Why does the water bill jump in summer?

How much does a doubled month add?

Going from 5,000 to 10,000 gallons adds $62.95 to an inside-city bill, using the rows of CGW's own rate comparison table. The table cannot say how many Clarksville homes see a jump like this, but it does show what each step of use costs.

Why does lawn water cost sewer money?

CGW bills sewer on metered water. Its sewer rate schedule charges $8.14 per 1,000 gallons inside the city, and the comparison table applies it to the same gallons as water. That schedule has no irrigation meter, separate garden meter or summer averaging rule; we found none on the CGW pages we checked, so ask CGW before planning around one.

The result is that sewer, not water, is the bigger part of a high summer bill. At 10,000 gallons the split looks like this.

Counted together, each 1,000 gallons costs $12.59 inside the city and $22.04 outside it. Outdoor water is priced the same as the water you flush.

When does Clarksville get the least rain?

August is the driest month of summer at the Clarksville WWTP station, with a normal of 3.69 inches, and September is the driest of the year at 3.35. Those figures are from the NOAA 1991–2020 monthly normals. Wet spring months give way to a late-summer dip just as heat peaks.

EPA's watering tips say a landscape typically needs about one inch a week, rain included. August's normal works out to roughly 0.83 inch a week (our arithmetic), so a lawn that is watered to the full inch gets the gap from the tap.

How much of a house's water goes outside?

Nationally, outdoor use is more than 30 percent of household water on average, per EPA's WaterSense statistics. EPA's outdoors page adds that the average household uses more outside than for showers and laundry together. The same statistics page says up to half of outdoor water can be lost to wind, evaporation and runoff from poor irrigation.

What do sprinkler losses cost at CGW rates?

EPA's gallon figures for irrigation can be priced at Clarksville's inside-city $12.59 per 1,000 gallons. The numbers below are our arithmetic, not CGW's, and assume the house is already above the 2,000-gallon sewer floor.

How can you trim the summer bill?

Skip the middle of the day, since EPA notes the hot sun takes much of a midday watering before it reaches the roots. Put a few empty cans on the lawn, time how long the sprinkler takes to fill them half an inch, and run that long twice a week, adjusting for rain. A WaterSense labeled controller adjusts the schedule for weather.

Watch the meter after setting up a new system, because a stuck zone runs every cycle; leaks on the meter explains the test. If you have an in-ground system, CGW's backflow FAQ says City code requires an approved backflow device installed by a certified technician. The full rate build is on the CGW bill page, and the weather that drives freeze risk is on the pipes shelf.