Wow.

I honestly wouldn't have imagined this sort of thing being a problem in a US military shower installation. Were these units built in the US and shipped over, or were they procured locally?




Living in Ohio.

Seriously, though. Is that just water/sewer for a household of one, or is that some larger utility bill for a family of four? Because I'm pretty sure I would just assume that a billing error had occurred if I ever saw a $100 water bill.

I guess I tend to be somewhat frugal by nature, to the point of miserliness. But I certainly don't think I've ever really been abnormally conservative when it comes to water usage. I take a hot shower of ordinary duration once daily (sometimes skipping a day on the weekends, but also sometimes having a shower in the evening if I've been doing something dirty / sweaty), and when I lived in FL / OH / CA and had my own washer and dryer, I'd typically do a load of laundry every week. I flush the toilet if I've deposited anything of significance into it. I don't use a dishwasher, nor fill the sink to capacity with water when washing dishes, but I doubt that's a huge savings.

I should look back at some past bills to grab my actual usage in gallons, rather than just comparing dollars.



I'm sure it's probably both. The amount of weird **** that I have to slog through in the normal course of finding bizarre images to post to this board is pretty impressive. (Some of the more exotic of the Pony stuff, in particular, is just downright creepy.)



Your water bill includes ambulance service? How the hell does that work?

 

Gondola service?

 

Yep. We pay a basic service fee to keep the times below whatever the imposed minimum response time is, then we have to actually pay for the ride if you ever have to use it. I also think some of the cost of the water pays for other things in our city like the parks and golf course (and with green fees the golf course still loses approaching $350k per year!).

My water bill also includes sewer and trash service.

For the wife and I, in the only suburb of Tulsa with it's own water supply, we pay around $75 month for everything with a typical 5000 gallon per month usage. Hopefully that will go down a bit over the winter since I won't be watering all the new shrubs.

 

I have a feeling they were not shipped over from the US. Each FOB/COP had a different style one, so I think they were coming from all over. It was basically a conex with 5-6 showers and then a tent on the end. The lighting was built into the roof the conex and my understanding was the pipes were shitty, would leak, corrode the wires, and then zap.

I would imagine they were made in China or India but I really have no clue.

For the record the actual military showers on the smaller COPs were pretty good. It was just these cookie cutter showers that were supposed to be "nicer" because they had water heaters and actual shower stalls. Instead of just a rubber mat on rocks and a sack of water hoisted up high that sat in the sun, which actually worked great when it wasn't below freezing.

 

During the summer months here in Texas, on my 3/4 acre plot with in ground irrigation, it is not uncommon for my water bill to outrun the electric bill. I would say on the upper end of the spectrum I pay ~$275-300 for water and ~$250 for electricity. This is just for my wife and I, no kids, and we both work.

Oh, and don't ever own a pool. The old saying is quite true - "The happiest day in a pool owners life is the day he becomes a pool owner, and the day he sells it". Especially when it is surrounded by oak trees.

 

Sidebar:

I have visited several local stores thus far, trying to find this one specific fan, which is inexpensive and has stellar reviews for quietness and airflow. It's also the perfect size for my application:




Both the Home Depot on 23rd st and the Staples on 34th allegedly have it in stock according to their respective websites. But when I arrived at both, I was told "Oh, that's a seasonal item," as if this were a perfectly obvious and reasonable explanation for why they don't have it on the shelf.

Well no ****, it's a seasonal item! If it weren't ******* winter then I wouldn't need it, would I? Why on earth would I want to buy a little 9" fan to attach to the go-kart radiator in my living room if it were summer? You know that here in the northern hemisphere, summer is hot, right? Do I look like I'm retarded? Jesus, I swear I don't understand how some people manage to not drown in their own saliva.

[/rant].

 

That I can see.

If you're watering the ground, you're probably using more water just for that than I use for all other purposes combined, by a multiple of quite a lot.

And I can sympathize with the fact that adding a spouse to the equation, especially a female one, automatically quintuples the amount of laundry which must be done. Suddenly, things like bath towels and bedsheets need to be washed more frequently than once every 2-3 months, pants more than every other week, and so on.

So, given your application, this seems high, but plausible.

Ditto the electricity. I've been to Texas, and it's both big and hot. This seems to cause people to live in large houses with lots of topside surface-area, covered with non-reflective material that soaks up lots of solar radiation, and then expend huge amounts of electrical power to move the heat from the inside of the house back to the outside of the house. My sister down in Florida lives under similar conditions, and pays about the same as you for electricity (thought not for water, as they don't irrigate.)

And, to be fair, now that I no longer live in SoCal, I expect that I will probably start to use air conditioning from time to time in the summer, as it does get into the 80s and 90s rather frequently here during that time of year.

I'm just saying that for me, personally, $60 for electricity and $45 for water is ******* outrageous under these specific conditions at this specific time of year.

Is it a lot of money in the grand scheme of things? Hell no, my liquor budget is larger than that. It merely annoys me on general principle.

 

haha. i have that honeywell fan.

 

sell it to joe

 

How would you rate it in terms of quietness, airflow, and the availability of mounting points to attach it to a go-kart radiator?

 

Family of 4, but the two kids are under 3 years old and the water bill really hasn't gone up that much since having the kids.

To answers everyone's question, no the bill is not just for water, it does also include garbage removal and I think one other minor municipal bill. However, those other two charges on the City Municipal bill are like ~$10 combined. The large majority of the bill is water/sewer fees.

To give you a better comparison, there is a single young man living in my neighborhood who I would guess is as H2O frugal as you Joe, and his bill is >$80 every month. The city I live in has some of the highest water rates in this part of Ohio, and the logic for it is complete BS.

Anyway, the cost of the water isn't really my biggest concern, it's the fact that it is stupidly expensive and also awful, awful quality.

 

it's kinda loud, but blows a really strong directional airstream.

actually i think i *had* that fan and it died after 10 long years of service and it was a sad day.

 

I agree, they are pretty loud. We have two of them. Walmart sells them too.

 

I also have had one in the past. I picked it up at Walmart to use in my dorm room. It was a bit louder then I would ahve liked, other then that it worked fine.

Now onto weird bills. At my new house the sewer bill is separate from the water bill. It is a flat $44 a month. For water in my county there are 3 different water providers depending on your your address.

 

The lakehouse is on county water (no sewer) with the Butts County Water and Sewer Authority at $12 a month. It is of excellent quality.

Ah, beautiful Butts County.

 

I use that Honeywell fan on my bench for cooling hot electronic circuit prototypes.

 

Interesting.

That's where I was born, and where I lived the first year of my life.

You know where the State Prison is? There. As in, literally on the grounds.

 

How would you rate it in terms of quietness, airflow, and the availability of mounting points to attach it to a go-kart radiator?

 

I also have that fan, it's sitting in my window right now. It's loud to me, but the airflow is very good. I like it loud though at night since the traffic with my window open is annoying and the fan drowns it out. I don't see any way for you to mount it easily though.

 

In terms of noise, the standard for comparison is a 3,000 HP GP-40 diesel-electric locomotive, running at full-tilt-boogie on a load dyno, one block away, at 2am.

(No, I'm not kidding. I live right next to the NJ Transit maintenance yard at Hoboken Terminal. It is not quiet.)