Splitting utilities in a duplex

[David Nelsen]

We are about to close on a duplex that has separate electric but only one furnace, AC and hot water heater. Anyone have ideas on how to best split the utilities or bill back to the renters?

Currently there is only one thermostat at the lower unit so I can see them cranking up the heat and then the renter upstairs is roasting so they open all the windows (duplex is in Wisconsin, so cold winters)

We looked into electronic dampers with a second thermostat upstairs, but still have concerns about how to best / fairly split the bill. (The AC is on the downstairs unit electric bill).

Thanks!

[John Morris]

This is tough. Generally in a duplex you need a thermostat and an AC for each unit, unless there is a way for them to control the temperature another way. The hot water heater is easy to maybe split the payments equally, as in many cases it makes a small difference of the usage on the bill.  

for the AC, one easy option is to put adjustable vents in the units and move the thermostat out of one of the units and make it set to some permanent temperature (e.g. 72 degrees) which you can control. This can be accomplished with a Nest thermostat or putting a locked cover over it.  This way each unit can open and close the vents when the temperature must be adjusted.  There are some smart vents on the market you can get and give control to the tenants: 
https://www.postscapes.com/wireless-vent-keen/

Hope this helps