Monday, June 22, 2009

My sewer costs are ridiculous!

I am in shock! I was just reviewing my water bill which includes sewer, storm water and garbage/recycling charges. My Sewer bill is higher per gallon than my water bill!

In my defense, my bill was artificially low last year so it never caught my attention. This year they re-rate in April and now it has my attention.

I immediately called the city to ask what's up with that? How can the sewer bill be higher per gallon than the water bill?

You may already know that the city bases your sewer use on four winter months of water usage to, in essence, filter out your sprinkler use since it doesn't go down the sewer. This is relatively new but that's why the rates change in April.

But back to the problem, this last month I used 18, 900 gallons and that cost me $61.98 or $.0032793 per gallon. My sewer is rated at 10,800 gallons which cost $45.25 or .0041898 per gallon! It's 22% higher than clean water? So which pays for water treatment? They both do because we don't treat the water from the sewer for drinking here in the US. So we pump water from the reservoirs, treat it, store it and pump it to your home and we take the sewer water, let it flow to the treatment plant, treat it and then dump it in a stream or river.

In Singapore for example, they treat the sewage water making it into drinking water again because they don't have enough fresh water.

So somehow we can build giant reservoirs, huge long pipelines, treatment plants, build and maintain pipes to all our homes cheaper than dealing with the sewer water?

Its also worth noting that storm sewer is a different thing and we get billed $10.16 for that too. Some municipalities combine the two and end up with big costs for treating the stormwater after rains.

So, why do I care? Because my water use bill is really double because my sewer bill is included in a per gallon calculation. If I can cut water use I can cut sewer costs. But more importantly, my in-home water is really twice as expensive per gallon than what my sprinkler water costs.

I also care because I was recently looking at our city budget that is 120 million in the hole and water treatment is a huge number....I now want to know more!

24 comments:

  1. Mark, I'm not surprised cleaning your drinking water is less expensive than cleaning you waste water. After all your waste water has a lot more... well, waste in it. There's plenty of material available on the topic:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_treatment
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sewage_treatment

    But what really puzzles me is what you use all that water for?! I got my water bill yesterday and although it was for an almost identical amount, it was for our usage over the last 6 months! We're only two people in our house and we don't have a garden to water, but still... what makes the big difference? Perhaps it is the garden...?

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  2. Mathias, I know this will make you cringe but...I live on a half acre. Of that 18,000 about 10,000 is in home use and we just had the family here for three days (8 total) and a large party. So that makes my numbers higher than usual. But it's all that sprinkling. Last year in this month I used 31,400!

    I still have more work to do.

    So you use an average of 3,000 a month? Man do I have a lot of work to do.

    Do you people shower over there? ;-)

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  3. I'm going to have to go look at how much I use in gallons...

    Like Mathias, I am sure it costs more to treat sewage.

    Combining storm water with sewage in one system has to be the dumbest idea ever. They did that where I live too. Every time there is a big storm, it overwhelms the system and sewage flows into the bay. They are "fixing" this by building a humongous storage facility for the storm water instead of building a separate system. Rolls eyes.

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  4. Here is an interesting link from 2007. It basically says that water use average for residences in these cities is 8500 gallons. http://www.portlandonline.com/water/index.cfm?a=147684&c=48459

    This link says that its all about construction costs (interesting) and water treatment technology as you said. http://www.cityofnewberry.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=104&Itemid=410

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  5. I just looked and my last quarterly bill, Jan-Mar, is for 13,000 gallons (one person), for an average of 4333 gallons per month. I think there is not much quarterly variation, since I don't water my lawn.

    Compared to Mathias, I am using a lot of water. I will have to look at this more.

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  6. Karen Anne,

    We just recently revised the storm water charge to our bill. It's the gross property size and they have a calculated impervious area. They then calculated a fixed fee for that.

    My question is, if I remediated the run-off would they eliminate the fee? That would help cost justify my water cistern project.

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  7. Karen Anne,

    That puts you at about the average from the link I posted since there is only one person using it...

