I'm not a PWSA customer, I live outside of the city, but PWSA bills are a recurring topic here in /r/pittsburgh and in local media.

This sounds about right, unfortunately. Appears to match the rates on the PWSA website.

According to this PublicSource article from last year the average PWSA bill is over $100 per month, and over time it's only expected to get worse.

Also not a PWSA customer, and mine bill separately (sewer based on water usage though).

For comparison, I pay approx $300/quarterly for both bills combined, and my last quarterly usage was 13k gallons. So call it $100/month for 4k+ gallons/month. This is for a 4-6 person household, no pool or anything crazy just bathing, washing clothes/dishes and cooking/drinking.

You can check for extraneous water usage that you're not aware of easily. Just make sure all your water shut off, and then go look at your water meter. If it's counting usage numbers up then you have a drip or a leak somewhere. A small drip can add up fast.

No leaks in my house and monthly bill is ~$120 for 2 adults, 1 bathroom, dishwasher and washing machine. We used to live in NEPA and bills were about the same for water/sewer bundled together, so it didn’t come as a surprise. Always sucks to see the flowing hydrants on and around Butler St though…

No way, that's a wild bill. I have seven people in my house and we've NEVER had a bill over $100 with PWSA. You gotta have a leak somewhere.

Check your toilet fill valves. Sometimes they start leaking and need to be replaced. If your toilet makes any kind of noise when you aren’t using it, that is likely the problem. 150 a month is slightly high, but my wife and I usually pay between 150-200 a month for us and the 2 dogs.

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.

If that’s for water and sewage then that’s not too alarming.

This is why most people in Pittsburgh pee in the yard or storm sewer.

I would have to agree with those who say there is probably a leak somewhere TBH.

We are billed separately for water and sewer, but our bill is averaging $160 a month combined for 4 people. So 2-4 showers a day, dishwasher ran at least once a day, and 6 to 8 loads of laundry a week min..

On.. and my upstairs bathroom tub is broken. It isn't just a drip, it is now a full STREAM of water at all times, and unfortunately hot water. Getting it fixed in the next few weeks (80 yr old house with original plumbing.. so not a DYI project!!) but honestly, think like if you turn you water on with the facet so it is just running, purely on hot, 24/7 is how it is, and our bill is only about 25% more than yours! Before that leak it was about $100 a month combined, so those leaks do really really ad up!

household of two plus large gardens and 5 animals, we do $65~ a month with wilk penn

2 person household, no pool/ other crazy water usage, bill is $120/month because our water main coming in is an 1” or whatever, crazy large even for our size house.

I miss nc, our water bill was $25-30, the “expensive” quarterly sewer bills were $60. 😭

Absolutely not in my experience... 40-50 for 2 people maybe, but thats including fish tank water changes.

Probably not including sewerage.

Most people do not pee in the yard. That's appalling.

that is including sewage. last bill is $29 water and sewage $38

also some more usage details: no dishwasher, older 90s washing machine. one and a half baths, toilets are 1950s or older so large tanks.

It's been discussed. See here.

> 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.

Nah, it's just the fact that PWSA is a lot more expensive than a lot of the suburban systems.

My monthly combined water/sewage bill is about $50 in Monroeville.

But we also don't have century old lead pipes all over the place that need to be replaced so there's that.

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!

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

Thanks for your comments y'all, I traveled away from home after posting this so forgot to monitor it.

We do shower more than most people I think. We both shower twice a day, once in morning before work and once in evening after working out. But otherwise our water usage is fairly normal--we use a dishwasher once a night and wash clothes about 3 times a week.

Then again I did start creatine about a month ago so maybe I've been drinking more water than I thought...

Either way the water rates have been a real kick in the pants. Appreciate everyones perspective and will definitely do some testing to make sure there are no leaks.