That’s heinous! Wow 
At the very least the # of water using fixtures should be considered. Hot tubs, multiple bathrooms, extra sinks etc use way more than a 1.5 bath with shower what if no dishwasher? Unfair!
For next year - so you are on some formula rather than metered? You should look into getting a meter. I lived alone in a small property in London, no garden, so no irrigation or anything like that, minimal water usage, and I was initially charged £600 per year on some obscure non-metered formula. I discovered that they had a legal obligation to install a meter if I requested it. With a meter, my water bill dropped to about £150 per year. Guess why they weren’t volunteering to install meters to small flats?
House 1 about $200 US per quarter, so $800 per year IIRC
House 2 besides the electric to run the water pump so far $250 for about 20 years, so about $12.50 per year (yes I should get that septic system pumped one day). The $250 was to replace the pressure tank.
We have well and septic. We had to get a new well 13 years ago. That was a $8K surprise. And we get the septic tank pumped every 3 years for about $250. No clue how much electricity the well pump uses.
It’s based on the rateable value of the house, so yes it is fixed and bears no direct relationship to actual usage. I probably should get a meter but maybe not just now.
I read somewhere that if you have more bedrooms than people, you should get a meter.
It would probably be cheaper if your town pumped water directly from the lake into your house, and discharged raw sewage directly into the lake.
But this is not what happens.
I live in NE Minnesota about 10 minutes from Lake Superior and pay about $100/month! Lake Superior water is the best water ever and I guess we’re paying premium prices for it.
What is everyone’s water usage? My bill says we used 4700 gallons in a month. I think that includes sewage (water going out). That seems like a lot of water for 2 people.
Sewage - $10.15/1000 gallons
Water -
$8.15 up to 2500 gallons
$9.38 2501-4500 gallons
$10.32 4501 gallons and up
In the Detroit Metro area all water is drawn from pipes from just north of downtown Detroit in the Detroit River/Lake St Clair, which is actually not a river but a straight that connects Lake Huron with Lake Erie. They in turn treat the water and pump it back up to the metro area suburbs.
One of the problems with the Flint water issue is that they tried to save money by doing just as you mentioned, taking water from the nearest source in order to save money. What they forgot is that the source nearest to them was acidic due to automotive companies using the the area as a dumping ground for industrial waste from the early 1900’s up into the 1990’s. In fact it was an automotive dealership (GM) that first noticed that they were getting a spike in warranty from that area because it was damaging their engines due to acidic water being placed in the radiators. The increased acidity caused all of the piping in flint to release lead into the drinking water. The Michigan governor at the time ignored GM’s findings and is now being criminally charged.
I’ll keep with my water source thank you.
UK here - £340 ($539) per annum for water/sewage. That’s a 3 bed house, one bathroom, two toilets, two residents. No water shortages 
Rubbish/recycling is collected weekly by the local council and covered by local taxes.
Good idea. But don’t say “what gives” about the price you pay for clean drinking water and sewage treatment. What gives is that proper systems cost money.
I replying to myself, but based on this thread I did some checking.
I stay under the minimum for 9 months out of the year ($23.15 * 9 = $208.35)
I average $60 for the 3 summer months so $180 + 208.35 = $388.35 per year
My monthly cost is whatever electricity the well pump uses, which isn’t much overall.
My county is trying to develop certain areas for business and industry, and along with that they will need a water system. So the pumps and plants are being built and pipes are being laid around the major routes. I expect eventually the entire county will be required to hook into the water system for it to be viable, with existing wells probably grandfathered in until they run dry.
I’m guessing you’re the same as us. One is for water coming in (Cleveland Public Water), one is for water going out (Cuyahoga County Sewer District or the sewer district for your suburb, or NEORSD sewer) and one is for stormwater fees (NEORSD stormwater). Or, one of those payments might be a charge from your suburb to maintain the sewer pipes (typically a flat assessment) and the other is for the usage of sewer pipes and the treatment of sewage (based on your water usage).
I paid $195 in 2020 for water, $173 for sewer and $121 for stormwater, and a $20 yearly charge for local pipe maintenance.
