You pay the water. No you pay!

Rental Property Investor · Sarasota, FL · Member since 2018 · 112 posts · 23 votes

Hello BP!

Has anybody installed a sub meter on a smaller property? ( Duplex ) Or know a company that makes sense? I talked to the city water company and they didn’t really understand what I was trying to do. They wanted to put in a whole new main line. Digging a new water line won’t work. It would be costly and palm trees and vegetation are in the way. The plumbing is exposed so I figured it’s the best time to at least try. Thanks for any info.

* Property is in Florida

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Nathan GesnerBusiness Member

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Real Estate Broker · Cody, WY · Member since 2010 · 28k+ posts · 41k+ votes

It's a pretty big expense for a very small benefit.

What's your current water charge? $60? Simply split the average bill in half, add it to their rent, and call it a day. There's no sense in spending thousands of dollars for something so easy to handle.

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Stephen J DavisBusiness Member
Rental Property Investor · Houston, TX · Member since 2017 · 529 posts · 467 votes
6y
Yes. In my case it was easy, The water was easily split between the 10 units. The problem is that your duplex may share water lines and that would be very costly to change. Get a plumber to look and tell you if they can be seperated. It is probably not worth it.
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Nathan GesnerBusiness Member
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Real Estate Broker · Cody, WY · Member since 2010 · 28k+ posts · 41k+ votes
6y
It's a pretty big expense for a very small benefit.
What's your current water charge? $60? Simply split the average bill in half, add it to their rent, and call it a day. There's no sense in spending thousands of dollars for something so easy to handle.
The DIY Landlord Book4.7243 Reviews
Website View Page
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RJ Dixon
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Rental Property Investor · Sarasota, FL · Member since 2018 · 112 posts · 23 votes
6y
@Stephen J Davis
Yes we redid the plumbing and added a water heater. It’s a up and down duplex. We are able to add the sub meter no problem. I was looking how to bill or if a company can do it.
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RJ Dixon
OP
Rental Property Investor · Sarasota, FL · Member since 2018 · 112 posts · 23 votes
6y
@Nathan G.
Yes we wouldn’t add a new water main. We changed out the plumbing to pvc. It’s easy to add a sub meter. I’m not sure if it is worth it and figuring out how to bill.
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Erik W.
Real Estate Investor · Springfield, MO · Member since 2017 · 1k+ posts · 2k+ votes
6y
We sub-metered a duplex that had one line from the street for about $600 with a professional plumber who pulled permits, etc. It's only about a 2 hour job, and the meters them selves were about $150 each. They show gallons used on dial like an odometer, so we just read the meter and calclate the percentage of total usage by each side, then back bill the tenants for the water bill we get.
Example: 12,000 gallons. Utility bill: $100. Side A uses 8000 (67%) gallons, Side B uses 4000 (33%) gallons.  I send a bill for $67 to Side A and $33 to Side B.
The trick can be when one side goes vacant. What I found out is there is a "Base charge" just for being hooked up to the city water/sewer, and you get charged that even if you don't use 1 gallon of water the whole month. So the "fair" way to do it when someone doesn't live there is only bill them for half of the base charge + the rest of the usage charge. The other trick is you have to go read the meter each month. Boo hiss.  So we started doing monthly estimates, then "true up" every three months with a legit read. It's usually about $45 per side, so at most the quarterly bill is either up or down only a few bucks. If we see one month with a significant usage increase, we'll go read the meters and true up right away.  Chances are there is a leak somewhere, usually a toilet flapper.
The thing that made this a no-brainer for us was several times tenants failed to report leaky toilets, and since we had no way to PROVE it was their leaky toilet that caused the entire high usage we ended up eating the bill. The first time you get a $600 water bill for 50,000 gallons down the drain, sub-meters will seem cheap by comparison. The second time you get that bill you just get upset with yourself for not sub-metering the first time.  Ask me how I know! ;-)
Since sub-metering about 6 years ago, I have NEVER had a leaky toilet go unreported. I didn't lower rents either: just started billing tenants. The payback period was about 18 months.
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Patricia Steiner
Real Estate Broker · Hyde Park Tampa, FL · Member since 2019 · 2k+ posts · 3k+ votes
6y
Oh, please do it. For those not in Florida, water is expensive here. And, tenants who don't pay the bill AMAZINGLY have lots of friends who do laundry at their place. We've installed the sub-meters and even had a tenant at one property volunteer to report the meter results every month for billing purposes. There are also remote read systems that are accurate and inexpensive. There are a couple of ways of finding contractors in your market: 1) through an affiliate membership listing with your local realtor association, 2) through a plumber referral, 3) through the city utilities, 4) home inspectors (they see these on a regular basis).
Again, it's so worth it.
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Kenneth GarrettPro Member
Investor · Florida Panhandle/Illinois · Member since 2016 · 4k+ posts · 3k+ votes
6y
@Erik W.
Can you tell me what brand meters you had installed. I have a couple of 2 units buildings and a four unit I’m thinking of going this route.
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