And you’re sure that the HOA isn’t just using it as an excuse to get extra cash? It’s an EU law to have individual metering, and it should in reality save everyone money (after the initial install costs). Unless you’re consuming more than anyone else, IDM should only save you money and is better for the environment by giving more incentive to be efficient.
I assume you already have electricity individually metered, right? Why should water be any different, if it’s so expensive? I can’t think of any reason why your bill would now be significantly more expensive, unless you yourself are a high-user, or your HOA is ripping you off.
In a lot of cities it is a rule, but only at a municipal level. Some states might have rules, but it’s by no means universal. At the time the average water bill for a family for 3 was $80 per month. It’s entirely possible that your water bill could on an individual level be lower, but it’s nearly negligible, especially after you add the third party sub-metering service that runs that program.
In all reality $185 a month was a good rate because it included all outdoor maintenance (grounds, swimming pool, parking lot, roofs, siding, etc) and when you take into account that $60-80 of it was likely for water services it made sense. In general when you share costs across a group the overall cost is lower then when handled individually.
Also, in most US municipalities the bulk of your bill will be fixed rate costs such as metering and availability fees. Depending on your municipality it could be anywhere from 25-75% of your actual bill. I just went and looked up this city’s current rate and for 0-4 CCF (Centi Cubic Feet, 748 gallons, or 2300 liters) it’s $2.78 per CCF, for 5-10 CCF it’s $9.26, and for >10 CCF it’s $12.34. The fixed rate for a 2 inch meter is $12 and the service charge for a 2 inch line is $40. So the city sets a master meter which generates these rates, if you then add a private sub-metering service you then have to install meters and now you get 10 extra service fees and 10 extra meter fees per building. Cutting out the middle man cuts down costs.
In my discussion earlier I was only talking about the usage fees because the fixed prices are fixed and relatively small in comparison to the elevated usage fees. Back calculating from this math the average 10 unit building would have been using ~53 CCF per month but this building was using 207 CCF. If we then know how much the average building is using (53 CCF/10 units) then we can deduce that this individual unit was using ~154 CCF per month on its own.
As to your second question, water is typically handled by the local municipality where as electricity is handled by a large state mandated and regulated monopoly. How your water is metered has no guarantee for how your electricity will be metered.
And you’re sure that the HOA isn’t just using it as an excuse to get extra cash? It’s an EU law to have individual metering, and it should in reality save everyone money (after the initial install costs). Unless you’re consuming more than anyone else, IDM should only save you money and is better for the environment by giving more incentive to be efficient.
I assume you already have electricity individually metered, right? Why should water be any different, if it’s so expensive? I can’t think of any reason why your bill would now be significantly more expensive, unless you yourself are a high-user, or your HOA is ripping you off.
In a lot of cities it is a rule, but only at a municipal level. Some states might have rules, but it’s by no means universal. At the time the average water bill for a family for 3 was $80 per month. It’s entirely possible that your water bill could on an individual level be lower, but it’s nearly negligible, especially after you add the third party sub-metering service that runs that program.
In all reality $185 a month was a good rate because it included all outdoor maintenance (grounds, swimming pool, parking lot, roofs, siding, etc) and when you take into account that $60-80 of it was likely for water services it made sense. In general when you share costs across a group the overall cost is lower then when handled individually.
Also, in most US municipalities the bulk of your bill will be fixed rate costs such as metering and availability fees. Depending on your municipality it could be anywhere from 25-75% of your actual bill. I just went and looked up this city’s current rate and for 0-4 CCF (Centi Cubic Feet, 748 gallons, or 2300 liters) it’s $2.78 per CCF, for 5-10 CCF it’s $9.26, and for >10 CCF it’s $12.34. The fixed rate for a 2 inch meter is $12 and the service charge for a 2 inch line is $40. So the city sets a master meter which generates these rates, if you then add a private sub-metering service you then have to install meters and now you get 10 extra service fees and 10 extra meter fees per building. Cutting out the middle man cuts down costs.
In my discussion earlier I was only talking about the usage fees because the fixed prices are fixed and relatively small in comparison to the elevated usage fees. Back calculating from this math the average 10 unit building would have been using ~53 CCF per month but this building was using 207 CCF. If we then know how much the average building is using (53 CCF/10 units) then we can deduce that this individual unit was using ~154 CCF per month on its own.
As to your second question, water is typically handled by the local municipality where as electricity is handled by a large state mandated and regulated monopoly. How your water is metered has no guarantee for how your electricity will be metered.