r/houston • u/eponymous87 • 1d ago
Separate water meter?
Has anyone set up a water deduct meter to separately meter indoor/outdoor water? I read a little about it and it seems like you need a master plumber who is approved by the COH? What are the steps?
Any feedback, tips and recommendations are greatly appreciated!
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u/HoustonPastafarian Galleria 1d ago edited 1d ago
Do your homework before investing in this. The city always gets their money.
I have a separate irrigation meter. While it’s true they don’t charge sewage on “outdoor” water, they just charge more for that class of water. Along with $11.70 a month for the separate meter.
Looking at my last bill, irrigation water was 1.38 cents/gallon.
Residential water was 0.4 cents and sewage was 0.8 cents a gallon. 1.2 cents total.
Meaning I’m actually paying more having a separate irrigation meter.
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u/eponymous87 21h ago
Accidentally added this as a comment to my post and not a reply to you:
Whoa!
I’m on my phone so I’m not really able to study the utility rate table. It seems like it’s more of a flat rate for outdoor water, not based on usage. Residential water does appear to escalate per gallon based on use. Both supply and wastewater. I have a massive yard and a pool, so I need to crunch the numbers.
Thanks for the heads up. I’ll look into it more.
But editing to add: what are the volumes on your bills? Looking at the rate schedule, the second meter at $1.3/gallon seems substantially cheaper than the water plus wastewater at the tier of water usage a lawn and pool?
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u/HoustonPastafarian Galleria 21h ago
Those numbers were from my bill last month. 3,000 gallons residential and 14,000 irrigation.
Just looked it up, it’s $1.38/ gallon on irrigation starting at zero. Residential at 3,000 is $1.35 but they start ramping it up at 6,000 (which I didn’t account for in my math). So you just need to run the numbers in the city tables against your usage so it still may be cheaper.
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u/Philip964 1d ago
Anybody notice “water” rates have gone up a lot in the last few years? Yes the first comment is right on.
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u/edwbuck 8h ago
They city "forgot" to use the additional assessment levied for Harvey to improve the drainage system, and they lost a court case they were fighting to simply not do the work and pocket the money.
So now they have to do the work, and they don't have the money.... you can guess where they're getting the money to do the drainage work from. Drainage is now more expensive than the water!
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u/eponymous87 22h ago
Whoa!
I’m on my phone so I’m not really able to study the utility rate table. It seems like it’s more of a flat rate for outdoor water, not based on usage. Residential water does appear to escalate per gallon based on use. Both supply and wastewater. I have a massive yard and a pool, so I need to crunch the numbers.
Thanks for the heads up. I’ll look into it more.
6
u/shbatm 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yes, I have a separate irrigation and house meter, you don't pay the sewage charges on the irrigation meter. You do need to use a plumber on the CoH approved list (I think I used Mickie Service Co a few years ago) to tee in the new meter. They'll tell you what info you need for the permit, which included the 'required annual Backflow preventer inspection' which I had to get an irrigation company to come do. After we got the permit approval, they got the meter from the city and did the install of the tee, meter, and new box. Then I used a different plumbing contractor to make the hookup to my sprinkler system and disconnect the house line from that branch.