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sockar101 t1_itaaw89 wrote

Not a PWSA customer but I work for another local water utility. No one can really answer this without knowing more about your usage habits. Do you take long showers? Do you do dishes by hand or use a dishwasher? Do you have a high-efficiency washer? Same for your toilets? The tiniest leak definitely adds up, but most of the time people are just oblivious to how much water they actually use.

For reference, we bill bi-monthly and my usage is normally 5 or 6 thousand over two months (two adults and two small children). So you are using 2x the water I am. The other thing to consider is sanitary rates. Alcosan is constantly raising their rates for infrastructure upgrades, so that is a large portion of your bill as well, almost a third of it in your case.

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Excelius t1_itexopx wrote

> For reference, we bill bi-monthly and my usage is normally 5 or 6 thousand over two months (two adults and two small children). So you are using 2x the water I am.

Looks like they're usage is 3000gal for a month, which is basically exactly the same as yours.

The bill is a little confusing because there are two lines that say 3000gal. At first I thought it was a tiered pricing thing where they paid a certain rate for the first 3000gal and then another rate for the second.

However looking at the rates on the PWSA website it looks like the x $13.10 line is the water charge and the x $6.99 line is the sewer charge.

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sockar101 t1_iteztv8 wrote

Not doubting you, like I said I’m not served by PWSA, but I think we both may be right 😂. Ill try to break the PWSA bill down based on how our billing works:

It looks like for a 5/8” meter the minimum usage is 1,000 gallons (that’s the $27 line item). Scrolling a little lower the rates over the minimum is $13.10 per 1,000 and they used 3,000 at that rate (the $39.30 line item).

Water conveyance appears to be sewer minimum rates and that’s the $8.09 line item, then the 3,000 @6.99 is the usage above the minimum (that’s the $20.69 line item).

Storm water rates are determined by the class and square footage of the building (in this case Tier 2 residential between. 1015 and 2710 square feet) and that’s the $5.96 line item.

The last line item is basically a service fee for capital improvements and I have no clue how they calculate that.

TL:DR… they used 4,000 gallons last month, the minimum 1,000 and then 3,000 more. I didn’t consider minimum charges when I made my original comment about their usage, so while they aren’t exactly using double what I use, they’re close!

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KentuckYSnow t1_itgaffz wrote

This is correct. 4k, which is 1k min plus 3 additional. This could be because OPs meter clicked past 1 extra time (e.g. last month gallons ended in 999), or a toilet leak (could be over 1k gallons if left overnight), an old.shoernhead without water saving, running washing machine/dishwasher more than normal, or even just a regular old leak or quickly dripping faucet - or all of the above! 4k gallons is a touch on the high side for two people, but it's not completely abnormal. if op normally uses 3k gallons (from previous bill) an extra meter click every couple of months is totally normal. Btw, they round down for billing. If you started at 0 and used 1999 gallons youd only be charged for 1000. But when you use 2001 the next month, it'll catch up and bill for 3000. Either way, you used 4k and paid for 4k but timing might split it up

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