George: Well, thats one you have to locate where the main line comes off of and goes up to the first floor, the second floor, and the third floor. Not only have you wasted the water, but youre paying for it to go down the drain. Its $40 each. This has never been a problem because the city utilities bill has never gone above $250/mo so I just wrap it into their rents, but last year new meters were put in and it appeared as though their water usage skyrocketed (funny, this happened everywhere in my town, and the citys response is well it looks like youre using more water! 
It tells you when you can submeter, when you cant submeter, and all that stuff. 
According to National Exemption Service (NES), a national submetering contractor, installing water submeters typically results in a reduction in water use of between 15 and 30 percent. Rich: So were going to get into a little bit about the logistics of how this is done in different-sized buildings. In my case, were renovating, taking out all the old plumbing, so its easy. For tenants part, too, some appreciate the transparency of seeing a monthly bill and paying for their water usage directly. Its a measure --, Scott: Thats what it is currently. Damn 350 is a lot for water dang. For Paul-Emile and othersparticularly landlords starting fresh leases in new rentalsthe payoff from installing water submeters is worth the costs in materials, time, labor and legal compliance. Monthly updates, smart and relevant articles, and free premium content. 
Each meter is about $100, and a plumber could install one in about 45 minutes. It's not that easy to separate units because they share common vertical risers and some horizontal runs. Well, you know its probably a good idea to try to pick people who are going to pay stuff anyway. By the time you spend up to $12,000 to submeter a triple-decker, with a typical water bill running about $350 per quarter, your payback for all submetering costs could take more than eight years.
you can add a sub meter and check it yourself. Rich: I hear that rates are going up in a lot of towns. I own a duplex and rent out both sides, but there is only one water meter. Scott: Yeah, so right here. Contact the city to get the form they want you to complete (usually a state form but may have been modified). What happens with that is thats where you put the submeters in right before the valve [unintelligible 0:16:42]. Modify your rental agreement to contain a submetering clause and a space to write the meter reading into it at lease start. Rich: [unintelligible 0:10:28]. Anything thats got downstairs, it needs a faucet hooked up to it. You have to have the first floor, second floor, third floor and the common area. Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. Basically, one of the keys that you have to have low -- in 1994, I think the plumbing code required certain flow per minute for showerheads, faucets, toilets gallons per flush, low flow stuff. Male Audience 1: I usually see about $60 per month per unit water use. Now, for the --, George: Just keep an eye for them on who is using the most. Cheaper nicer safer happier brighter more private, where people want it. In this all-too-common scenario, the water bill arrives and for some reason, without warning, you owe thousands of dollars. These are installed at the shutoffs with compression fittings and/or threads. The transparency, for them and their tenants, of knowing exactly how much water is being used per unit, promotes a better, more trustful tenant-landlord relationship while helping to reduce water waste. The cities dont want to bill renters for whatever reason, so youre going to have to pay all the water bills, and then youre going to bill the renters for their portion.
Rich: Yeah. Youre still going to have to float that bill to your municipality. [0:15:07].
My tenants seem to like that concept. Is this what people have experienced from submetering whole buildings? I can tell you thats high. Then read the meters once a month and send them a bill. Instead of raising rents this year, we had the idea of installing separate water meters (or usage counters) and recouping some of our rising costs that way. (o) Landlord must rebate tenant if there is a plumbing leak. One of the biggest things that we noticed is everybody does it here. One thing I have noticed is that it takes lots to time to read meters and to bill tenants and to keep track of who paid.
I bought a duplex and the person before me has them split the cost 50/50. I've heard something about a kind of counter that we might install on each line ourselves.
Cost is also determined by the technology included with the meter. There is no shortage of anecdotes among landlords about surprise multi-thousand dollar water bills and sudden exorbitant increases in usage. Rich: Like over here, there is a common area submeter on Scotts slide here. First, theres the purchase of submeter devices. Our general consensus, I think is if you do have the walls opened, you should do it if no other reason that you get a slow payback for which you avoid that disastrous scenario where someone is running a laundry or theyre running the water bills up. George: Well, Im always against putting steel cocks on the outside of the house for tenants because you drive by your property -- and I have one property. MassLandlords in November made available to members a customizable rent invoice including a section for water billing for submetered units. Press J to jump to the feed. Thats how they send you your water bill. So if you had a certified, inspected, and installed renovation of bathroom, kitchen since 1994, youre probably already in compliance. Scott: Hi, everybody. I mean it depends on who you are.
