The New Utilities Bills

I have had a few conversations lately with people worrying over their new utilities bill from LADWP. If you haven’t seen them, the new bills provide far more detail than the old ones. They are giving some people heartburn seeing what being in “Tier 2” really means - it means that you could save yourself a lot of money if you make more of an effort to conserve water and energy.

I took a look at our bills for a couple of two-month periods, for a family of four, including all taxes and rounded up or down slightly. I came up with this:

Electricity: $100-120 (Tier 1) 640-772 KWH
Water: $60-90 (Tier 1) 17HCF-25HCF
Sanitation: Sewer $65 + Trash $70-75

If you have a pool, the pump is one of the biggest factors in pushing your electricity bill significantly higher. You may want to consider solar panels. You also may want to replace your refrigerator or be stricter with the lights, especially outside lights. Perhaps try motion sensors? As for the AC, I highly recommend double paned glass – it worked wonders for us.

If your water bill is significantly higher, consider a large rain barrel for watering the garden and cut back on your sprinkler use or use drip lines (we got rid of all the grass and we use rain barrels). If you have a pool there is not much you can do – you shouldn’t replenish from the rain barrel.

If you worry that your sewer charge is too high, consider installing a sub-meter so that the sewage fee is assessed solely on the water that goes into the house, which excludes sprinkler/hose water. I’m not endorsing this plumber but he has a handy guide to what a sub-meter is.