@bob_2 how does a yearly bill work? Is it based on what you used last year or what you’re expected to use next year? How does it work if you move?
I bought a house once that hadn’t had the septic pumped in over 10 years, and the owners had had no issues. A few months later, we found out that the septic sludge had been leaching into the drain field for years. It was an expensive, ugly fix. Just a suggestion, but even with only you living there, you might want to look into getting it pumped. If you wait until you notice a problem, it’ll get really pricey really fast.
I’m billed quarterly: teh latest bill is $109.75. $3 is fixed water charge, $65.37 is the sewer minimum charge, $11.25 is refuse, and $10.20 is recycling charge.
(actual water use is 19.93)
For garbage, I also have to buy special bags, which are ~$3 each – I’m single, so go through a bag a month approximately.
Brian
You’re presumably not dipping it in buckets straight out of the lake and dumping your honeypot right back in there. It costs to get the water to you; to get it there clean (and because we’ve polluted the place it needs to be cleaned to start with as well as transported cleanly, even when the water source is relatively clean); to get it coming out of your taps at a reasonable pressure; to get it back away from your house/apartment after you use it; to clean it back up again enough so it can be reasonably safely put back into the watershed somewhere; and to move it from the cleaning facility to wherever that is.
– I have a well and septic. Wells need to be drilled in the first place and supplied with liners, pumps, wiring, and holding tank. The holding tank, pump and wiring will eventually need repairs or replacement. (Replacing the pump may cost quite a bit more than $300 especially if it’s at the bottom of a hundred feet or more of well.) The well should occasionally be tested to make sure it doesn’t need cleaning. Septic systems need to be installed and to be occasionally cleaned; which doesn’t cost $500 around here, probably less than $200, but I expect that varies with area. How often they need to be cleaned varies with usage and also with local laws or the lack thereof.
Trash around here is a separate issue, and is only dealt with by the municipality if you live in a city. I pay a private-company hauler about $100 for three months of pickup for both recyclables and landfill trash. I could haul it myself to a transfer point and pay significantly less, but I’d have to haul it in the same vehicles as I use to take produce to market, and that doesn’t seem like a good idea.
My sewer bill is about $1100 a year. It’s a gravity system mostly and pumped to lagoons where the shit settles out and eventually the last lagoon gets used for crop irrigation. It’s a fixed rate everyone pays the same, seasonal 1/1 cottage or new 5/5 McMansion. Not equitable at all but there is huge resistance to metering our individual water wells. Up until the mid 80’s everyone had septic. Of course people cringe at the thought of maintaining their septic and rarely did they pump it out and fought vigorously against any govt oversight. Then the septic leachate started turning the lake scummy, ecoli showed up too. Any shallow wells were contaminated by failing septic fields.
New sewer system was installed in the 80’s then the local govt in their wisdom just let it go without much maintenance. Major issues some 40 years later. Sludge in lagoons, corrosion in pipes, leaky pipes, sewer backups into basements, sodium chloride in soil at irrigation sites, even a power outage can be problematic when people charge up the generators and start flushing and washing, so the sewer operators have to haul generators around inshitty weather to keep the pumps pumping.
Rags, diapers, dental floss, fatbergs, you name it, it all fucks with the system. Drives up our rates.
I get billed quarterly and it’s usually around $30.00. Septic, so no sewer bill. I’ve been here 16 years and had it pumped twice. I live by myself, the dog doesn’t add anything to the inside of the septic, he just goes on top of the leach field.
I don’t get a separate water bill, it comes bundled with a lot of other things so I’m not sure how much I pay.
However my mother-in-law pays about 4.5 U$D a month.
They have no data on my usage as we don’t have a meter. The breakdown is £277 for fresh water supply, and £239 for waste water, surface water and highway drainage.
The charges are based approximately on the value of the house according to an arcane formula that few understand. Basically, they work out how much they need and divide it between their customers with the bigger houses paying more and smaller houses paying less.
Unlike the other utilities, there is no alternative. Gas, electric, telephone, internet, etc are all open to competition, but water and sewage is a monopoly.