San Antonio Water System
Reviews and Complaints

I have a flume installed to monitor water use that came reccomended by SAWS. It states for the month of September I only use 7,552 gallons. However, SAWS billed me for 8,229 gallons.

San Antonio Water System wrongfully charged me $780.77 for the month of Jun30-July29 2020 water bill. My bill is usually trends between $65-$105. It is only me and my 2-year-old grandson that live here. I did not have my sprinklers or drip system on and was not watering outside grass. I believe there was an enormous error. I called and they refused to remove charge. They sent someone out to re read my meter and stated it was correct and there were no leaks. I did nothing different than usual and I am unable to pay the fee and shouldn't have to pay. My next door neighbors bill is $288 for the same month and they have 3 children 2 adults 2 dogs and a 2 story home. I have a one story home and it is much smaller.

My problem is the same as everyone else on here. RIPPED OFF by SAWS.Ongoing for several years. Hundreds of calls no resolve. My bill wildly fluctuates with absolutely no change in water usage. I live alone. Had no guests this year. Use the same exact water habits daily.This month my bill jumped to 205.00 ! for 1 person water? I am Done. We need a FEDERAL INVESTIGATOR to investigate SAWS monopoly and customer overcharging padding of bills. Dec bill 37.32,Jan bill 65.65,Feb bill 38.89, March 66.21, April 61.18,may 90.67,June 50.33, july 205.38 Does this look normal to you? no! Meter was caked with mudd for months, so how did they read it,they did not. I have a direct view from my home office window, no saws person has been by to read meter in the 3 months i have been home. I want something done!

I have received several high water bills. One alleged that I used 34,000 sq. ft of water. That means I used over 1000 gallons a day, every day, for 30 straight days. I run my sprinkler twice a week for short periods of time. We monitor our water usage. I live in a new 2 bedroom house with a small yard. I've had a plumber check my sprinkler system , the city has sent people to check my meter. I installed a Flume which measures water usage. It always indicates about 1/10 of what they say I use. I was told they are trained to multiply a cubic foot of water by 748 gallons. A cubic foot of water contains 7.48 gallons --- not 748. There is no way I could be using the volume of gallons of water they allege. Have contacted them numerous times but no plausible explanation has been given. Please check on this for me Thanks -

Where do I start, I have made several attempts to let SAWS know about the company they contracted to "fix" or repair our sewer lines and meters. First of all they broke my meter and when I called saws several times they told me this was my issue and I had to have a plumber come and fix on my expense. Since day 1 I've been reporting the workers because they know ive been reporting them so they keep blocking my driveway. They will park their vehicles all day long at my driveway and take off nowhere to be found. They told me to drive my vehicle on the sidewalk all the way down if I wanted to leave. I have been reporting to SAWS and they will not help me. Now due to broken meter, my water bill is high and they keep directing me to the other company they hired. I am afraid to call that company due to the retaliation they have already shown. I have been disrespected by SAWS and their contractors. The contractors finally came to fix my meter but all they did was throw dirt on top of it. It was still leaking. I have written everyone for help and noone is listening!

We recently purchased a new home around early June and started our water service on June 2nd, and initially the first bill did not come until July 14th and we received a huge bill of $493 and was shocked. I checked our usage and it turns out to be around 35000~ gallons of use for a household of 2 people. I was wondering because I looked at the breakdown of water usage from June 2nd to June 20th the water usage is under 2500 gallons and it shows normal usage of water in that 18 days period. But somehow after June 22nd the bill went all the way up and went over 35000 gallons from June 20th to July 20th. We have replaced the new lawn in the backyard and turned on the irrigation system once or twice a week within that period from June 20th to July 14th, but the bills that shows we used 35k gallon of water is absolutely ridiculous and almost impossible for two people. Also, the house is brand new and any leakage if very unlikely. I called the SAWS and verified the bills and got the same typical check the water meter answer and it MUST be correct. How can I know if the water meter is faulty and even after they offered someone to come check it out the next day, they said there were no leaks and everything is working just fine. But it is an invalid answer due to the fact that there is absolutely no way our first bill could be over $490 dollars with just two people in the house hold. The irrigation system is turned on but with very limited usage. As I stated earlier, the water usage went all the way up after June 20th and with limited irrigation system use. I even suspect that with that amount of usage in a month, the lawn or the floor would be heavily flooded and 35k gallons is insane at this point. We also contacted the housing office, they told us during construction before we moved in, the bill was around $250/month turning on the irrigation system twice a week. We just kindly asking for a recheck and a bill adjustment, and we suspect there might be a leak but we are not completely sure, we think this is a very disturbing experience and just like any other customers who complained about this issue, We deserve some clear explanation more than just water meter being correct and it is charged correctly. We checked our meters again on July 23rd and since it was 72 on July 14th, it is not 94 and saw an increase of 22 on the meter which is another 17k gallons that would be charged next month! All within the period of 9 days! That is INSANE We have arranged housing warranty plumbing to come check it out and will be filing further complaint if no resolution is reached. I truly think that SAWS can just simply deceive the customers and claiming the charged amount is correct just because they have zero competition and the bills will always increase without informing the customers clear reason behind it.

In August this year I received a $445 water bill. I immediately contacted SAWS who directed me to hire a plumber to see if I had a leak any where causing the high water consumption. My plumber did a thorough check and could not find any leak, nor was the meter "spinning" indicating water running. SAWS sent someone out to re-read my meter and reported that the reading was correct and that I was responsible for the high bill and that something was wrong that I was missing so again I had someone come out to check. AGAIN, nothing was found. So I called SAWS back who said "it shows in our system that last year at this time your irrigation system caused a high bill". I said "you are correct; however after last years high bill, I not only turned the system off, but got rid of it all together". So she asked if I had a water softener. (No). Its just me, no irrigation system, no water softener, no pool, kids are off to college, 2 plumbers have both found nothing. So they directed me to call SAWS Water Conservation. So I did. Water Conservation was irritated and reported not knowing why they sent me to them since I didn't have an irrigation system or any of the things they would normally help me with to conserve water. I gathered all of my water bills and in doing so realized that the readings on my August bill was less than the reading on my July bill. Confused, I called SAWS. Meters don't go backwards after a month of water consumption. I spoke to manager *** who told me there must have been some error in the readings and that they were going to replace my meter and wait a month to get an accurate count of my water consumption before correcting my bill. On October 12th my new meter was put in. I was instructed to pay what my normal bill has been up to the high bill and that my account would be placed on a courtesy hold and I would not be penalized. So I immediately paid $50 for Sept and $50 for Oct (My normal bill ranged $40-45). In November, the balance was still high, but my water consumption was normal as it had been the past 10+ years. I have emailed supervisor *** with no response and have called SAWS a number of times. I was told my case had to be sent to review and I would be sent a letter to just keep paying the monthly portion. It is now March. I have continued to pay $50 a month and my bill continues to not get resolved. I have not received any letter on resolution. I called the other day and was told first that my meter was taken and checked and found to be running properly which is why my bill is back to normal. I said. NO. The meter was replaced which is why the bill is back to normal. I then was told the results of their finding was that the meter was old and reading slow which explained the low number in August. Low is one thing, but how do you explain BACKWARDS? And then it all of a sudden read fast the following month when the bill went to $445? Problems that big don't just go away. IF in fact something was wrong or occurred on my property that warranted a $445 bill I would need to have fixed it and nothing was found for me to fix yet it went away miraculously before they replaced the meter. Its obvious there was human error. The first supervisor even told me there was human error on their part yet SAWS wants me to pay for it.