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Did you ever wonder what might make a Utility bill suddenly jump by over 500% ?
Did you ever wonder what might make a Utility bill suddenly jump by over 500%?
By David McClelland
Did you ever wonder what might make a Utility bill suddenly jump by over 500%?
I never did until it happened to us. It was our Bloomfield Township Water and Sewer Division bill. Our normal water bill for a three-month period during the winter (when our sprinkler system is turned off) runs about $190, or about $63 per month. For the first quarter of this year, we were shocked to see that it was $951.68 or about $317 per month, a 500% increase.
We couldn't believe the usage because we had not been away at all during that period and had not heard the sump pump or the toilets running. We asked the Township to have someone come out and see if they could determine what was causing the problem.
They did send a man to our house and he was here for about an hour. While he was here, the meter showed no water usage at all and he said that we were not then experiencing any sort of a leak. He could come up with no explanation, but said they would remove and test the meter.
We left for a two weeks vacation in Europe and asked our son to let the worker in to take out our water meter and to install a new one. When we returned, we got a letter from the Township saying that they had tested our original meter and found that "the meter has been certified to meet the accuracy requirements as specified by the American Waterworks Association (AWWA) standards. They attached the results: 16 GPM full flow @ 100%; 3 GPM intermediate flow @ 100% and ½ GPM low flow @ 95%.
So far, all we knew was that the Township was convinced that it wasn't their problem. I felt that their experts should have done more to assist us in locating the problem. They would not, but offered to allow us to pay the bill off over 12 months at 0% interest and no late payment fee because they were testing the meter. We decided we'd better agree to that and went to the Water and Sewer Division to sign the paper work. That turned out to be more than we expected. First, we had to sign an "Installment Agreement for Water Charges" and make the first payment. Fair enough, but when we saw the agreement, the amount to be repaid was $2,099.18 rather than the $951.68 we expected. They explained that our metered usage as of that date was the $2,099.18 amount and they figured we'd want to pay the whole thing on installments. We did. They next thing was that the agreement would cause a lien to be placed on our home and, if we failed to meet the terms of the agreement, we wouldn't be able to sell our property until we did.
As an attorney, I had to read all of the language of the agreement and, when I did, I determined that we could not sign it as written. The problem was that it provided for 12 payments of $174.93 each month (in addition to paying whatever our then current bill happened to be), but said that 50% of the entire payment had to be paid by September 10, 2010. Clearly, that provision was wrong. That date was only three months away and it would not be possible to pay 50% of the total by that date at the agreed to rate. When I explained this to them, they redrafted the agreement such that the September deadline was in 2011.
OK, we were on the way to paying off this unexpected debt, but we were no closer to finding the cause of the extreme water usage. What should we do next? I'm not sure, but what we did do was to hire a plumber/handy man to come out and replace all of the working parts in all three toilets and to check our sump pumps for leaks. We did this because we were told that one leaking toilet could waste up to 200 gallons of water a day.
The Township suggested that our back-up, water-powered sump pump (WPSP) might be the culprit. In the eight years since it was installed, we had never heard it run except when it was being tested. It would kick on only if we had a bad storm that knocked out our electricity such that the water level in the sump pump rose high enough to trip the float in the back-up, WPSP, causing it to come on to pump out the water to keep our basement from flooding. The problem with these back-up pumps, we recently discovered, is that they use huge amounts of water; i.e., about 2 gallons of water for every gallon of sump water pumped out.
Our plumber/handy man checked both sumps and found them to be operating correctly. What next? We thought about, but ruled out, our sinks, showers, dishwasher, clothes washer and ice machine. Still no answer.
We are monitoring usage every day by going to the basement and recording the reading. We have been doing so for almost a month and the usage has never been excessive on any day. We are still baffled and will continue to watch usage daily so that, if there is another spike, we will know it and may have more information to locate the area of concern. It is frustrating not to have been able to say for certain what caused us to have to pay over $2,000 in water/sewer bills. We may never know. Where is the justice in that?
