The City of Tempe is proud to partner with the WaterSmart Software to provide water utility customers with a user-friendly portal that enables wise water management.  The Portal provides:

• Hourly water usage
• Comparisons to similar households
• Leak alerts (also known as continuous water usage alerts)
• Check and resolve leak module
• High usage or bill notifications
• Bill explainer tool
• Comparisons to previous years
• Interactive water-saving tips

 

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GPD = gallons (of water) per day

HGALs = hundreds of gallons (of water)

Each billing cycle, WaterSmart will calculate your GPD by taking your total water usage and dividing that by the number of days within that billing cycle. 

Tempe bills in hundreds of gallons, so if you are viewing usage for a billing period or billing cycle, add two zeroes at the end to find your usage in gallons.

WaterSmart provides the following features to alert and notify Single-Family Residential customers of unusual or high water usage. 

"Leak" alerts that notify residents when there is continuous water usage or a burst amount of water usage.  For Single Family Residential (SFR) customers, alerts will be automatically sent out from WaterSmart if the meter registers continuous usage of six gallons per hour for at least 72 hours.

Daily Use Notifications that notify customers when water usage is higher than the normal seasonal use for the account.  Customers can set the threshold to be 1x-5x typical seasonal use.

Bill Forecast Notifications that notify if usage in the current period is on track to exceed the typical water consumption charge for that season.  Customers can set the threshold to be 1x-5x typical seasonal use.

Unplanned Use Notifications that notify if usage in any given day exceeds the numerical threshold set by the customer.  The default is zero gallons.

Utility Connect is any City of Tempe communications regarding your water utility account, water use, closures for water main repairs or repairs and important related announcements. 

Alerts and notifications can be through email, text message and/or voice message.

WaterSmart sends automatic alerts known as "continuous water use alerts" to residents if their Single-Family Residential (SFR) household uses water (at least six gallons or more) consistently and continuously for a long-period of time (at least 72 hours).

These alerts are sometimes called "leak alerts," because they are useful for identifying when there is a potential leak in the home or landscape.  However, receiving one of these alerts does NOT mean that you have a leak.  This alert is simply letting the resident know to review recent water usage and check for leaks at the earliest time convenient.

Upon receiving an alert, consult the instructions on tempe.gov/leaks for next steps.

WaterSmart will automatically send a high usage alert email if your water usage on a given day is higher than typical for the season (2x, 3x, 4x, or 5x) depending on your Communication Preferences).  Common causes of higher than expected usage in the summer is outdoor irrigation, filling a pool, or even doing  several loads of laundry in one day.  Visit the WaterSmart Portal to log into your account and view your hourly usage to see if any unusual or unintended water usage occurred.  You can make changes to these alerts at any time.  Simply visit your WaterSmart account and then click on “Settings” and click on “Communication Preferences” in the Portal.  Customer Services (480-350-8361) can assist with questions related to accessing your account during regular business hours.

If you are concerned about your water usage and would like a one-on-one WaterSmart Consultation with water conservation staff at your home, please call and leave a message with your name and address at 480-350-8351 or complete the Water Consultation request form at tempe.watersmart.com/consultation.

Single Family Residential (SFR) water utility customers are provided with a WaterScore feature, which is a social comparison that indicates how much water the residence has used during a given period relative to similar households.

Each SFR residence is only compared to households in the same zip code that have a similar amount of people and similar irrigable square feet of landscape. 

The WaterScore will vary from one time period to the next due to fluctuations in seasonal use.

A green WaterScore (or 'Great') means that the customer was among the most efficient users that period.

A yellow WaterScore (or 'Good) means the customer used more water than the efficient users, but is still in the bottom 50 percent of similar accounts.

A red WaterScore (or 'Take Action') indicates the customer is in the top 50 percent of similar households.

Complete the Household Profile to allow for more accurate comparisons to similar households, and more precise estimates of how much indoor and outdoor water is used in different areas of the house.  The information in the Household Profile also helps WaterSmart provide specific conservation recommendations.

Please note that comparisons to similar households are based on household size and the size of the irrigable landscape area. 

Water use data comes from the water meter, which is collected once per hour through the Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), which was completed citywide in the Spring of 2019. 

Publicly available information, including weather and real estate data from the Maricopa County Assessor's Office, is used to build a picture of each property's characteristics.

The number of occupants, the age and efficiency of fixtures and other property details can be updated by each customer or city staff through the Household Profile.  This creates an even more accurate picture of water use in the property.

Customers who manage multiple properties or meters can link multiple accounts and view a Combined Summary of water use data. 

To link multiple accounts, first register on WaterSmart using one of the account numbers, then log into the Customer Portal:

1. Click on "Settings."
2. Click on "Account Settings."
3. Click "+ Add Account" under "Additional Accounts."
4. Enter the Account number for the property or meter you would like to link, and enter the zip code associated with that account.

Customers with linked accounts can see both the aggregate and individual water uses for their accounts in the Customer Portal.  From the Combined Summary page, the customer can click on their address in the upper right hand corner and select the individual account he or she wants to view from the drop down menu. 

The customer can also click on an individual account row in the "Accounts" section of the Combined Summary page to reach the Customer Portal for an individual account. 

When accounts are linked to one another, the accounts will share an email address and password.  Once they’ve been linked, if the portal user changes any of the home or mobile phone numbers in the linked group, those phone numbers will change for all of the accounts in the group.  This is distinct from the way that the linked accounts’ communication preferences work.  Communication preferences can vary account by account within a linkage.  For example, if the customer has an account that’s an irrigation meter, and an account that’s a single family property, they may opt to have My Use Notifications set at different thresholds for the different accounts.

Customers can download meter readings from the WaterSmart Customer Portal by clicking the "Settings" dropdown menu, then clicking "Download Your Data."