    Without really thinking it through it seems to me two people would double the water use pretty linearly. Twice as many showers, teeth brushings, dishes,etc. A young child might be less than an adult, but maybe not.

    I wish that data from Portland included the "per capita per household" figures.

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  8. Before my girlfriend moved in I used about 1350 gallons a month. This last bill was for 3700 a month for the two of us, but the bill before that was an estimate which was probably base on my lower historical usage, so this last bill was probably artificially high. So yes, about 3000 for the two of us per month. That's about 50 gallons (200 liters) a day per person. Seems a lot to me... And yes, we do shower, almost every day, some days twice. We both work away from the house, so we use more water than what show on our bill. You work out of you house?

    I guess the biggest factor is how many people there are in the household, and whether you have a garden to water. Making any comparisons without taking this into account seems unfair and pointless.

    Thus, the interesting question for you is; after removing water for the garden, how much do you use per person? But then again, it doesn't matter much as long as you keep up that mad sprinkling. Ready to go "water wise"?

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  9. Mathias,

    Interesting...she uses way more water than you...I coulda guessed that.

    I have been searching around the web for data on per capita water use. The average indoor water use per person in the US is...unknown as far as I can tell.

    Lots of people figure the total water produced by the filtering plant divided by the population but that includes everything...including golf courses.

    My best guess on what I have read is 120 gallons, per person, for single family residences, indoors, in the US.

    So about 3600 gallons a month per person.

    I work out of the home, my wife does not.

    My use per person is around 4500 gallons indoors!

    Although I have reduced my overall usage by a lot, I haven't really tried to get 30% out of my indoor usage...hmmm...

    I put a water restrictor in our rain shower (from 5 gallons to 2.5 a minute)and we flush less, and that's about it.

    Our clothes washer is old, our dishwasher gets used maybe twice a week, the faucets are generally not low flow. I don't have any leaks.

    I'd need to take out about 1350 gallons to make my 30% mark.

    Do you live in a single family detached home?

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  10. We live in a flat (apartment as you say in the US) in a house with 15 flats. It has two bedrooms, a reception (living room), a small kitchen and two bathrooms. Don't know the size, but I would think 650 sq ft perhaps. But I'm pretty sure the size of the flat has almost no effect on the water use. Only the number of people and the size of your garden (if any) probably matters (and of course how many of the people are teenage girls), and the rest is down to how wasteful your usage is (intentional or not). We use the shower and virtually never use the tub, but our showers are not in any way extremely quick (average I'd say). We run the dishwasher and washing machine every other day or so, and never wash under running water or in the sink.

    > My use per person is around 4500 gallons indoors!

    That's crazy. Do you take baths frequently, or really long showers? Are you toilet water cistern really really big? If you use three times more water than me then I think it's worth finding out why... (I'll try to look up the amount of water my appliances use when I get home)

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  11. I blog from the bathtub... ;-)

    The only size effect might be our family use of the home. When they visit (at least five times a year en masse)we have 8 or so people staying here (14 at Christmas). We also have at least a couple parties a year.

    Car washing, things like that may also be a difference between house and flat. I also know my home repairs, painting etc always take some water.

    My wife shaves her legs in the shower with the water on...she used to let the water run prior to brushing her teeth (she uses hot water, wierd huh?)

    I don't keep a close eye on the housekeeper but she seems pretty conscious of water use. (Here once a week). I guess she's partially like an extra person.

    But our use doesn't vary that much from average...but I'll admit I want 30% less.

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  12. I'm going to count the number of times I flush per day...and how long an average shower is for me...

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  13. I'm retired, so I'm home most of the time. That makes me feel a little better about my numbers compared to Mathias' :-)

    Mathias, do you have a low water use washing machine? They are fairly common in Europe, I think? I wonder how much water that saves.

    I found this on the web "An average bath requires 30-50 gallons of water. The average shower of four minutes with an old shower head uses 20 gallons of water. With a low-flow shower head, only 10 gallons of water is used."

