they read it, but the gas companies take a dim view of that practice.:laughing:

Now my current neighborhood won't have any meter readers walking through the yards. There is no gas in this area, the smart meter will now transmit the electric usage to the company, and there's a little transmitter in the water meter box for the water. In fact, that was here when we bought this place six and a half years ago.

 

[The kid]

Robert, our little water company down in Navarro County only had 4 full time employees, so 2 of them spent 2 days each month reading meters.

I use to attend a week long electric metering conference regularly which was held every other year in Knoxville,Tn. I met many of utility employees which was not more than a mom and pop operation. I don't know much about what
the water industry uses as smart meters. Most I've seen are remote transmitting adapters and when the reader sends out a wake up it transmits back the meter number and reading. Now the electric meters can have more complex measures to get the readings home. Here CEMC (Cumberland Electric Membership Corp) uses an electric meter with digital readout with a turtle module inside. The reason they call it a turtle, it transmits the reading data very slow using power line carrier. It might take a few days to get a complete reading.

But the electric co-op down there doesn't have employees reading the meters. Each month when you paid your bill there was a place on the form for you to include the current meter reading. In other words you read your own meter and were always a month behind in paying. The co-op was supposed to send someone out every 6 months to check and see if you'd been reporting it correctly, but the fact is that they didn't get around to doing that even once a year.

I can see this could create big problems in billing if someone transposed the first to number of the actual reading.

And when I was doing gas leakage surveys for gas companies, naturally there are some people who didn't think the gas company was reading the meters; thought they were just estimating it at times, so some people painted the lense on the meter so the meter reader would have to scrape it off to read the meter. I guess that's one way to tell whether they read it, but the gas companies take a dim view of that practice.:laughing:

I know just about every trick there is. There was one old lady and she would put a sack over the meter every month. The meter reader would draw a smiley face on it to let her know he had been there. They would put a rock on top of the water meter cover. The reader better put the rock back in a different spot or he'd get a complaint for accusing of not reading the meter.

Now my current neighborhood won't have any meter readers walking through the yards. There is no gas in this area, the smart meter will now transmit the electric usage to the company, and there's a little transmitter in the water meter box for the water. In fact, that was here when we bought this place six and a half years ago.

When I first worked for the electric company, I read meters for about eight months and. Quickly. Found out that wasn't a career path for me. I use a 10 power monoscope to read meters at quite a distance. I got called into all the time. Supervisor had to explain he was using a telescope to read his meter. Now with modern technology a special meter is installed once and like you said you no longer see the meter readers. The new electronic meters are tamper proof. So they only service them if they fail. I've seen electromechanical meters run for over 50 years and still have an accuracy within 2%. The lifespan of an electronic meter maybe 5 years. But they have less employees be ause of remote reading.

One day the entire nation will be wired into a fiber optic network and everything will be done thru it. One thing I'm sure of. Electronic meter do create jobs because of the failure rate of mechanical. So jobs lost because of automation is gained back in maintenance.:thumbsup: -robert