How to read and bill my submeters

How to read and bill my submeters

Flipper/Rehabber · Bryan, TX · Member since 2014 · 258 posts · 170 votes

I recently completed the construction of a 26 unit mixed use building. There are up to 6 commercial tenants and 20 residential lofts. I thought I was being brilliant by installing submeters for all of the units. I am 8 months into the first tenant moving in and two tenants from being full and I cannot figure out how to use effectively and efficiently use the submeters (sensus). My property management company doesn't know, Sensus is clueless, I talked with the city and my main contact there said he could teach me how to read them manually, I have reached out to a few apartment owners and developers in town and NOBODY knows! I am not going to read 26 meters each month! There must be a service or way to make this automated. I am looking for a way to automatically read them, generate a bill monthly and send it to the tenants. A system I can pass off to the management company and they can execute. I have been investing for over 10 years and have always heard, if you can go into a property and find a way to submeter it you can force appreciation through a higher NOI. Here I am with the units submetered and I can't figure out how to make it work 🤪. I know there is an established system that makes sense. Who knows what it is?

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Investor · Cherry Hill, NJ · Member since 2016 · 860 posts · 324 votes
5y

@Katie Neason

You have one water main into the building correct? From the main meter you have a “spread” to all the individual meters

You need WiFi meters and a WiFi router in the room to relay the information to the company billing your tenants for the water

Go to truesubmeter.com and you can read a little on it. You’ll get it figured out

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  • Investor · Cherry Hill, NJ · Member since 2016 · 860 posts · 324 votes
    5y

    @Katie Neason

    Hi Katie,

    First, why were the meters installed this way? It appears you used meter spread where the main comes into your building from the street for the meters, why not just have the meters installed in each unit where the water comes in?

    They should be WiFi meters and the meter company should be reading the data remotely

  • Flipper/Rehabber · Bryan, TX · Member since 2014 · 258 posts · 170 votes
    5y

    Mayer M. you're talking over my head. I don't know what meter spread is...

  • Investor · Cherry Hill, NJ · Member since 2016 · 860 posts · 324 votes
    5y

    @Katie Neason

    You have one water main into the building correct? From the main meter you have a “spread” to all the individual meters

    You need WiFi meters and a WiFi router in the room to relay the information to the company billing your tenants for the water

    Go to truesubmeter.com and you can read a little on it. You’ll get it figured out

  • Contractor · Coachella Valley, CA · Member since 2017 · 252 posts · 176 votes
    5y

    @Katie Neason  Meter spread is when you spread your meters from your main.  In other words, what @Mayer M. is saying is that an individual meter should have been installed on each unit that was branched from the main gas line, that way the gas company could remotely read the usage based on the appropriate meter assigned to that unit.

  • Investor · Los Angeles, CA · Member since 2015 · 11 posts · 5 votes
    5y

    I believe https://www.studebakersubmeter... might be able to work with what you've got, give them a call.

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