Strange as it seems, I don’t own the water that is runs through the water table under our house. The Puerto Rican government owns it. Even stranger than that, is that the government leases it out to privately held companies to sell water to people that live on the island. Crazy water people.
Summer and I have kicked around the idea of using well water as it is much cheaper than city water and it will allow us to water our plants without limit AND we could have good water pressure in the house. As it stands, if the sprinklers are on it is gonna take you a long time to get the shampoo out of your hair. The thing is, we just didn’t see the practicality of spending a couple of thousand dollars on a well when our water bills are so cheap. Well, all that changed last week.
Apparently, our water bill is simply an estimate based on our water consumption over the past year. So, every month they save money by not sending out meter readers by just estimating. We have been paying between $18 and $45 dollars a month…not too bad considering we are watering, living, mixing cement etc. This past month, we go a water bill from the water company. But this bill was after the meter reader read our meter and calculated how much water we had used over the past 4 months versus how much water we were charged for. There was a big difference. I got a water bill for $425. Time to investigate a well.
Watering our new plants and lawn…$425 worth
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Water companies make me moist
The utilities on the island are truly expensive. I had a toilet that ran all month (and I never noticed it) and my water bill was over $200… I nearly fainted when I saw that.
The power bill is also bad, but I’ve resigned myself to the fact that since I have 2 servers running in an air conditions room 24/7, I’m gonna pay a pretty penny for that luxury.
Aqueductos makes tons of money, but they are known to overlook things. I know a person who has had a half open, broken water meter for 20 some odd years. 25,000 gallon pool and only a $10.00 water bill for years.
Technically are they stealing the water?
Truth is who knows. Aqueductos owns the meter, they were notified years ago and nothing has changed. Problem is water pressure is low. Dilema keep on aqueductos to replace meter and increase bill, or live with low water pressure. Solution, built large cistern to store 7,000 gallons of low pressure aqueductos water at highest level of property to increase water pressure and allow for a reserve. Cistern at present does not collect rain water.
You could always try something along those lines. A pillo is a bypass that people sometimes put in place of their meters. They are around, and utalizing one–although very illegal–could help you fill a large cistern quickly, and then you could augment that with rain water catchment. Yous probably want to set it up as a seperate system that you could use to do just about everything save drinking.
Just a thought. Good luck.
You could always try this approach