    I'm going to actually measure with a gallon container or I could probably measure the bathtub inside dimensions and see how much water a bath uses at the level I usually fill the tub.

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  14. Mathias's water use is 3000 a month, no garden. Mine is 4500 est. and Karen Ann's is 4330, no garden. That puts Mathias at 30% less than us.

    I think I can get down to that number without much cost.

    Mathias, do you do laundry in the flat?

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  15. Sorry, I read over the past comments and see that you do.

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  16. I have a question. I was feeling like a water loser at my indoor/individual use of 61000. Then it hit me. I work out of my house. So while I am using my water to make coffee, my tap to my filtered pitcher to fill my glass, etc, all day - other people are using water, but at the office. I have no paper plates, no styrofoam and eat lunch here every day. So I may wash more dishes. I also wear "work at home" clothes, so I do more laundry and go to the dry cleaner 75% less than when I did have a job outside of my home office.

    I could use less water here if i spent 40 hours a week NOT being here.

    Mark, I know you work out of your house, but you have a spouse who doesn't. Don't you think that has an impact on your indoor water use? And, what is the methodology to get an overall environmental footprint per individual? In other words, i could use less water if I used styrofoam cups and paper plates and stopped using cloth napkins. But that seems horribly wrong. I'm interested in the group's feedback. You're all clearly very knowledgeable.

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  17. I think Patti means 6100 gallons per month.

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  18. Yes, sorry. Typo. I really WOULD be a water hog with that.

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  19. > My use per person is around 4500 gallons indoors!
    > That puts Mathias at 30% less than us.

    Mark, my 3000 gallons a month is for the two of us, so I use two-thirds less than you. With my use at work maybe saying 50% less is fairer. Anyhow, where are those gallons going??

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  22. Here's what I've found (the things I do for the environment!):

    My shower use 3.6 US gallons per minute (13.7 L/min) with the tap fully open, and 2.3 gal/min (8.75 L/min) when open as much as it typically is when I shower.

    My toilet cistern is marked 6L on the inside, but actually fill to 8 liters (2.1 gallons).

    My dish washer is a Baumatic BHD-5 and my washing machine a Baumatic BHWD12 H/C, and I actually found the "European Energy Label" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_energy_label) for both of them in a drawer in my rented flat (thank you landlord!).

    For the dish washer it says the overall rating is C. It uses 1.45kW/h per cycle (washing cycle rated B and drying cycle rated D). Its capacity is 12 place settings, and it uses 18L (4.755 gal) water per cycle. We always run it on the "eco" program, which reduces the temp by 10 degrees centigrade (from 55 to 45) and shortens the cycle from 80min to 63.

    The washing machine is rated C. It's "cotton capacity" is 5kg and it uses 0.93kW/h per cycle per kilo at 60 degrees centigrade. The water use is 2.5 liters, which I can only assume is per kilo wash, so 12.5L or 3.3 gallons per wash. We almost always run it at 40 degrees, but that shouldn't change the water use. The machine is a combined washer dryer and if we used it for drying too it would use a whopping 4.2kW/h per cycle per kilo (so 21kW/h per wash!), but we don't, becuase it rubbish, not to mention wasteful.

    Over to you Mark... :)

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  23. Patti, I don;t think there is much difference between working at home and being retired in terms of water use?

    Mathias, I don't have the manual for my washer, but I am sure it uses more than 3.3 gallons per wash. I try to use the smallest setting for each load, but even at the small setting, counting the wash and rinse cycles I think it is probably using twice that much.

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  24. Mathias,

    I agree. 2/3s. I started reviewing low flow toilets yesterday. I counted flushes yesterday which was 4 for my wife and two for me. I don't flush on the yellow stuff usually...she does.

    That's 6 flushes per day. I will figure out the gallons next.

    Most of the data you posted above is all Greek to me. The brands, setting etc are all going to require some thinking on my part. In America we have a setting called "more than everyone else". We use it exclusively. :-)

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