Our local water company got bought out by some big conglamerate and our bills more than doubled. They were also really high the year that we were having an addition put on the house. Last year they averaged only a bit over $60 a month. We have a small lot though - .19 acres I think. I grow a lot of native plants which don’t need a lot of water.
Our water bill is maybe $40 or $45 a month. I’m not going to add sprinklers so I can spend upwards of $10K in order to quadruple that, thank you very much.
Smart move, VH. 
My experience in New England is that most people water vegetable gardens and new bushes and so forth as necessary, and let the grass fend for itself. And this is whether they are on a well or on public water.
Same in my neck of the woods. I will have to water my front yard bushes though today because we have not had a drop of rain in about 3-4 weeks!
Eh, I’m in New England and know lots of people with sprinklers. I have sprinklers.
Didn’t stop half my lawn from dying, though. 
Usually by August the town bans watering because of supply issues - the town has wells, but they are regulated for how much water they can pump out.
Lawns go dormant. You have to give them a good watering once in a while though. It will not bring the greenery back but it will keep the roots from dying.
I don’t think it’s dormant. It didn’t do this last summer. And the other half of my lawn is nice and green. You can pretty much draw a line down the middle of the lawn between the green side and the brown side.
@notrichenough ; Actually we’re watering the surrounding soil…not the foundation, to help prevent the foundation from moving (if there are conditions for moving). If there are clay soils, they can expand and contract a lot with wet/dry conditions. Googling ‘watering foundations’ helps explain. Most posts are written for Texas, but a local engineer suggested we do the same in our area, for a portion of our home with a crawl space and minimum depth foundation.
@kjofkw That’s interesting, I never heard of that before.
Me neither. But we are in Seattle and have too much water, so we have to do the opposite - divert water from the foundation.
The only time I water my lawn is if my lawn company tells me I need to water in whatever they put down and after aeration and overseeing in early fall.
By August my lawn it can be brownish and crunchy in parts which don’t get much shade. Eventually we get a rainy spell and it comes back. I do water my garden beds if we have a dry spell.
The only things I’ve had to water this year are my pots/window boxes. We’ve had a rainy spring and summer so far.
@notrichenough , are you on the Cape? I can imagine that the water situation there is different. But I knew someone who lived in Sudbury, and I think they had one of those shared town well situations also. IIRC, the water tasted terrible.
How is the Cape Cod house doing, @notrichenough? Have you started any renovations yet?
We have done so far:
New windows and massive slider to the patio off master bedroom
Pinpiles for sinking deck supports
New siding
New kitchen countertops, sinks, faucets
New appliances (1/2 installed, 1/2 waiting in boxes)
All LED cans in the ceiling
Paint in the MB
New carpets upstairs
Wash/treat 2/3 of the deck
Bought and installed aluminum patio furniture and fire chat
Trimmed trees and removed a few that were too close to the house
To do:
Replace a couple of failing windows downstairs
Retile the fireplace downstairs
Paint the house
Paint some patched up walls downstairs
Clean the roof
Replace MB toilet (ugh, Lowes let us down on that one big time)
Wash and seal posts on the deck…
I’m sure I missed a few things here and there!
@Consolation - I live in a town very close to Sudbury. I think the water tastes ok, we do use a brita though.
@BunsenBurner - we haven’t closed on the Cape house yet. They still haven’t gotten approval from the Conservation Commission for the new septic system. They were supposed to go before the CC on Wednesday 7/19, but the CC decided at the last minute they wanted a tree count, after which they want to walk the property, and this couldn’t get done before the meeting. Why do they want to do any of this? Beats me.
Unfortunately, in the summer they only meet every two weeks. So it will be August 2nd before they get in front of the CC again, and if it gets approved then it will take a week or so to get it installed and inspected. The bank does not want to escrow funds to do it.
So realistically it will be mid-August at the earliest before we can close.
Lawns may go dormant, sure. And then the crabgrass moves in. At least, in my yard, til I gave up DIY.
Fingers crossed for your closing, NRE! When government officials get involved, ugh, it can drag on. Hope August 2nd is the day.
The current owners decided to wait until they had the place under agreement before replacing the septic system. They could have at least gotten the plans and approvals taken care of.
But it’s an estate situation, there are seven heirs, and probably there’s all sorts of drama. Families, amirite? 8-|
They certainly should have! Now they have to wait so much longer to get their pile of dough.
We got our septic inspected for RE transfer so the buyers could have a faster closing if they wish. We did not have to, could have left it to the buyer, but we decided it would be better this way. Good for a year!
We had the person out to check out our outside. My H has agreed to do several things. Our biggest problem is the gophers. He said that we need to get them under control before we can plant anything. It’s a huge job and expensive so I don’t know what we will attempt. In the meantime we will fix our people gate that isn’t operating well. We have a bungee keeping it closed. Replace the bender board in places that it’s disappeared. This time we will use a rubber type of board. He is going to check and repair all our sprinklers and drips. This is a huge job but the living things we do have outside would do better if they were watered effectively. We also have agreed to do some work on the landscaping that is visible when you drive up the driveway. It’s a start.