Smart meters that are able to send usage data to your phone or other Wi-Fi device can be a big time saver. Our water metering just started and we are supposed to have 12-18 months of data before we actually have to pay the new rates. Seems like it would save you a whole lot of headaches and add to resale a bit. I guess they already thought of that, so you cant do that. Theres a variability, obviously but $60 a month. Other thing and you definitely cant just create a new lease with an existing tenant. Assuming its not set up that way, then what? You can see its described in these pamphlets, so I can talk about gallons per minute, but youre not going to remember it anyway, so theres no point. There is a range of reading options, from manual on-site readings to smart meters with wireless capability that can send online readings, provide analytics and optimization. Starting now, youre new tenant. You would have to track the usage on the sub meters and bill accordingly. Female Audience 1: Thats the house I live in and nobody is ever home. Rich: Would you mind just kind of reading the bullet points on that? Now he switched over from a well to city water when Wal-Mart went in there. Thats a lot of laundry. We currently pay over $1,000 a year per apartment in one building! Female Audience 2: [unintelligible 0:11:36] the water? It will eventually pay for itself, I'm waiting until I move out of the one side so then water bills can go directly to each tenant. I think it needs a cellphone line. Its a long payback, right, to do water submetering? Rich: It has the name of the law at the top. You can also continue to pay, and adjust rental rates accordingly to cover average use from a year/12. Peter: Whats the logic behind the fact that a tenant cannot waive that and allow it to happen while theyre in there? Doug: Okay. Jim has a lot to contribute to this, so Im going to pass this along to him for a minute. Learn to use the monthly rent invoice/water bill form. In my case, I bought my buildings free of tenants. Thats for your steel cocks. Male Audience 1: $180 a quarter per unit. So now, basically every quarter the city reads the city meter and I read my four meters and my four meters basically equal what the city is billing me, and then I bill my tenants for their usage. Theres things in the law and like I said, I dont want to go into too much of that because Im not an expert on it. To view all of this presentation, you must be logged-in and a member in good standing. The Mass Submetering Law is tricky. So if sewer is billed as a percentage of submetered water, the cost of sewer can also be sub-billed to renters. If the pipes to the apartments are already separated, and you have the access you claim, it is relatively cheap to meter. Better Communities. do you know? You could just install the submetering equipment so that you could measure the usage per unit to help you manage the situation better. Scott: You know one point I could make and somebody correct me if Im wrong about this, but theres the revenue generation part of this and then theres the control part of this, right? The meters read like a car odometer. If you had older fixtures, then probably youre not in compliance and that would mean in order to do the submetering, you have to change out your toilets, faucets, and showerheads. You wouldnt even have to put the low-flow fixtures in the apartments. It just helps out with service. Yeah, $8,000. Spencer is worse than Worcester with the water rates they have today. He was talking about 60 gallons per day. Do you have that sheet? Consider, for example, the typical three-decker, ubiquitous throughout Worcester and Suffolk Counties. Log in or get access for as little as $3. Indicate that you know and are prepared to pay for the cost (because most plumbers will think you're crazy). Incorporate the municipal submetering form in the agreement. Ill also --. Scott: Yes, exactly, and one thing Ive recently come across is that if you do feel that the tenants arent going to be happy, theyre not going to accept this, an option is to say, Okay, forget about the -- Lets say you come into a situation with an empty building and you have submeters. Where did you guys look into to buy your submeters? I mean something has got to be wrong. Has anybody opened up the walls specifically to do water submetering? All right, so Scott, this is something that youve done and youve implemented. Manks, I am all for tenants paying their own way. Rental agreements are month to month. Rich: Yeah, you might have a plumbing leak somewhere. Is that 2k a write off? With that, were probably going to have some questions at the end. Now assuming that you go into a house where you dont have four supply lines or really eight because you need four cold and four hot, right? Thanks. My tenants average 80 or so for a 1600 sqft sfh. Its worth reading.
