Water Usage - Waste

The problem is that our condo complex comprising 15 buildings and each building(upstairs and a downstairs) has about 12 condo units... Most of the units are owned of course but rented out. There are NO meters for each unit and the owners/renters are not charged separately for water usage. As a result, there is , oft times, minimal attention to water usage, and or waste which is the resultant....The need to conserve water has been mentioned time and again in the newsletter but units(condo units) continue to have overflowing toiletsand a general disregard for water conservation.

What do other complexes do in order to get the need for conservation into the heads of not only the renters but the owners? They have the idea that water is free so use it, waste it, does not matter.

Alex,

A similar issue was raised here not too long ago and my advice to you would be the same:

First, find out if your water company will even allow individual meters. If I ran the company I would rather have one meter to read instead of 180.

Next, find out what the minimum monthly charge will be. Multiply that times 180 units and compare that to your current total water bill. Despite the water wasters, your total bill now might be less than it would be with individual meters. At this stage, you also should research just how much water the average unit in your complex is using and compare it to individually metered units elsewhere. (My home with two occupants uses an average of just over 100 gallons per day; we have a dishwasher and a washing machine but we do not water our lawn or wash the cars. I would think that would be similar to what a condo would use.) Keep in mind that if your goal is water conservation that minimum billing may do nothing to assist you with that goal. The average owner may find he may use far more water than he does now and still be within the minimum charge.

If you can have individual meters and it will save owners money, find out what it will cost to have all those meters installed. Labor, materials, permits, inspections, etc.

After you have all that information you will be in a position to present your plan to the board, including how you intend to finance it. That's where the fun will really begin as you may find yourself trying to sell the board and the owners on a plan to spend several thousand dollars per unit to save $3.00 a month on their water bills.

One final thought: if your association has a swimming pool and/or a landscape sprinkler system, you would be wise to meter those. Swimming pools can easily develop leaks that pump hundreds of gallons of water into the ground without the owner knowing a thing. Sprinkler systems use tons of water and there is no reason for the association to try to encourage water conservation indoors while wasting it outdoors.

Erich,

You start out by saying no water meters but then suggest adding water meters. However, you recommend that the Association incur the maintenance, reading and billing expense for those meters.

I think it would be cheaper in the long run to simply have the water company do what they do rather than incur an additional burden on the Association.

TimB4
What I meant above was
Just like the original poster, my condominium complex does not have water meters for individual condos.
I didn't "recommend". I said it was "another option" and I asked if anyone had any experience good or bad with implementing that idea. My association is already billing each homeowner the average of the water bill. The only change would the billing amount that would more accurately reflect each condo's water use. Even if the HOA didn't bill based on individual water usage, the meters would be a good tool for diagnosing where the water is going and where there might be a leak, avoiding extensive damage.
OK.
It was mean of this website software to name me EricH8. Don't be H8'in'. Peace out.

>I remember seeing some water meter that could radio transmit the water usage to a more convenient location.

Just so you know...there are some crazies out there who are convinced that these wireless meters give them headaches, or cancer, or such...and they help the guvvamint track, I don't know, how many showers they take...

The water utilities have enough trouble with these people. I don't think a mere HOA wants to go there.

(just in case you think I'm kidding about this

www.twincities.com/washingtoncounty/ci_24527252/stillwater-yields-complaints-over-wireless-water-meters)

We had this done. However, we are separate single family patio homes with a few "attached" homes that shared a wall in the middle. The cost was 20K for the City Water department to install the water meters. That meant a special assessment of $350 EACH owner had to pay up BEFORE the job could be done. So you have to first have a special assessment. That process is in your documents.

Because the water is a PUBLIC utility, we had to change our roads over to the CITY. They were no longer PRIVATE roads. This way the utility had a right to come in to fix their side of things which was from the road to the meter. The meter to the house was the owner's responsibility to fix/maintain.

We had to rewrite our CC&R's to reflect our streets being PUBLIC and that EACH owner had their own water meter. The conditions of the HOA had changed and thus the paperwork had to reflect that. That alone was 3 years and over $2.5 K in lawyer/filing fees. Your HOA will have to modify it's documents as part of the changes too.

In the end it was worth it. Our HOA no longer was forced into "surprise" repair bills of thousands of dollars when a line broke. We also had control of our own water and the HOA could no longer shut us down for non-payment of assessments. My bill averaged over $30 a month. The HOA did reduce our dues to reflect the no longer needing to support water. However, it went down by $25. So can't say it saved me any real money since the cost of water was a bit more than that. It just allowed a bit more freedom and responsibility on my part as an owner.

It is best to start with talking to your water department to see if your idea is even feasible and what it will cost. Plus will they need to have to change the roads to public? Lots of questions to ask.

My father used to work for a large well-known corporation. One of their criteria when making changes to existing facilities was how long it would take to pay for itself. Two years or less had the green light; longer periods required more deliberation.

Simple and free.

Check the water meter at 2 or 3am when everyone is asleep. If it's spinning like mad, you have lots of leaky toilets or leaks elsewhere.

If there's a way to do it, Alex, Larry's idea sound pretty good. Your HOA can hire a handyman to inspect all of the units for the items that Larry noted. He could repair the running toilets, most leaky faucets, etc. at no cost to the unit owners. You might have to bell owners for larger problems an hire plumbers.

The issue is, can your HOA get access to the Units?? Our experience has been that if you offer owners free toilet flapper replacement & leaky faucets fixes, owners are happy to let the HOA come into their units.

If yours is like ours, Alex, our sewer bill is based on our water usage so water waste increases the bills of both. (We cannot convert to separate meters in our twin high rises.)

We too have a HUGE water usage problem. Half of our 2014 budget increase will be because of water usage.

When i was elected to the BOD as a director at large I started tracking water usage per meter. Each meter at our association is for a quadplex.

I tracked this in Excel that also noted the other addresses of the building to be able to send letters to them.

Each month when I got my copy of the bills paid I would enter in Excel the water usage and figure the average usage. I then used conditional formatting to highlight those above the average. We did this for several months to set a trend of who was way above on usage. This last month the average usage was $89.72. Every unit of a quad that was over $120.00 got a letter in the mail telling them to check for leaks, drips, etc or they would be paying for a plumber to check.

The rest of the BOD and the PM really liked what I started doing for us. This is also great for tracking a new leak/drip. We had a quad go from $110 to $135 so we knew something was up right away

This is why your being called a spammer... Read the rules! We don't advertise stuff here.

How are people wasting significant amounts of water? They still have to pay electricity for their hot water heater to produce even warm water. Electricity and wear and tear on washers and dryers still discourages small loads that waste water.

I think some here would like to shut off water for non-payment of assessments, but we cannot.

I don't have a new question. I was responding to the above, not knowing it was an old thread that was bumped.