High Water Bill?

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Water Portal

The City is now offering a free platform to view your water usage history and to sign-up for leak alerts. Learn more here!

Did You Get a High Water Bill? We're here to help!

To start, let’s get a sense of average and high water use. Compare the numbers in the graph to your water bill. If your gallons per month for January or February is closer to water use in July, that would be considered high use. Also keep in mind that average monthly water use in West Sacramento is around 12,000 gallons. Anything over 40,000 gallons per month would be considered very high use for a residential home any time of the year.

Causes of High Water Use

The most common sources of high water use are running the sprinklers too long, or a toilet leak. We will look at each and what to do about them.

Running Sprinklers Too Long

For a frame of reference, traditional sprinklers should not run for more than 10 minutes at a time (on average). Why is this? After 10 minutes the water just runs off to the street. No need to spend your water and money watering the sidewalk! If you think your landscape needs more than 10 minutes, you can add more start times; but remember to space out the time so the water can be absorbed by the soil. Give it about two hours or more (this can vary depending on the soil type in your yard).

If you are intimidated about setting your sprinkler schedule, don’t worry! You can get an easy-to-understand summary of timers here: how to program your sprinkler timer.

When you are ready to schedule your timer, try doing an online search for your specific sprinkler timer. Look on the box for the brand name like “Rain Bird”, “Irritrol”, “Hunter”, “Orbit” or “Toro”. Once you have found the brand, look for the model number like “ESP-6MT”, “SlimDial”, “X-Core”, “SST-600i” or some other jumble of words and letters! Enter the brand name and model number into your search and you should get manuals as well as online tutorials showing you how to adjust your timer.

Toilet Leaks

The most common leak is a toilet leak. Luckily, it is also the easiest to find and fix! Visit this website for instructions and videos about finding and fixing toilet leaks.

If you are wondering what causes toilet leaks, the most common source is a malfunctioning toilet flapper. These flappers are usually rubber devices designed to keep water from flowing from the back of the toilet to the bottom of the toilet. When you flush, you are using a chain to lift the flapper. When these devices wear down, or get misaligned, they can let as much as 80,000 gallons of water flow through a toilet in a month. Don't let that happen to you!

Test your toilet for a leak by putting food coloring into the back of your toilet bowel. Wait for about 15-20 minutes. If that color shows up in the bottom of the toilet, you have a leak! Use the link above to get it fixed quick!

Water Wise House Call

If you are interested in reducing your water bill, please also consider a Water Wise House Call! To get started, send the application below to ryanb@sydotnet.net.

Water Wise House Call - Application