Now, sure the renters can tamper it and take it out, but if they don't know that its there or theyre not malicious, youre going to get a signal from this battery. The good news for landlords who would like to submeter but dont have the time or inclination for setting it up is that there are numerous outsourcing options in todays marketcontractors that specialize in submetering and can take care of every aspect of the job, from installation to reading and billing. If you want to go and spend the money to install the meters so that you can personally know where the usage is, I don't think the law prevents that. The new tenant was not relocated involuntarily from another dwelling unit in the same building or the same complex. You cant move somebody from the third floor down to the second floor, call it a new tenancy, and start billing them. If theres ever a plumbing leak, the law says you have to rebate them for that. Anything else and you'll have to do the "billing" for water usage to your tenant directly. It going to connect to a point in your basement; youre going to have to plug it into common landlord meter and its going to dial up like on the Verizon, give you some information. In order to bill accurately by the month, you will need to calculate the equivalent usages between these different measuring units and bill accordingly. Would you like to be notified via email when somebody replies to this thread? Anything above that, youll be billed for, right? So you can do it different ways but you have to have the equipment in there, and you have to follow the law if youre actually going to bill them. I have two buildings in Worcester I bought that had quite a bit of deferred maintenance, and I decided I wanted to do kitchen and bath renovations. So if i wanted to at any point i could have it done fairly easy. She owns several buildings and she had a $1,700 water bill for a quarter. One building I converted to a condo's and had separate meters read and billed by the city utility. You cannot start a new lease and have them sign. Basically, this is where Ive learned all the things that I needed to do for --. For me it was worth it because it raises the level of awareness.. Scott: What I wanted to say was the thing about this, the way I talk to my tenants about this is I explain to them that its to their benefit because youre living in a building with a whole bunch of other people. Peter: Say somebody is already there and they think its a great idea but according to the law, it has to be a new person. If so, you must include your valid email address here. All right, thats good news. It's a mother in one side and a son in the other. You cant just if you have an existing tenant, you cant just start doing it. George: Yeah, so theres a lot of ways to save money. No public housing at all. Be nice to Scott. Scott: Yeah. I think well be ahead. Any insights/tips on how to do this tactfully? Rich: Can you actually just buzz through it real quick. Male Audience 4: As long as youre not charging them. If you want to talk to me after, you got it. Its a website. When a tenant didn't pay for their water, I could not shut off the water, but instead had to evict. While installing water submeters can potentially save landlords thousands of dollars, it does require an upfront investment that can be substantial. You have a tenant, you cannot do that because youre changing their money. I swear I read something on here once about their being a cheaper way, and using some kind of splitter?? [0:19:50]. We could not find no leaks. Rich: They cannot. Once tenants know they will potentially have to pay for the water, they become more cautious not to waste it, said Harry Paul-Emile, a landlord in Framingham who installed water submeters for his rentals about 10 years ago when he noticed his water bill continually increasing without knowing why. the new tenant was NOT relocated involuntarily from another dwelling unit in the same building or building complex; Tenant has signed a written rental with the details of the water submetering and billing arrangement between the landlord and the tenant, billed according to subsection (f). Thanks, Sewer cost is usually dependent upon the amount of water used so it should be easy to figure out.Keep in mind in order to separate out the water you will probably need to run new cold water lines, The water lines to each apartment are easily accessible from the basement parking area. Better Lives. If youre consider what I consider a normal water user, you should be able to use 50 gallons a day per person. Scott: as long as youre not charging the tenants. Its a PDF file and it tells you all the things that are on this handout and more, so it talks about the whole water law, what tenants rights are, what landlords have to do. Its an Excel sheet that calculates the -- I have to check you have to check to make sure that you know what their water rates for Worcester because they just raised them recently, and water and sewer rates. [0:10:00]. Rich: So there are a lot of ways to save money on your water bill. Cold water is usually supplied to each unit via one vertical supply line. One, you can put a valve out in the front of the meter, one after it. Theres a lot to it. If you are looking at three people in the house, $60 a month, $180 a quarter; thats what youre talking about. Now Im going to stand by here afterwards and give you a lot of examples how to save water, okay, through your tenants. Thats your first cost. Hes a plumber. Im including that level of usage in your rent.
Jim has started the process and we have a plumber here, so were just going to kind of turn this into absolute chaos and just start asking everybody questions, okay? If you see it go to zero, you know the meter has been tampered with or broken. Male Audience 2: Is that in the last slide? Water submetering began its increase nationally in the mid-1990s when water and wastewater prices started rising. Now her normal water usage was only $300 to $400, so she called me in. You just adjust that on a spreadsheet. It prints out the PDF file and I email that to my tenants and I include in their next round of payment. Please let me know because Id like to know what this costs. But the bottom line is you have to have low flow devices.
