Did your water bill spike this past month? You know you’ve been watering your lawn more because you aerated and reseeded, but you really don’t think you’ve used that much water, right? How can you tell if a water spike is due to real usage or a plumbing problem?
Common Causes of Water Bill Spikes
It may be that you have indeed used more water this month for legitimate reasons. Maybe your spouse left the sprinkler on overnight and hasn’t fessed up yet, or maybe your cat has figured out how to flush the toilet. If you can determine that there isn’t a logical explanation for your water bill spike, you’ll want to investigate the following possibilities:
Your Toilet is Running…. And That’s No Joke
A running toilet can cost you thousands of gallons of water and hundreds of dollars in water bills—per month. Toilets use a lot more water than most people realize, and a continuously running toilet can rack up some seriously high water bills.
A Leaky Faucet or Shower
To determine how much water you’re wasting, count how many drips you are losing per minute. A showerhead or faucet leaking 10 drips per minute will lose just under two gallons of water a day. Is your faucet dripping constantly? You could be losing gallons a day, and the increase in your water bill will most certainly warrant replacing that faucet or shower head (or getting it fixed).
Leaking Pipes – Perhaps the Most Wasteful (and Difficult to Detect) Leak of All
Did you know that a leak in your pipes the size of a pencil point—that’s a 1/16th of an inch—can cost you up to 970 gallons of water in a month’s time? That’s why even tiny leaks need to be located and repaired as soon as possible.
You may think you’d notice a leaky pipe, but the truth is most pipe leaks take place in locations you can’t observe visually. A leak can occur in the walls, in the crawl space, under your yard, or even under the sidewalk.
Leaking Irrigation System
This happens more often than you might imagine. How? You might have run over an irrigation spigot with your car or lawn mower, or your child might have tripped over a spigot and broken it clean off. Often people don’t realize their irrigation system is leaking until they get the water bill and check it out.
Broken Water Meter
You’ll have to contact your utility company if you suspect the water meter is broken. They’ll come out and check it for you, and if it’s broken, they will replace it for you and negotiate regarding the spiked water bill.
ER Services - Water Bill Spike Investigation
If you need to figure out why your water bill spiked, give us a call. Here at ER Services, we specialize in troubleshooting water bill spikes. We are leak detection experts and can determine the cause of your water bill spike and, in most cases, fix it for you right away.
Charlotte Water Bill Spike
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It's interesting that a leaking irrigation system can cause my water bill to go up. I have noticed a significant increase in my water bill lately, and I think that one of the pipes leading into my home may have cracked due to the cold weather. I'll definitely have to have it checked out, and try and prevent it next time.