I own a Condominium rentals unit that is occupied by a lady and her two kids. About 4 months ago the HOA installed individual water meters for each unit. The water bill for the complex is allocated by the water consumption of each unit. My bills have been running about $70/month compared to my home bill of about $45 (with a large grass yard that is watered). The meter shows water consumption of over 11,000 gallons/ mo. I have replaced the flapper valves on the toilets to be safe. When no water is being used, there is no movement in the meter, which would rule out a slab leak. I have asked the tenant to check the dial when landscape sprinklers are on, to see if somehow the sprinkler system could be hooked to my unit. The representative of the Water Submetering System said that the meters are always accurate, and in the event of a malfunction will always read lower, never higher. Is this true, or should I insist on a new meter? Thank you in advance for any advice.

"The representative of the Water Submetering System said that the meters are always accurate, and in the event of a malfunction will always read lower, never higher. Is this true, or should I insist on a new meter?"
FALSE! My water bill jumped from 35$ to over 50$. I demanded that they change it out and my bill went back to where it used to be. You didn't say but if your tenet has daughters the usage will be higher. More showers, more washer loads, etc.

Here's a Rundown on Average Water Usage

Bath= 30-40 gals.
Shower= 5 gals. Per minute
Washer= 20-30 gals.
Toilet=1.6-3 1/2 gals per flush Lawn watering= 10 gal per minute
Good luck and let me know. Tom

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Originally Posted by speedball1

"The representative of the Water Submetering System said that the meters are always accurate, and in the event of a malfunction will always read lower, never higher. Is this true, or should I insist on a new meter?"
FALSE!! My water bill jumped from 35$ to over 50$. I demanded that they change it out and my bill went back to where it used to be. You didn't say but if your tenet has daughters the usage will be higher. More showers, more washer loads, ect.

Here's a Rundown on Average Water Usage

Bath= 30-40 gals.
Shower= 5 gals. per minute
Washer= 20-30 gals.
Toilet=1.6-3 1/2 gals per flush Lawn watering= 10 gal per minute
Good luck and let me know. Tom

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Speedball, where did you get this information. My meter is registring way above, My bill is 4,000. I need help bad. The water company said the meter can not be wrong. I need proof that it can be. Please advise me on what to do. Thank you... scharie

First, I would have somebody to take a look how the individual water meters were installed. Usually, you have to plumb condominium building the way so you can separate each unit with dedicated h/c water lines. You cannot just come back later on and install meters at each unit. If your building was not plumbed that way when originally built than you are probably getting false reading.

I agree with Milo. $4,000.00 is outrageous for a single family. Soundws like you're carrying the load for the building. Call someone in to check the installation.

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Here's a Rundown on Average Water Usage

Bath= 30-40 gals.
Shower= 5 gals. Per minute
Washer= 20-30 gals.
Toilet=1.6-3 1/2 gals per flush Lawn watering= 10 gal per minute
Good luck and let me know. Tom

Speedball, where did you get this information

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You may Google yourself if you wish. Good luck, Tom

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Originally Posted by Scharie

Speedball, where did you get this information. My meter is registring way above, My bill is 4,000. I need help bad. The water company said the meter can not be wrong. I need proof that it can be. Please advise me on what to do. Thank you........scharie

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When you said that your bill was 4,000, did you mean $4,000 or 4,000 gallons usage. If you are a fanily of one that is not too much usage but if you mean $4,000 dollars that is enough for a small laundry.

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Originally Posted by letmetellu

When you said that your bill was 4,000, did you mean $4,000 or 4,000 gallons usage. If you are a fanily of one that is not too much useage but if you mean $4,000 dollars that is enough for a small laundry.

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No the bill is 4000, and my house is a duplex and was build to be one. Everything is separate. They said the meter can not be wrong. I need something that can prove it wrong. Im on my way to a town meeting. Starts at 6pm. 15minutes from now. So thank you for all your help. And if you do run across something that says these meters can run ahead please send it to me at [email protected].

I work for a contractor who does work for the water company in my town, including replacing meters and have something that may or may not help. We have actually seen leaks between the meter and the property that were too slow to show any movement in the meter unless you watched for quite a while. Added up over a month, though, it shows up. How long are you watching the meter? Is it inside the building or in a meter well in the yard?

Hey Scharie,
Not sure how things are in Florida, but over $1300 a month for water?? WOW!! I know where I am in Missouri our water meters actually measure cubic feet of water, not gallons. So using the fact that 1 cubic foot of water equals 7.50 gallons, you can do something simple like getting 15 5 gallon buckets (75 gallons) and filling them all the way up. Then see if your meter says you used 10 cubic feet of water (75 divided by 7.5). Not extremely accurate, but if you are as far off as you think you are, it should definitely give you an idea. I have a family of four (wife's the only girl) and last month we used 8250 gallons of water for a bill of $43.22. Can't imagine being in your shoes. Best of luck to you.

I live in a condominium too and for 2 and half years our water bill was higher than expected sometimes nearly $100 a month. We tried to save on water usage as much as we could but it didn't help. So finally, we decided to run a basic check by turning off the water supply lever next to the water meter to see if it was running water to our own unit. Guess what??

Yup, you guessed it right. It did not shut off our water but one of your neighbors sent an email to our groupmailing saying there is no water in his unit. It's a mess all right. So what do we do next? It's still in process. Very yucky though, I think the condo developers should pay for all the excess we've been paying. What do you think?

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we decided to run a basic check by turning off the water supply lever next to the water meter to see if it was running water to our own unit. Guess what?? Yup, you guessed it right. It did not shut off our water but one of your neighbors sent an email to our groupmailing saying there is no water in his unit.

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So did you shut off your neighbors water supply lever to see what it shuts off?
You either shut off the wrong meter or your complex has a major problem.
You may run into an problem with the contractor since the usual warranty covers the first year. But if you get your neighbors together and convince a judge this has been a problem from day one the contractor can be ordered to bring the building up to code. It's assumed that when you're assigned a water meter that water will supply your uni from that metert. That's a given! The contractor should be liable to bring your building into compliance. Good luck and keep me in the loop on this. Regards, Tom

If the meters are centrally located, they may have been marked with the wrong unit #.

Need someone to check every meter to see what it supplies and mark correctly.

Chuck

Well it was not as simple as I was paying his and he was paying mine. A was paying B's. B was paying C's and C was paying A's.
This was obviously an issue from day one since that's how they sold it to us. The water meter in our basement turns off someone else's water. I'm not sure how it's going to work out in case of having an urgent need to turn off water supply to one's unit. It's going to be iffy trying to settle the bills among us three. Will keep you updated on how this thing turns out.

The water meters are 99.9% of time not the problem.

Just a thought: It is very possible that you are in different water district that charges different rates. Comparing your won house water bill to condo water bill may also not be accurate since condo may be considered commercial property, therefore be billed at different rates.

I also own a rental condo and I have my own house few miles away. You are correct: the bills for condo are much higher than for my house. Why? I never really thought about it. Now I will pay closer attention to it.