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My landlord is getting $700 water bills per month and nobody knows why. About 4 people use this water and it is about 55 thousand gallons per month.

I'd like to check how much water the dishwasher is using. It sometimes sounds like a waterfall inside of it. I'm not sure it always sounded like this.

How can I examine a dishwasher for how much water it uses during its operation? What tool can I use and where can I apply it? Or is there a better plan to make?

Kat
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nick carraway
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    What is the recorded **usage** as opposed to past amounts? If this is several times as large, then you should be able to check for leaks simply by shutting down appliances for a few hours and checking the meter -- assuming you have a mechanical meter rather than the newer WiFi-only ones that have no display. – Carl Witthoft Mar 18 '20 at 19:33
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    Is it poor advice to suggest running the drain line into one of those 20 gallon gardening buckets to see how much water it drains per load? – Aww_Geez Mar 18 '20 at 19:49
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    Stop the bug hunt for which *intended* use is causing $700 bills. No intended use is. It's a leak. A stoutly running leak, from that number! I'd expect you could *hear* it! – Harper - Reinstate Monica Mar 18 '20 at 22:50
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    Are you the only tenant ? (ie you/your family/etc) or are there other units on the same water meter ? – Criggie Mar 19 '20 at 04:35
  • _"It sometimes sounds like a waterfall inside of it."_ -- in case it wasn't clear from the answers: while water is moving inside the dishwasher the whole time it's running, it will generally use very little water in total. It only adds a small amount of water a handful of times during a complete cycle, and then for the rest of the time, it's just circulating that water. If you listen carefully, it won't be hard to distinguish the fill, circulation, and emptying phases of the cycle. – Peter Duniho Mar 19 '20 at 06:42
  • Also, as far as your question goes, it would be better if you would post the actual _volume_ of water, not the cost. Water rates vary widely from one region to the other. Even within the US, there are drastic differences (ironically, for example, last time I checked water cost a lot more in Seattle than in Tucson). $700 is definitely high, but it might be shockingly high in one place, and only ridiculously high somewhere else. It would also help to know what you'd expect a typical consumption would be. A rental could be anything between a one-room flat, and a thousands s.f. house w/ irrigation – Peter Duniho Mar 19 '20 at 06:46
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    How much water does that actually represent, and how many people/apartments are using it? – Tim Mar 19 '20 at 08:27
  • I had once to deal with incredibly high water bill (some 200m3 for a month, maybe ~US $200 at local rates against the normal ~10m3 for 3-member family). It happened to be a faulty water heater safety valve. – fraxinus Mar 19 '20 at 09:56
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    Not an answer to your question, but to your problem in general: Check the water meter in the evening before going to bed, don't use any water til morning, then check the water meter again. If it increased during the night, you might have a leak, which can lead to insane water bills. In my case I was losing 600 liters a day, 200 liters during the 8 hours I was asleep, to a tiny leak below the floor - for many months, because I only get the actual bill once a year and there was no visible sign above the ground. – Morfildur Mar 19 '20 at 11:36
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    Showers or leaks. Water usage issues almost always turn out to be one of those two. – Jeffrey Mar 19 '20 at 15:17
  • About 4 people use this water and it is about 55 thousand gallons per month – nick carraway Mar 19 '20 at 16:44
  • You've probably just got a running toilet. – Ian MacDonald Mar 19 '20 at 22:14
  • I did the toilet leak test for a bunch of times (as of 10 minutes ago) and it isn't a running toilet – nick carraway Mar 19 '20 at 23:07
  • How many people in each household? Some ages are more water (un)conscious than others. As a rough estimate figure 200 to 300 litres per person per day... then compare that to the totl you get from recording the meter reading every 24h. – Solar Mike Mar 18 '20 at 19:42
  • 200 litres per day?? Good lord that seems high. Where do you get that estimate from? – Logarr Mar 19 '20 at 19:52
  • It's a common figure - often used when sizing solar water heating systems. And try it for yourself, start with morning use shower, toilet, shave teeth etc then water for cooking, drinks, meals, toilet use... soon adds up – Solar Mike Mar 19 '20 at 19:58
  • To answer the question **in the title**: Let it drain into a bucket. – AndreKR Mar 21 '20 at 10:23
  • I wanted to point out that 55,000 gal/month is almost [5 Liters a MINUTE](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?t=crmtb01&f=ob&i=55+thousand+gallons+per+month+to+L%2Fmin) – Mark Omo Mar 21 '20 at 20:56
  • Not sure if this issue was resolved or not but one possibility is that you have a water-powered back-up sump pump running. I added that possibility to my answer https://diy.stackexchange.com/a/186993/42053 – MonkeyZeus Apr 07 '20 at 18:41

8 Answers8

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This is NOT intended use

It's way too much water for any intended use.

To give you an idea, the last time I saw a $700 bill, it was from a toilet at a rarely-used facility, which had a stuck float. The valve was wide open 24x7 for 2 months. That's the kind of flow we're talking about.

For a dishwasher to have that much flow, it would have to be waterfalling 24x7, running its little pump to death. So that's not likely, due to the dishwasher's need to pump its wastewater up.

It is absolutely impossible for a dishwasher to overuse that much water during the hour or so a day it is in-use.

Outside of toilets, you'd know about any appliances leaking that much water, because their usage is obvious. You'd notice if a shower, tub or sink was running full-on.

