Just closed my biggest water bill audit — a golf course and country club in suburban Atlanta on Cobb County Water. The property was paying sewer charges on 100% of their metered water usage. But here's the thing: about 60% of their water goes to irrigation and never enters the sewer system. Cobb County's ordinance allows an irrigation credit if the customer has a separate irrigation meter or can demonstrate non-sewer usage. They had a separate irrigation meter that nobody ever told the water department about. Got the sewer charges adjusted and recovered $34,200 going back 3 years. Ongoing savings of about $950/month.
Water bill audit — found $34K in sewer overcharges
The irrigation/sewer credit is one of the most reliable finds in water bill auditing. Any property with significant outdoor water use — golf courses, parks, car washes, nurseries, food processing with cooling towers — should be checked for this. The credit exists in most jurisdictions but nobody applies for it because nobody knows about it.
Excellent find Greg. Water and sewer auditing is an underserved niche with high error rates. The sewer credit for irrigation is the most common win, but also check for fire line charges (many properties pay for fire sprinkler connections at rates that haven't been reviewed in decades), stormwater fees based on incorrect impervious surface calculations, and tiered water rates where the property's usage pattern would benefit from a different tier structure. Most auditors ignore water bills entirely, which means the errors have been accumulating for years.
$34K from a water bill — I need to start looking at water. I've been ignoring it completely. Any good resources for learning water and sewer tariff structures?
Start with your local water authority's rate schedule. They're usually much shorter and simpler than electric tariffs. And ask the client if they have any irrigation meters or cooling towers — those are your first two things to check.