Y'all! I just got a $600 water & sewer bill!
I mean...WHAT THE F-
I wish I could say I was making that up, but I'm not.
We actually got a water and sewer bill for $615!
That bill is normally about eighty five bucks a month.
I haven't resorted to starting a grow house in my basement
so why the FORK did this happen?
My first though was hopeful. I thought:
"Maybe the guy who comes to check the meter read it wrong,
or typed in something wrong." You know? They're human. So we came out to our
front yard and checked the meter. Your meter may be in your yard like mine is
it might also be attached to your house, but it will be somewhere on the outside.
And it's usually right by your water main cutoff. So we came out and read our
own meter and compared it to what was on the bill, and it all kind of checked out.
It wasn't an error.
Aaaaand...that sucked.
We know that we don't have any obvious leaks on the inside of the house.
We're here all day we would see it.
So we went around the outside of the house, just to make sure there's not any particularly
squishy parts in the yard where maybe a hose got left on, or we have a water main break.
There was no sign of any of that, so then the gears really started churning.
We have this toilet in our kids bathroom that always gets stuck in the
up position. The flapper always gets stuck up so that it constantly runs.
I've changed the innards on it, I have lengthened and shortened the chain
and it still gets stuck up all the time. And we're always going in there and jiggling the handle.
So our thought was: "What if that toilet flapper got stuck up the entire time
we were on vacation? Could that actually have done this to our water bill?
My next order of business was to contact my friend Matt who's a licensed plumber.
If you're in the North Georgia area, Integrated Plumbing Solutions.
Put that in your head.
And because he's an awesome guy, he called me up and said:
"Okay, a toilet CAN do that, but you want to make sure that you don't
have a water main break first, and here's how you do it."
Turn off your main water valve where it enters the house.
You really gotta shut this thing as tight as you possibly can.
Then go outside and see if the meter is registering.
If it's not moving and registering water, then congratulations you DON'T have a water main break!
YAY!
That actually is a really big relief because that's an expensive one!
But if it looks something like this, and it's still gauging water, and
you're probably in some trouble. And then just for good measure to make sure
there's no unseen leaks inside the house, go turn the water back on, don't use any
water fixtures at all in the house and check the meter and see if it's gauging and water.
If it's not, awesome!
You might assume that if you have a water main break,
it'll be really really obvious. You'd have water pouring out of
everywhere, or your front yard is gonna be a mud pit, or there'll be some sort of
obvious sign. But in reality, water is gonna try to find any crevice it can go
into first before it goes up. So you might have a water main break
and have no idea until your bill comes.
That toilet flapper must have gotten stuck in
the upright position the entire time we were gone on vacation and that's
basically like having your faucet turned on halfway for a week straight.
That CAN actually make your bill go up that much.
One other tip he gave me was to just
turn off the water if we're gonna be gone for any number of days.
That way, if that happens to the toilet again, it's not really an issue, and if we have a
pipe burst or if our water heater decides it's her time to die...
...this old girl's about 16 years old...
...then the damage will at least be contained to whatever water is already in there.
You know, I'm actually kind of ticked at myself
for not having figured that one out on my own.
Oh, this one hurts, y'all. I'm not gonna lie.
There's much better ways I can come up with to spend $600.
Who's that?
I think that was my friend Christi.
...and compared it to....
Really? Aw, f---
Dude, get out of my shot.
Hi, how are ya?
(Man walking dog): "Do you want us to wait? I'm sorry."
No, no, no, go ahead!
This is what it's like to film in your front yard.
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