Interestingly,  have noticed that I have to teach most tenants in lower rent homes how to use the thermostat and what to expect from the unit.

House only has one hvac and one thermostat upstairs . ( I did hear the fruitful investor on BP YouTube say in some of his he leaves it with one HVAC) but how does that work?

If not separate for electric also contact Xcel for electric costsHave a boiler company inspect boiler before you buy.. make sure it's running and all radiator are functioning properly. or baseboard what ever type it has.From the costs you should be able to gather the average for utility costs,, if it were me I'd average it out and check what is expected for utility cost increases,, google that.. and you'll have what you need to be able to add the costs to the rent base..Not such a bad thing ,, we operated a 6 plex , a 5 plex and all utilizes were included in rent.. we kept boiler at set temp all winter, had boiler guy set up a thermostat we controlled.. in boiler room only we had access to.Just realize all HUGE buildings like 12 units to 100 units rarely have separate meters for anything,, owners pay heat, water and electric.. so it can be done.. 

I would get a nest or smart thermostat you can control remotely so people don't leave it off and freeze the pipes or on blast and run up your bill

The battery died on the Thermostat.

We are also in the process of installing a number of smarthome devices - thermostats, locks, water sensors etc- which allows both our property manager and me to monitor/control away from the home. 

Do you have thermostats in each unit? 

This is especially true in the spring and fall- this is tenant logic when they are not footing the bill.I include gas for heat with a Chicago controls thermostat (adjustable hi of 71 with auto set backs) but tenants are responsible for the central A/C.

I was with the tech during the repair; noted their thermostat was set at 80 degrees (and this isn't a programmable one).   

Then I could take control of the boiler thermostats in each unit and they could use their unit to heat their apartment.