Rich: But youre allowed to change the rent, so if you want to charge more money, maybe rent is the easier way to go. Male Audience 5: Better than just charging [crosstalk 0:14:28] people. (l) A landlord may not shut off or refuse water service to a tenant on the basis that the tenant has not paid a separately assessed submetered water usage charge. Roughly what youll find is on average, Massachusetts has a target that they want to drive everybody towards, which is per person in a household is 65 gallons per day average usage, so thats high. Theyre all new lines run up, one main line to each unit, so it was really easy right in the basement to install submeters oops! Landlords may only charge tenants for water used by them and in their units exclusively; no charge may be levied for water usages in common areas shared by more than one tenant. You provide access for the renter to inspect the submeter. Who stands in, turns their tub on, and waits for the water to warm up? Tenants are more likely to self-monitor and reduce water usage when they know their landlord will see it, and certainly if they are paying for it themselves. The only good hands off way is to get another meter installed. Okay. Better Policy. Male Audience 2: I don't know how long this takes up.
You go under the sink, you turn the shut valve off, you put this on after the shutoff. A lot of water is being wasted from tenants using and waiting for that water to get to the third floor and at that point in time, you as a landlord is saving money because youre not standing there waiting for the hot water to come. Once a quarter at the first of November or the first of February, I go out and I read the meters, write them down, record them in my meter reading sheet, and then I have an invoice form that I fill in. In most states, the way you're doing it is illegal. So you pay your water utility and you collect it from the tenants? Rich: Actually were out of them. of course this all depends on how the pluming inside is set up. Male Audience 5: And that actually its the first step I would think. It gives you that early clue to water abuse. Doug: Sixty dollars a month, yes. I learned about this law that passed in Massachusetts. You have to have water-conserving devices. Anyway, now the average monthly bill is $350 so I raised their rents accordingly, but I just got notice that the waste collection bill is set to go up significantly in a few months. So as we move on, lets give everybody a hand who helped us with the water submetering [applause]. If youre interested to learn more, search online for Chapter 186 Section 22, which authorizes the submetering in a lot of detailed language and the State Sanitary Code as a few paragraphs of additional information. Water is submetered for the premises under the renters exclusive control; Water conservation devices are on all showers, faucets, and toilets; Water submetering has been agreed to in writing; You have filed with the local municipality, under pains and penalties of perjury, that youre in compliance, and this has been attested to by a licensed plumber; You provide a copy of the submetering filing to the occupants, AND. Male Audience 1: [unintelligible 0:10:11] property. Scott: Surcharges include, how does it work, blah, blah, blah. Also, one side of the duplex uses far more water than the other (as evidenced by the condition of the yards and the existence of raised garden beds). All right, look theres a website, TrueSubmeter.com, which is the first search results, so I think it gets some traffic, but I didnt give me a quote in time for tonight. Submeters must be installed behind, and be subordinate to, a main meter monitored by the water provider. If you had installed water submeters you would quickly be able to check the meters and determine which unit used all that water, then take action. My time is valuable so for water I have figured it doesn't pay. News, ideas, blog posts, websites, resources, etc. Jim: [unintelligible 0:08:00] The main idea here is like everything with Massachusetts law, its heavily in favor of the tenant, so they have dotted every I, crossed every T to make sure that the landlord is not taking advantage of the tenant. You can also read it on the day a new tenant moves in to generate the last bill upon move out. Slides are available only for members in good standing who are logged in. Can sewage charges be legally added too? Were doing a good job here. As soon as it leaves the tap, its wasted water. It doesn't quite cover the amount but offsets my costs with minimal head ache. which can help a landlord are welcomed. I know there will be initial expenses for this, but we figure it would pay off in the long run. Each time I re-rented a unit, I made the tenant pay me for their water and sewer costs. Pretty clear where each one goes. After the city meter is your main line and the trick is it depends on how your plumbing is. Please elaborate.
Im paying for that water. Its easy. It cant be without cause. Quality submeters such as those made by Neptune, a popular brand, which are made of brass and contain intricate mechanical workings, can run north of $200 each. Weve actually asked the judge about this and they enforce this stuff if it ever comes up. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. You have to have it a lease. Grumble grumble). If they want to wash a pair of socks and a whole load of laundry and run the dishwasher for a couple of forks, thats up to them but they can pay for it. If you want to get fancy, they have meters that email you water usage every month automatically. Its a 25-page booklet that you can find on Google. Expensive utilities like electric and gas. The Legislature Needs to Hear from You: OpposeLocal Control of Housing Policy, Search Eviction Records by Address (Beta), Statewide Rental Real Estate Networking and Training. We accept posts from tenants looking for a landlord's perspective but please remember that the answer you get may sway in that direction. Discuss options for retrofitting as cost effectively as possible (see above). I'm in the same boat myself.