The only things that remain are:

  • A pipe break somewhere unnoticed, like in lines under a slab, soaking into the dirt. Pay close attention to any blooms of vegetation, lush spots in the lawn, etc.
  • A tenant who has insanely or maliciously thrown water valves wide open, e.g. a vacating tenant on their way out the door. Or a hardware failure in a vacant apartment. So do a walkthrough on any vacant apartments.
Harper - Reinstate Monica
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    Your last point reminds me of the Wet Bandits from the Home Alone movie franchise. – Criggie Mar 19 '20 at 04:35
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    I had a similar issue with a broken water heater that was spewing water out of the overflow valve. The water bill was only a couple hundred dollars, but I don't know how much of the month it was broken for. – Jonathon Richardson Mar 19 '20 at 15:47
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First, it's almost certainly not the fault of your dishwasher. A dishwasher has to physically pump the water out of it, and they really only hold enough water to fill the bottom. If it started to fill completely, the water would leak out all over the floor - the seals are not designed to hold back that kind of pressure.

The problem is most likely a leak or a running toilet, which can use a surprising amount of water. Every water meter has an indicator that shows water is being used, and that can help tell if you have a leak.

Now, if you really want to know how much water something is using, you can get a water hose water meter that will give you gallon-accurate water usage. The meters are cheap, but you'll also need $10-$20 in adapters to go from the water hose thread to 3/8" compression fittings or whatever you need to adapt to. Also note that those cheap meters are not rated for long-term indoor installation. Don't leave one installed because it can leak. Use it to measure the water, then take it off. To permanently install something is possible, but more expensive.

JPhi1618
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  • To be fair: if the drain valve in the dishwasher is not sealing, then the machine will draw a lot of intake water to reach the design level for each cycle. However, I see that as an unlikely scenario. – Carl Witthoft Mar 18 '20 at 19:31
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    @CarlWitthoft, are you sure about that? Dishwashers don't "drain" per se, they are generally lower than the drain and cannot "leak" into it. Dishwasher water is pumped out to the drain when the program calls for emptying the tub... – Jimmy Fix-it Mar 19 '20 at 05:50
  • @JimmyFix-it Good point. It would depend on the outlet pipe from the OP's installation. – Carl Witthoft Mar 19 '20 at 12:56
  • The average dishwasher uses about 6 gallons of water, so even if all the water is "leaking out" during cycles, you're still only going to see 4-5 times the usual amount - less than 30 gallons, not tens of thousands! – ArmanX Mar 19 '20 at 20:44
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To just answer your question about how much water your dishwasher uses, unhook the drain tubing for the DW and stick it into a big bucket so you can catch the water as it drains out. You might need two buckets, one for wash and one for rinse. The drain tubing disconnect easily from a trap or the disposal. Once you get all the water in buckets, just scoop it out with a quart measuring cup and count them. I seriously doubt the problem is your dishwasher.

JACK
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    Great idea for a pretty much free way to measure the water. – JPhi1618 Mar 18 '20 at 21:07
  • @JPhi1618 I'm so old school it's ridiculous, how we did it on the old days..lol – JACK Mar 18 '20 at 22:03
  • Not as accurate, but much faster: a bucket on a bathroom scale with 3 or 4 glasses in order to keep the display visible. – xeeka Mar 18 '20 at 22:17
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    You don't need precision here. If you know your bucket holds 10l and it's gets to 3/4 full you don't have a problem. if it overflows massively you do (actually 2 problems). @xeeka that works much better with mechanical scales, most digital bathroom scales don't read continuously – Chris H Mar 20 '20 at 10:01
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that is a very large water bill. This size of leak could easily be in the pipes in the ground before they reach the units and after the meter. To test, turn off all the water outlets (normal situation & without any dishwashers or clothes washers running). Check your meter to see if its running or not. If not obviously running, record the value and come back and check at 15 minutes and maybe even 30 minutes. If there is significant movement, the source of the trouble isn't your dishwasher and is probably the underground plumbing.

Alternately, call your utility company for help. Most of them will help, they are interested in conservation

Ack
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Do you have access to the water meter? Here in Australia we have meters which have a counter on them a bit like the odometer on an older car. The faster the right most dial spins the faster the flow through it.

Turn everything off and watch how fast it spins. With everything off it shouldn't move unless there's a leak somewhere.

David Waterworth
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To me it sounds like a leak. A dishwasher once take for the wash load (around 10L) just recycles it, then take another 10L for the rinse and for any additional rinse. (usually it takes less than 50L).

In my opinion is a hidden leak (like a buried pipe) or just a toilet stuck flushing or with a worn gasket. In my case the high bill (100 m^3 excess over some years) was a leaky toilet with a worn gasket that overflowed not much so we just ignored it thinking wasn't that bad, like a almost-close tap, say 1L/min this error costed us around 100€ over 2 years.

sidenote: here tap water, including sewers and depuration costs around 1,8 €/m^3 for the baseline, with sudden increases when going over.

DDS
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Not sure why you are fixated on your dishwasher but according to Google the average dishwasher uses about 6 gallons per cycle so this is really just a math problem.

6 gallons x 4 cycles per day x 30 days = 720 gallons

I don't know if 4 cycles is normal for one day but even if you doubled that then you are still well below the quoted 55,000 gallons.

There's a leak somewhere; a big one. Do you have a water-powered back-up sump pump in the basement?

If your landlord is pointing fingers then tell him your water usage has remained the same and mention the possibility of a leak in the system.

MonkeyZeus
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check for a leak. Make sure all tennants (how many?) are not using water and see if the water meter is still spinning. Sounds like a leak to me.

George Anderson
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