Options to Sub-meter Water in a Multi-family building

[Dan Bosak]

I found several old forums related to this but none that seem to answer mine and likely many other landlord's needs and I am hopeful that there is some newer technology that can provide a solution.  

I have several smaller multi-family properties with split utilities but a common water meter (4-7 units).  For one of my properties, the most recent bill equated to $283/unit/month in a building with average rent of $800/month. I suspect that it is 1 or 2 tenants in particular that have toilets running constantly and/or are just abusing the fact that they don't have to pay for water.  

Are there any options for sub-metering the water bills to individual apartments?

These are old buildings so the plumbing is probably not a direct run from the basement, so I would ideally need to measure water in at the point of use.  In most cases, they have separate hot water heaters, so I could just monitor how much hot water is used per apartment and take that % of the entire bill, this will not be exact so may cause other issues.

Any suggestions and ideally specific products for this or a company in South Jersey (Camden County) that does this would be great.

Thanks

Dan 

[Angel M.]

@Dan Bosak what did you end up doing?

I recently contacted a company that was a sponsor of the BP Podcast -

truesubmeter.com. Here is their response when I asked for some information:

I will give you a bunch of information to get started but to get you accurate pricing we would need to know the plumbing configuration. How many hot water heaters each? I will explain more below. Once we have that info I can get you a formal quote. We have main line submeters that can install on the water line going direct to each unit if plumbing is separated. That is the ideal situation as you only need one meter. Not everyone is so fortunate. Here is a break down on that option and our point of use option:

Pricing for the whole system of the plug and play meters and routers run anywhere from $60 per apartment unit if the plumbing is separated. This is obviously the best case scenario. That is a ¾” meter and what we call the “main line meter”. The best way to determine if it is split is how many hot water heaters are there? One per unit? It might be on one city meter but the plumbing may be split and we could use one of our meters per side.

If hot water heaters are shared then we have to go to the next option. When it is not split meters are still in the $50-60 price range each, so if you need 6 meters (per point hot and cold) $300 per apartment. We call these under the sink meters the "point of use meters". These are our claim to fame meters as they are innovative and quite unique in the market. Even at $300 we still see an ROI of 9 months or less, generally. Did you see the ROI calculator? . Attached is a flyer that shows a worst case, point of use meters configuration and pricing example for that. This is the option you reference but if we can go with the single main line meters it is preferred. One router is required per building, not per unit. The routers run around $150.

As for the monthly monitoring cost from us, that is easier as it is a fixed per apartment and not dependent on how many meters you have. We charge $5.90 per month per apartment. So a 10 unit apartment complex would cost $59.00 per month. That fee includes everything such as private database, real time water logging, Verizon cellular monthly service (we pay this so you do not have to have internet in the property) and the automated monthly water billing that goes direct to the tenant. There is really nothing you need to do other than collect the money each month. We do everything for you in order to make passing on the water bill as hassle free as possible. We take whatever the local water/sewer rates are and basically use those to set up your account. Then every month when the automated water bill is generated and sent to each tenant it is identical to the pricing structure you city charges. All fixed fees and per gallons fees can be billed back.

Water bill is automatically generated and either automatically emails direct to the tenant or landlord/property manager (however set up). Or can be available as a PDF from your private login. The water bill is generated at the end of every month as a set period and send on the 1st of the month. At this time it is not configurable due to keeping it simple as some states require it to be based on a calendar month.

Batteries last on average 2 years. They are standard AA batteries, so nothing proprietary.

Let me know if you’d like a more formal quote. Attached is a couple of flyer pages and example invoice that is automatically sent to each individual tenant at the end of every month.

Thanks again for reaching out to us! We look forward to working with you. Help me confirm the plumbing options in the first paragraph and I will get you a quote today!

Thoughts on all of that info! That was a lot…