Water bill NOVA

[Anonymous]

Planning a future budget to eventually move from DC to NOVA/Fairfax county.

Curious what people's water bills are? In DC, we pay ~$115 a month on average for a family with two adults, two kids, nightly dishwasher running and several loads of laundry per week. However, DC builds in a ton of fees on the water bills.

[Anonymous]

$154 per quarter in Town of Vienna for an avg consumption of 8,000 gallons. Town rates are higher than surrounding communities on Fairfax Water.

[Anonymous]

$130 a month city of alexandria one bedroom apartment, 2 people, ratio billing for the entire complex it's criminal.

[Anonymous]

Fairfax Water - about $125/quarter

[Arlingtonian703]

In Arlington we pay quarterly for water + sewer. We just paid $302 for 15,000 gallons in Nov-Jan, highest it's been was $417 for 25,000 gallons last May-July.

Arlington recently changed up their water billing. Previously you paid for your water and then paid sewer rates on that same amount with the assumption being that basically everything you used ended up going down the drain. They changed it up to account for summer sprinklers being water inflow without being sewer outflow. I don't know how much of a difference it's made but there you go. So our quarterly bills are like $100 in the winter and $140 in the summer on a monthly basis.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks. It's a bit crazy that some of us are paying per month nearly what others are paying per quarter!

[Arlingtonian703]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thanks. It's a bit crazy that some of us are paying per month nearly what others are paying per quarter!

That is crazy - but I just remembered something, our Arlington bills also include trash and recycling!

So for our $315 bill that was 15,000 gallons:

$87 or $29/month was for water
$154 or $51/month was for sewer
$75 or $25/month was for trash and recycling

Maybe other jurisdictions cover sewer expenses through taxes instead of billing it alongside water usage?

[Anonymous]

I'm in FFX County-- family of 4 --- lots of laundry, showers, and dishes! $250-300 per quarter.

[Anonymous]

160 per quarter for water/sewer in Fairfax. We do have a pool but rarely need to add any water to it so that's not a big cost.
Trash is separate, about 190 a quarter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thanks. It's a bit crazy that some of us are paying per month nearly what others are paying per quarter!

I agrees and city of Alexandria is the most expensive and when it rains too much our sewage goes into the Potomac.

[Anonymous]

Arlingtonian703 wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thanks. It's a bit crazy that some of us are paying per month nearly what others are paying per quarter!

That is crazy - but I just remembered something, our Arlington bills also include trash and recycling!

So for our $315 bill that was 15,000 gallons:

$87 or $29/month was for water
$154 or $51/month was for sewer
$75 or $25/month was for trash and recycling

Maybe other jurisdictions cover sewer expenses through taxes instead of billing it alongside water usage?

I can confirm that city of Alexandria sewage bill is crazy expensive for a one bedroom one bath.

[Anonymous]

Arlingtonian703 wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thanks. It's a bit crazy that some of us are paying per month nearly what others are paying per quarter!

That is crazy - but I just remembered something, our Arlington bills also include trash and recycling!

So for our $315 bill that was 15,000 gallons:

$87 or $29/month was for water
$154 or $51/month was for sewer
$75 or $25/month was for trash and recycling

Maybe other jurisdictions cover sewer expenses through taxes instead of billing it alongside water usage?

Oh - thank you! I don't pay for this in DC (or I guess I do through taxes, but I don't pay any monthly bill).

Outside of Arlington, in FFX county (Burke, Springfield, Annandale, etc.), do I need to tack on sewer/trash/recycling services?

[Arlingtonian703]

Anonymous wrote:

Arlingtonian703 wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thanks. It's a bit crazy that some of us are paying per month nearly what others are paying per quarter!

That is crazy - but I just remembered something, our Arlington bills also include trash and recycling!

So for our $315 bill that was 15,000 gallons:

$87 or $29/month was for water
$154 or $51/month was for sewer
$75 or $25/month was for trash and recycling

Maybe other jurisdictions cover sewer expenses through taxes instead of billing it alongside water usage?

Oh - thank you! I don't pay for this in DC (or I guess I do through taxes, but I don't pay any monthly bill).

Outside of Arlington, in FFX county (Burke, Springfield, Annandale, etc.), do I need to tack on sewer/trash/recycling services?

Oh yeah, I haven't owned a house out there but I believe you need to contract your own trash services and there's been issues with missed pickups and increasing rates, etc. Maybe someone who lives further out can chime in.

Either way I love it in Arlington - pay that $75 a quarter for trash and recycling. I think they've missed one pickup for us in two years and I just called the county number, got someone right away, and they came back and got it the next day. You can put big heavy items out with your trash and schedule special brush pickups for lawn waste like branches and leaves. Then the county will process that back into mulch and you can get that for free (just pay a delivery charge if you don't want to get it yourself)

[Anonymous]

I'm the Fairfax PP. There is a very small number of homes where the county provides trash service, I think mostly in Fairfax City. Everyone else pays a private service. We use Republic, and they've been fine. American is the other common one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Oh - thank you! I don't pay for this in DC (or I guess I do through taxes, but I don't pay any monthly bill).

Outside of Arlington, in FFX county (Burke, Springfield, Annandale, etc.), do I need to tack on sewer/trash/recycling services?

In FFX county:
Water bill (Fairfax Water) includes sewer. In warmer months, sewer is "estimated" (because of lawn) based on previous winter usage. Bill is quarterly. Our bill for 2 adults is anywhere from 100-150 per 3 months.

Trash (private for reasons noted upthread) is around $100/quarter (American Disposal). This includes once a week pickup (all on same day) for trash, yard waste and recycling.