Help me read my latest Chicago water bill.
I paid it but the wording is weird.
In the Assessment details, there’s two lines that describe my house with the number of floors and approximate width. The first line has a price, then the second line has another price about 2.5x the first.
The third line has says "(0001) Hose Frontage 31’-62’ " with a price. The fourth line is identical to the third but with three times the cost.
Why are there two of each line?
And hose frontage has got to be some sort of joke term they cooked up, right?
PS. No answers here:
City Water Dept Bill Help Site
ETA: non-metered
I always figured, this is Chicago, so of course the language on the bill doesn’t make sense!
I called and spoke to the Water dept. They were very helpful and while I was still a bit confused, I realized they were not screwing me over or anything.
Also, I’ll mention for 4 years we stayed with our unmetered account, and we finally switched to the metered and are paying so much less than before. I’d really recommend it.
Unmetered bills, $460 per year
Metered bill, $160 per year
Another bill arrived today 
I’m still not sure about ‘hose frontage’.
Anyone know? Please, please don’t make me call the City.
You don’t think it’s just a typo in house frontage?
I don’t think so for a couple reasons. First, the house width is approximated on the first line of the bill. Second, the ‘hose frontage’ on my bill is a range of 31"-61" suggesting inches.
Hmm. Now I’m not sure if it is a single or double quote and I don’t have the bill in front of me. Still an odd typo.
Nope, it is definitely a double quote for inches.
Here’s how it goes:
1 FLRS 21' WIDE BLDG $xx.xx
(0001) HOSE FRONTAGE 31"-62" $xx.xx
The house IS about 21 feet wide and has one ‘flrs’.
Anyway, turns out there’s an email address* on the bill. I’m going to write and ask. I’ll post if I get an answer.
Sorry for the three consecutive posts.
I was curious about this on my bill too. I have a hose nosel on the side of my house that doesn’t even work. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t be charged for that. I am thinking about going to metered. I am paying close to 600 dollars a year and I am a single guy who never waters my lawn.
No reply from my Email to the city.