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Just wondering if anyone has any advice about our situation:

We’ve owned our Sunset Park limestone for five and a half years, and have consistently used in the range of 1800-2200 cubic feet of water (about $100) per quarter, with an occasional spike to 3000 or so. Last summer, however, we suddenly got a bill for 5400 cf ($250). then in the October bill, we got billed for 36,000 cf ($1800)!!

We had the DEP send someone out to look at the meter and inspect the house, and he was seriously the dumbest person I’ve met in a really long time, but he did find a silent internal leak in one toilet. I’m willing to believe that the summer’s high bill was caused by that leak + watering the garden or whatever, but there’s no way it accounts for the 36,000 cf bill.

The proof for this is that we fixed the toilet when he was here, in the middle of the next billing period, and our latest bill was slightly high (3500 cf, $180), reflecting the extra usage in the first half of the quarter. Not anywhere close to explaining the 36,000 cf.

To give you an idea of how much 36,000 cf is, I did a little calculation: if we made our entire 45 x 20 backyard into a 6-foot-deep swimming pool, we could have filled it 6.66 times with that much water. It’s simply impossible.

we’ve also had the free water usage survey the DEP offers: no leaks. And all the meter readings are actual, not estimated.

We are appealing this bill, but I just don’t have any way to explain what happened. Has anyone had a situation anything like this?

thanks.