Super Water Bills

I think ALL of my toilets are leaking. Our water bill is $400+/month (people in our area tell us they are paying closer to $100). I can hear them trickle a little… Then, periodically, they “refill” a little (REALLY damn annoying in the middle of the night). They all do it!! (not at the same time). What should I look at? Replace the entire internals? caulking something? Ideas?

Sep 18, 2008 21:03 from Wasted Youth

http://www.doityourself.com/stry/h2repairtoilet

The whole “flushing” assembly isn’t that expensive, might as well replace it
all, or you can just replace the flapper/ballcock. You might lift the lid and
see what kind of setup the toilets have, the flapper style or the flush ball
type. Scroll down to ‘fixing the flush valve’ on that page, and note if yours
have any build up or anything on them, that can prevent them from sealing, and
BTW the water in the tank will be clean so don’t freak out, hah.
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Sep 18, 2008 21:26 from Joker
400+ a month still seems like a lot even with leaking toilets. I would
definitely fix the toilets or if they are really old and you don’t like one or
more of them, maybe replacing the entire toilet with something a little more
efficient.

Around here, if a person waters their lawn at least once every two days, then
they have a 400+ water bill…
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Sep 18, 2008 23:52 from Collectonian
I can’t imagine the toliet alone is using that much water! How many gallons
does your bill show were used? Do you have a sprinkler on an automatic schedule
that’s running for a long time every day? My water bill went up to $100 when I
moved, because this house has a sprinkler that was set to run for 15 minutes
per station every day. I’ve decreased it to 5 minutes per station every other
day…hoping it helps.

You may also want to get someone out to check your plumbing. We had a water
leak at my duplex that was in a pipe between the walls, and had been leaking
for nearly a month before it finally “broke through” by slowly leaking out of
the hole the toliet pipe came out of. When they checked broke through the wall,
it had a split in the pipe. Go along your walls and check for dampness. Check
under the house as well, if you can see under there, and see if there is any
water standing around under there.
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Sep 19, 2008 09:00 from L Michele

If you can access your water meter, you can narrow down the possible culprits
on your own by turning off all water sources in the house, and making sure no
toilets are running. Check the water meter. If it’s moving, you’ve got a leak
between the meter and the house. If it’s not, the culprit is IN the house.

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Sep 22, 2008 10:18 from The After Party
Water/Toilets

The house was built in 2005, so the toilets are “new”.
Inside they say 6 LPF/1.6 GPF (but that’s obviously changable).
Flapper type.

Hell, the 400+ bill was from when we were on vacation for 2 weeks (out
of the month), so its not using the toilets that causes the problem,
its leaking.

Yes, we have an auto sprinkler that was also leaking that is now fixed.
Hopefully that will help. Only allowed to run it 2x a week, though
it does run from ~3am till 6 or 7 am (lots of stations).

I hear the damn water heater running at odd times as well. Going to
call the home warranty about all of this crap.

Our bills were:
6/20 – 7/23, 43,300 gallons – $265.23
7/23 – 8/21, 55,200 gallons – $356.73 (we were out of town for 2 weeks here)
(so, $400+ also included waste water [$35] and trash [$11] and drainage
[$11]).

We had someone certify our house didn’t have mositure (so we could get
mold insurance), so I’m pretty confident we aren’t leaking water.

I think I know where the water meter is, I’ll have to try shutting everything
off.

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Sep 22, 2008 11:12 from Tom Brady
Water usage>Has it always been high, or did it spike?

I could certainly see a huge percentage of that utilization coming from the
sprinkler system, even without the leak. Think of it this way:
A shower is running the water at more or less full pressure for ~7 minutes at
5gpm. That’s 35 gallons/day. The average person uses 20 gallons of faucet
water (toothbrushing, drinking, hand washing, etc), and 25 gallons of toilet
water daily. That’s roughly 500 gallons/week per person. * 4 people that’s an
average of 8,000 gallons per month.

An average single sprinkler uses 200+gallons per hour. Running from 3am-7am
twice/week could be an extra 1600 gallons per week, or 7000 gallons per month.

Even adding those numbers, that’s less than 1/3 of what you’re reporting of 50K
gallons per month… Do you do a lot of laundry? Do you have a cat that likes
to sit on top of the toilet and flush it repeatedly when you’re not home?

Do you have a winter bill to compare when you’re not using the sprinkler
system?

BTW, the numbers I use are off a worksheet on saving water at:
http://www.bae.ncsu.edu/programs/extension/publicat/wqwm/he251.html

I’ve used to to see how we can save water as well. I hate paying for something
that falls from the sky.
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Sep 23, 2008 00:06 from The After Party
Re: Leaky Toilets/Water Bill from hell

Usage history:
May (only half a month since we bought it May 15): 4400
June: 28700
July: 43300
Aug : 55200

Hell, we had in-laws AND my parents with us in June! Now its just a 1 yr
old, my wife and I.

We don’t do tons of laundry.
HA! I saw the video if the cat flushing the toilet. We have a cat, but
he doesn’t do that. We’re awake all hours of the night with our baby not
sleeping and all, so we’d catch him. Wife works at home.

Nope, sprinkler has always been used.

None of the faucets appear to be leaking.

I’ve called the water company about this, but I just asked them to check
the meter. I will call again and ask about the previous bills (might have
to call the former owner in case they won’t give out that info).

Got the blue tablets .. testing later tonight.

Float appears to be in the correct place (on one for sure, I’ll look at
the rest).

I thought it was weird that the water coming in is pointed right into the
overflow, but looking at the pictures at
http://www.doityourself.com/stry/h2repairtoilet
That appears to be normal.

I’ll test drain time too.

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