Keeping Our Water Bill Low

When we first moved in to this house about 6.5 years ago we were enamored with all the wonderful features. One that I really enjoyed was the sprinkler system. All the nozzles were dialed in just right and it kept the yard beautiful and green all through the summer. It was about late August that first year when we received our summer water bill. I was shocked. That summer I single handedly almost caused a western US drought. Our bill was nearly $400 for one month.

At that point I pretty much made up my mind that I’d be much more careful about watering. Since then we’ve averaged about $250 a month in the summer for our water bill.

This year I decided to take a different approach. As the ground thawed and Spring arrived, I didn’t take the sprinkler system out of it’s “winterized” state. Instead I decided that we’d leave the sprinkler system off and switch to the old school method of watering with a hose. I have always found watering a lawn somewhat therapeutic. This summer I only consistently watered the front lawn (about 2-3 times a week) by hand. Luckily we have a pretty small front lawn so each watering session took about 15-20 minutes. We also watered a little bit in the back yard, but it wasn’t done very consistently. As you’d expect, the backyard lawn turned about 65% brown (trees kept some of the lawn shaded so it didn’t burn). I kept it neat and trim and it really didn’t look that bad. We also hand watered a few key plants in the yard to keep them from dying but that was also kept to a minimum.

Our water bill just arrived. After having one of the hottest summers on record here in the Pacific Northwest (including the all time hottest day in our city) our water bill was $145. We saved over $100 a month during the summer just by being a little more careful about what and how much we watered. We didn’t have the greenest, nicest yard in the neighborhood but we still managed to keep our place looking nicer than 90% of the other houses in our area. Success!