Water bill question

[draggar]

On my utility (water) bill I have two things: water usage (incoming water) and sewage (outgoing). They are measured in "tgal"s, a.k.a. thousand gallon units.

Why are they ALWAYS identical? I water my plants, wash my car, hose down our patio, bathe the dogs, none of that goes down our drains.

Some people may say that isn't enough to make them different.

One month roofers left our hose on, all day, full blast. Our bill went to 10tgal for water usage AND sewer.

Obviously none of that water went down our drain, it was absorbed into the ground.

[Docmayhem]

I can only speak to my own experience with this YMMV:

Water companies will assume that all water that goes into your house goes down your drain.

If you have a significant difference in those amounts, it has to be metered for them to change their billing.

In my case, the shop where I work has a cooling tower out back. The water that goes into the cooling tower to make up for evaporation gets metered, and the water company gives us a credit for that on the sewage portion of our bill.

[HYHYBT]

As a practical matter, they don't actually measure sewage. It's separate on the bill so that people who don't have sewer service don't have to pay for it.

[eltf177]

[QUOTE=Docmayhem;636961]Water companies will assume that all water that goes into your house goes down your drain. If you have a significant difference in those amounts, it has to be metered for them to change their billing.QUOTE]

This is the way both the town I live in and the town I work for do it.

One exception is for people who use their home water to fill their pools. They want an immediate read so they don't pay sewage fees on pool water when they dump it down the storm sewers. However, they are only allowed to due this if they neutralize the cholorine in the water first and provide proof that this has been done prior to dumping.

And they never do... I've often said these people should be absolutely forbidden to ever do this again and must pay the sewage fee period.

And you can guess if that ever happens!