By David McClelland
Did you ever wonder what might make a Utility bill suddenly jump by over 500%?
I never did until it happened to us. It was our Bloomfield Township Water and Sewer Division bill. Our normal water bill for a three-month period during the winter (when our sprinkler system is turned off) runs about $190, or about $63 per month. For the first quarter of this year, we were shocked to see that it was $951.68 or about $317 per month, a 500% increase.
We couldn't believe the usage because we had not been away at all during that period and had not heard the sump pump or the toilets running. We asked the Township to have someone come out and see if they could determine what was causing the problem.
They did send a man to our house and he was here for about an hour. While he was here, the meter showed no water usage at all and he said that we were not then experiencing any sort of a leak. He could come up with no explanation, but said they would remove and test the meter.
We left for a two weeks vacation in Europe and asked our son to let the worker in to take out our water meter and to install a new one. When we returned, we got a letter from the Township saying that they had tested our original meter and found that "the meter has been certified to meet the accuracy requirements as specified by the American Waterworks Association (AWWA) standards. They attached the results: 16 GPM full flow @ 100%; 3 GPM intermediate flow @ 100% and ½ GPM low flow @ 95%.
So far, all we knew was that the Township was convinced that it wasn't their problem. I felt that their experts should have done more to assist us in locating the problem. They would not, but offered to allow us to pay the bill off over 12 months at 0% interest and no late payment fee because they were testing the meter. We decided we'd better agree to that and went to the Water and Sewer Division to sign the paper work. That turned out to be more than we expected. First, we had to sign an "Installment Agreement for Water Charges" and make the first payment. Fair enough, but when we saw the agreement, the amount to be repaid was $2,099.18 rather than the $951.68 we expected. They explained that our metered usage as of that date was the $2,099.18 amount and they figured we'd want to pay the whole thing on installments. We did. They next thing was that the agreement would cause a lien to be placed on our home and, if we failed to meet the terms of the agreement, we wouldn't be able to sell our property until we did.
As an attorney, I had to read all of the language of the agreement and, when I did, I determined that we could not sign it as written. The problem was that it provided for 12 payments of $174.93 each month (in addition to paying whatever our then current bill happened to be), but said that 50% of the entire payment had to be paid by September 10, 2010. Clearly, that provision was wrong. That date was only three months away and it would not be possible to pay 50% of the total by that date at the agreed to rate. When I explained this to them, they redrafted the agreement such that the September deadline was in 2011.
OK, we were on the way to paying off this unexpected debt, but we were no closer to finding the cause of the extreme water usage. What should we do next? I'm not sure, but what we did do was to hire a plumber/handy man to come out and replace all of the working parts in all three toilets and to check our sump pumps for leaks. We did this because we were told that one leaking toilet could waste up to 200 gallons of water a day.
The Township suggested that our back-up, water-powered sump pump (WPSP) might be the culprit. In the eight years since it was installed, we had never heard it run except when it was being tested. It would kick on only if we had a bad storm that knocked out our electricity such that the water level in the sump pump rose high enough to trip the float in the back-up, WPSP, causing it to come on to pump out the water to keep our basement from flooding. The problem with these back-up pumps, we recently discovered, is that they use huge amounts of water; i.e., about 2 gallons of water for every gallon of sump water pumped out.
Our plumber/handy man checked both sumps and found them to be operating correctly. What next? We thought about, but ruled out, our sinks, showers, dishwasher, clothes washer and ice machine. Still no answer.
We are monitoring usage every day by going to the basement and recording the reading. We have been doing so for almost a month and the usage has never been excessive on any day. We are still baffled and will continue to watch usage daily so that, if there is another spike, we will know it and may have more information to locate the area of concern. It is frustrating not to have been able to say for certain what caused us to have to pay over $2,000 in water/sewer bills. We may never know. Where is the justice in that?
posted by David McClelland at
1:36 PM
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