We recently had a surprise bill to replace the outside water spigot on our house, which had sprung a leak. It leaked for quite some time -- our water bill last month was about 20% higher than normal, and, of course, we had the repair bill itself.
That got me to thinking about houses, and in particular why we didn't know that this was happening. What would have been most useful would have been for the water folks to call us up and say Hey, you're using water at a higher rate than normal, everything ok? But even though there is a water meter, it can't be monitored remotely -- someone's got to come by and look at it. (I have heard of remotely monitorable meters, but not around here.) Similarly, the only time we know that we've been using a lot of electricity is when we get a bill, and see the little bar chart. Most times, the ups and downs make sense; every so often, we have to scratch our heads (though much less if the net effect is down). Ditto, no remotely monitorable meter.
So since we're thinking about building a house -- wonder if its possible to hook in a computer to monitor use and flag something out of the ordinary?
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