Forward Thinking Your Water Use Calculator
Like most districts, every household is charged a monthly base rate to ensure the water is always available. Turn on the faucet and water flows. Don’t use any water and there is still a monthly fee to cover the District’s fixed costs of your water delivery. That’s why it doesn’t fluctuate monthly. Here in Cottonwood that base rate is $18.38.
What makes Cottonwood water rates, however, a little different than neighboring districts is how they calculate the allocation for their variable costs of water usage. To calculate the household allocation, the District takes into account how many people are in the household, the month, and the number of gallons used to determine a household’s water rates.
To make it easy for you to figure your water rates we have provided this calculator.
Here’s what’s behind the calculations: First the calculator takes the number of people living in your household (we rely on you telling us how many occupy the home) and multiplies it by 65. The 65 is the given number of gallons of water allocated per person per day. The total is then multiplied by the number of days in the month and that determines your household’s monthly allocation of indoor water.
Then, for outdoor water, there is an additional allocation depending on the month. Since more water is used outdoors during the summer months of May, June, July, August, September, or October, there are varying amounts of water allocated. This is where it gets a little more involved. Note that all these outside water allocations are based on irrigating 2,900 sq. ft. of landscaping, the lot size minus the housing footprint provided by the home developer. It’s important to know that there is no additional water allocation for outdoor use during the winter months of November through April.
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Example of Water Bill - see how your water rates are calculated