Fountains of Trouble

January 7, 2008 4:19 PM

I recently went out of town for 10 days and had a sprinkler valve fail, and flow for about a week. I just got the water bill 257,200 gallons in water usage (good thing we had a lot of rain this year in Austin) and around a $2000.00 bill not including wastewater. So, I'm going to call the city to see if they'll cut me some slack. Does anyone know if there are any magic words to say that would make the city of Austin ( experience with other municipal utilities would be helpful, I'm sure a lot of them have similar policies) wave some of all of thier charges?
posted by TahitiBlue to law & government (20 comments total)

I knew someone who this happened to and they let them pay it off over like 6 months, but they didn't wave any of it.
posted by whoaali at 4:22 PM on January 7, 2008

It might be worth looking into whether your home-owner's insurance covers this. Probably not, but you never know.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 4:24 PM on January 7, 2008

I had something similar happen but with much less water (toilet leak) and the city charged me the business rate instead of the residential rate. Definitely helped though I don't have the figures here to back this up.
posted by azlondon at 4:28 PM on January 7, 2008

Like many cities, it looks like Austin has adopted a water use ordinance that governs the use of water for landscape/sprinklers and the like. It looks like you're pretty lucky your sprinkler valve failed during the winter- in a few months you could have been up for a $500 fine in addition to 2k in water use fees. In addition, they prohibit water waste, which they define as including failing to fix a broken or leaking valve.

I know it isn't especially good news, but it could have been much worse. Based on experience in other areas of the country under tight water restrictions, the public officials are under a lot of pressure to decrease water consumption, but they're also under pressure to maintain "good neighbors" relationships with the community. I'd write a very friendly and apologetic letter, follow it up with a phone call, and keep your fingers crossed. You might get lucky and get part of the bill waived.
posted by arnicae at 4:33 PM on January 7, 2008

Isn't that like a gallon every two seconds? Was it really spewing water at that rate? I guess I'm just wondering if their number might be off for some reason (and might reasonably be challenged/questioned).
posted by madmethods at 4:37 PM on January 7, 2008

I had something similar happen--a pipe burst while I was out of town and something like $300 worth of water spewed out. If I remember right, the water company forgave most if not all of it. They said they had a policy of doing that once for each customer. However, I don't live in Austin. I live in a rural area that probably has more laid-back standards.
posted by PatoPata at 5:06 PM on January 7, 2008

In my town, if you get a high water bill because of something that needs repair, you can get a credit for half the bill once you can show them (proof such as a repair bill, etc.) that the problem has been fixed. Maybe your city has a similar policy in place. Good luck!
posted by amyms at 5:21 PM on January 7, 2008

Actually that' seventeen gallons a minute, which is still a lot of sprinkling. A faucet delivers about 2 g.p.m so that's the equivalent of leaving 8 taps running full blast. Were you really using that much?
posted by unSane at 5:30 PM on January 7, 2008

I find it shocking that the companies that manage resources such as water do not have any checks and balances in place for when things go awry. Couldn't they have attempted to contact you when/if they noticed that there was ridiculously excessive water usage going on? At best it's an egregious waste; at worst it's careless and greedy business practices.

I'm sorry I don't have anything to add other than my anger-laced sympathies. That situation sucks.
posted by iamkimiam at 5:37 PM on January 7, 2008

Well, the 17.86 gallons per minute figure you'd get from calculating just based on the 10 days may be misleading, since the bill is probably not just for the 10 days.
posted by odinsdream at 5:48 PM on January 7, 2008

Being the weird person I am, I just had three potential approaches for trying to make this go away pop into my head:

- Explain the situation. Kind of joke about how you don't want all that water and ask if you can return it. And if that doesn't get results, you can slowly transition into iamkimian's point -- go from joking about how you didn't want that water to steadily becoming more and more angry that they allowed so much water to flood your house.

- Tell them you think the count is wrong. The problem is that it's entirely dishonest to not mention the burst valve, so your challenge is to somehow get across, "I did have a pipe burst and run for 10 days, but 257,200 gallons?!"

