Water Usage Monitoring

AquaHawk Water Monitoring

Access your Water Usage Information online & subscribe to receive Leak Alerts

AquaHawk Alerting is a FREE service for City of Golden customers that will assist them in efficiently managing their water usage and lowering their monthly bills. This new software system is available as part of the recent city-wide meter upgrade. As soon as your new meter is installed and registered within the system, this service will be available. If you have had a new meter installed within the last few months, register today — it’s easy!

Receive timely leak alerts

You specify how you want to be contacted: e-mail, text or telephone. When your usage indicates high usage or a leak, we’ll contact you. AquaHawk helps prevent costly property damage from unrepaired leaks and gives you peace of mind when you’re away from your home.

Monitor your water usage

See how much water you’re using and an estimate of your bill anytime during the billing cycle. Compare temperature and rainfall data against your usage.

Set your Threshold Alerts

Learn more below about setting and using threshold alerts determined by our water budget calculator to help keep your water bill on target. If your usage is trending to, or has exceeded the threshold value, AquaHawk will send you a notification.

Learn ways to save

Get a better understanding of how you’re using water by  performing useful comparisons online. See how you compare to similar households.  Learn effective ways to reduce water usage and save money!

AquaHawk Alerting System logo
AquaHawk Registration

When registering, make sure and enter your water account number in this format:  00-000000-000.

Set your Threshold Alerts

Threshold alerts allow you to specify an amount of water (gallons) that you don’t want your account to exceed. If your usage is trending toward, or has exceeded the threshold value, AquaHawk will send you a notification. Water budgets are a great tool to determine if you are being efficient with your landscape. Indoor budgets are useful for guidance on winter use (November through April), and outdoor budgets should be added onto the indoor budgets for total summer use (May through October).

Please refer to the Customer Portal Demonstration video for information on how to manage and evaluate your AquaHawk account, and refer to the water budget calculator to identify your weekly or monthly thresholds. You can also check out our AquaHawk FAQs pdf download for more information on how to get the most out of your account once you’ve signed up.

Please note, the following calculator provides guidance of what your water use should be and may not reflect your actual use on your water bill.

Water Budgets

Indoor Water Budget

The indoor budget is calculated using three factors:

  • The number of people in the household
  • The average amount of water an efficient person uses daily
  • The number of days in the billing cycle (using 30 as a standard)

People per household:  The number of people regularly living in your home directly impacts your indoor water budget.

Average daily water use:  Studies show that, on average, a typical person uses approximately 40 gallons of water each day indoors if they are being efficient and using efficient appliances. This amount includes all indoor water use such as hydration, bathing, doing laundry, and more while using common water-efficient devices, including low-flow toilets and showerheads. This amount can fluctuate based on activities, thus evaluating thresholds on a weekly or monthly average would give a better idea of actual consumption.

Indoor Budget Calculation Example:

The indoor budget for a 3-person household during a 30-day billing cycle the indoor water budget would be:

Indoor water budget = 3 X 40 X 30 = 3,600 gallons of water / month

*Disclaimer: This is what your property needs under optimized conditions. If you are using more, you have opportunities to use less.

Outdoor Water Budget

The outdoor budget is calculated using three factors:

  • Irrigated landscape area
  • Daily localized weather data
  • Landscape factor

Irrigated landscape area: The irrigated landscape area is the amount of landscaped area on your property that receives regular watering. Pools and spas are also included in the irrigated acreage because they use approximately the same amount of water (due to evaporation and refilling) as a lawn does. To calculate this, you may refer to Jefferson County Parcel Maps and can subtract the bottom floor sq. ft. from the total parcel sq. ft. You will want to also subtract sidewalks and driveways to give a better estimation of your landscaped area. Golden randomly selected 100 single family homes and found the average irrigated or landscaped area of a property was 5,111 sq. ft. You can use this as a starting estimate if you have trouble measuring or calculating this for your home.

Localized weather data (Evapotranspiration or ET):  The amount of water that is lost each day from your landscaping due to evaporation and plant transpiration is known as evapotranspiration (ET), and it varies daily due to factors such as wind, humidity and temperature. Golden uses goldencoweather.com to obtain monthly averages for ET.

Landscape factor:  The landscape factor measures the specific amount of irrigation water required by each type of plant in your yard. The factor is based on the assumption that landscaped areas are a mix of grass, trees, shrubs and ground cover, which combine for a landscape factor of 0.7. If your landscaping is mostly grass and you water it wisely, you can easily stay within your outdoor water budget. If your landscaping includes drought-tolerant plants and you water it wisely, you’ll have an even easier time staying within your outdoor water budget.

Outdoor Water Budget Calculation Example:

Using the average irrigation area described above, an irrigation budget for an average Golden single family residential property in August would be:

Outdoor water budget = 5,111 x 6.341 x 0.7 x .623 = 14,133 gallons of water

*Disclaimer: This is what your property needs under optimized conditions. If you are using more, you have opportunities to use less.

Additional water budget information can be found on the EPA WaterSense pages.

The City of Golden offers tools to residents to assist with water conservation at your property. For more information on programs available including sprinkler audits please visit our water conservation page.

How much water am I using?
COG Mesa

 Golden has 402 acres of open space
and maintains 253 acres of parks right within the city itself.

Additional Resources

City of Golden, Colorado
COG Mesa
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