Water usage per apartment?

Hi, Hoping to get some collective advice from the brownstoner hive – We live in a small brownstone building in Brooklyn heights, looking at our water bill which was 738 last qtr i’m wondering…..are we being ripped off? Basically last quarter we used 6400 cubic feet, i’m trying to work out is this high/low/average? We’ve checked all of our pipes for leaks etc, but at only 6 apartments it appears each apartment is using 11 cubic feet per day It doesn’t appear like our usage is higher than other years eg 23,960 in 2011 and 21,110 in 2012 (and on track to use about the same this year) but to me this still seems extraordinarily high. Any thoughts?

deanbh

in Plumbing 10 years and 8 months ago

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JoeBushwick | 10 years and 8 months ago

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Water in NYC is very expensive and going up all the time. I was happy that rates “only” went up 9% last year. In addition, I find that most tenants look at water as if it was free. They don’t pay so its free for them. I’ve often walked into my tenants apartments to see sinks running, faucets leaking and they seemed surprised that this is an issue.

slopegirl | 10 years and 8 months ago

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we pay about $350 per quarter for three apartments, so $738 for six seems about right in line. if you want to save, obviously low flow showers, faucets and low volume toilets all can really make a difference

mousta | 10 years and 8 months ago

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500 per unit per year doesn’t seem off.

Putnamdenizen | 10 years and 8 months ago

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Divide by 6 and it is @ 500 per apartment per year or $40 per month. Does that seem more reasonable. BTW doesn’t seem out of line with my 2 unit building.

deanbh | 10 years and 8 months ago

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I know this is a first world problem and we should be thankful for clean water and sewerage at $2800 a year (eg $738*4) but seems really expensive to live in New York based on this amount……thoughts?