If you see it go up high, you know you got a problem right away. It says water utility submetering, and it has a bunch of bullet points. Rich: How about you, Jim, when you were doing research for this? In my duplex they set it up right where the line breaks into two few feet away once it enters the building. I may look into a separate water meter when the mother/son changes but until then it's 50/50. I disconnect and I put locks on them. Anyway, so if could be done, you might decide to spend some money to do it.
Massachusetts landlords must meet several criteria in order to charge tenants for submetered water usage, including: hiring a licensed plumber to install meters; including the intention of charging tenants for water in the rental lease; using or installing low-flow faucets and showerheads in bathrooms, faucets in kitchens and low-flush toilets; and, importantly, only starting with a new tenant (i.e. Female Audience 1: I just got my water bill yesterday for this quarter. Member dues support this mission. As our landlord panel, can you guys hang around for a couple of minute afterwards because I know there are people who have questions for you? Rich: All right, so were making use out of these people from New Jersey tonight [laughter]. I mean you can figure out $100, you can get a submeter. Finally, you must have approval from the local Board of Health for the install. Im not a plumber, but I read about it and found out that you can install your own meters to each individual unit in your building and measure the water usage, and so, thats what I did. Anyway, the city has told me that the only way to know which side uses how much is to install a new water meter to the tune of $2k. But yeah, Id like to take questions during the --. If youre a conscientious person and youre not wasting water, then youre only going to pay for what you use and the other tenants are going to pay for what they use. The previous tenant, if the law actually cares about how that unit came to be available for rent, so you cant just toss out your current people who you cant charge for the water and replace them with new people that you can charge for the water. Scott: It depends on the meter that you buy. That means physically checking each meter youve installed once a month, or at least installing a camera pointed at the meter for remote readings. For instance, I have a complex in Worcester that has 50 units. Thats the bulleting that we wanted to share and we will try to get a licensed plumber to talk about this at length in the future. I am a licensed plumber in Los Angeles. The largest non-profit for owners and managers of Massachusetts residential real estate. You could say that, Okay, look this is what Massachusetts is targeting per usage. So apartment 1 has a meter on it and then its line goes every water device from there, your water heater, your furnace, kitchen bathroom, everything in that apartment goes through that meter. Without submeters monitoring each of your renters water usage, you have no idea which tenant is running up the bill, or even if its a collective problem among more than a single renter. Now two segments in a row, weve gone overtime, so I apologize for that. Upon the commencement of a new tenancy in such dwelling unit and only if: the dwelling unit is being occupied for the first time; or, the previous tenant was NOT evicted without cause. I dont need to [unintelligible 0:11:55]. Thats what you would have a common submeter. They have to be installed by a licensed plumber. If thats your setup, make sure to place it in adequate lighting for camera visibility, or install a timed lamp, too. Okay, very few takers, yes.
Same thing for apartment 2, same thing for apartment 3, and then the outside faucets and any common area water goes through a separate meter. Im going to come up front. I was around when they first started that and thats the reason they put the law in. Private sub meter seems to be the most common way they do it around here. When I re-piped one of my buildings I ran separate sub-meters to each unit. Scott: Its very cool. I didnt have to go through any of that stuff. Thats the biggest cause with submetering just locate in making sure we have three separate cold lines going to each apartment, okay? Doug: Here is what we understand. Tenants are also more likely to report leaks under those circumstancesthus avoiding nightmare scenarios. Okay, thats a lot of the room, okay so that means that if the other half of the room has buildings of other sizes as well. You have to have submeters that are certified for use in Massachusetts.
Beyond the finances, landlords also must consider the added time they will now have to allow for taking readings. That becomes wasted water. In my particular case, my tenants dont have an issue with it. Massachusetts landlords must submit a completed form to the local health department in order to install submeters for the purpose of charging tenants for water usage and/or sewer service. Im not a lawyer. I see some hands going up. I know we still have questions about this. Do you have to have a common area submeter?
Rich: In addition to that, you have the handout with the summary of the --, Rich: Legal requirements for this? I just found this main slide here, you can kind of see the general concept that your main water supply comes into your house typically in your basement and then with the city has a meter and they can elect most of the times I think electronically read the meter.
Rich: I know you can buy the submeters on Amazon. It has become standard practice to install submeters for many newly constructed multi-unit buildings. We started replacing toilets because he had a lot of old toilets. For some landlords in Massachusetts, water submetering might seem like a logical solutionespecially those who have suffered through or heard about nightmare tenants who run up massive water bills or ignore major leaks.
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