- Cry. Your house was flooded and your irreplaceable heirlooms from your mother were destroyed and you need to work with insurance to replace your house and, sobbing, now you have this bill for $2,000 for the water that ruined everything, you don't know what do, you feel so helpless, your insurance is giving you the run-around, you don't have any friends whose house you can stay in, your house might be ruined, you hope you don't become homeless like your great-uncle Billy did, look at what happened to him, oh my god how could such an awful thing happen?

Anger usually rubs people the wrong way, and I strongly discourage lying. Although lying about the history (or existence) of your uncle Billy is different from denying having had a burst pipe. ;)
posted by fogster at 6:19 PM on January 7, 2008

A close friend of mine had this happen in Austin a few years back. Ended up with a bill that was ~$2500.
A pipe cracked right at the connection to the city water. They claimed, since the pipe was on his side, he was liable for all of the cost. He tried everything he could think of to get out of it.

They did, however, give him several months to pay it off (how nice of them!).

Let us know if you find anything that works!
posted by j at 6:37 PM on January 7, 2008

No specific advice, but I remember a friend in the service industry once telling me that the thing that made them want to help the other party if something had gone wrong was if the other party was disappointed, rather than angry.
posted by djgh at 6:37 PM on January 7, 2008

As always, be unfailingly polite when talking to the water co's customer service representative(s) as you're asking for a favor, not demanding a right. It's helpful to state up front what you would like, e.g., a discounted rate/leniency/extended payment terms and to ask the CSR for any assistance they can offer...the basic "throw yourself upon their mercy" gambit.

Something similiar happened to a friend's uncle: pipe broke upstairs and ran nonstop for a couple of weeks while they were vacationing in Europe. They came home to a flooded and ruined downstairs, a several thousand dollar water bill and found their name and address printed in the "Water Wasters" column of their local newspaper. Homeowners covered the first two but it's that last one that continues to chafe, from what I hear.
posted by jamaro at 7:34 PM on January 7, 2008

I had a leak once that made my bill about three times what it should have been. I called them and was told to write a letter explaining my case. They comped about half of it.
posted by wheat at 7:43 PM on January 7, 2008

My experience in NJ (about $900 worth) was that the water dept is NOT the phone company. These are generally nice folks, and as above, sympathetic, but they have seen all this before. Anger is a big lose, and sadness a small win.

They will cut deals and extend payment time. But the water is gone, and they will get their money.
posted by hexatron at 8:18 PM on January 7, 2008

iamkimiam writes "Couldn't they have attempted to contact you when/if they noticed that there was ridiculously excessive water usage going on? At best it's an egregious waste; at worst it's careless and greedy business practices."

The utility won't notice until the meter is polled, either remotely or in person.
posted by Mitheral at 9:14 PM on January 7, 2008

How big is the pipe that broke? If it's normal sprinkler sized pipe, there's no way it was pumping out 17 gpm.
posted by electroboy at 7:20 AM on January 8, 2008

Do you have a separate water meter for your sprinkler system? If so, and your bill is just for that meter, this info won't help.

However, if your home has only one meter for all its water use, take a look at your bill.

Many times, a municipal water bill details charges for both water and sewer, and the sewer use is simply calculated as the same as the water use. This is because for most homes, all the water entering the home eventually leaves it through the sewer system, so 1,000 gallons in equals a thousand gallons out.

But, since it was your sprinkler valve that broke, the water just spilled out into the yard, right? It didn't go into the sanitary sewer system which you pay a fee to use, so if you can document through a repair bill or something that the excessive use was from the sprinkler valve and only resulted in high water use, not sewer use, they might cut you a decent break on the sewer charge for that month.
posted by OilPull at 7:34 AM on January 8, 2008 [1 favorite]

To clarify how so much water flowed out. It was a stuck control valve on a 1 1/2" pipe that let to a zone with 9 sprinkler heads. In my original numbers I didn't subtract normal usage which in some heavy months could be around 15,000 gallons. So the amount lost would be about 242,200 gallons. In 10 days time that would average around 16-17 gpm. Which to me sounds about right. Usually I only have this zone set to run for 8 minutes twice a week in summer.
posted by TahitiBlue at 11:11 AM on January 8, 2008