Hang on. I mean something has got to be wrong. 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. Rich: Like over here, there is a common area submeter on Scotts slide here. We dont have it. 
Yeah, Im pretty quick with the math, right? One bright point is that the Massachusetts legal regulations also apply to wastewater or sewer service charges. The meters read like a car odometer. 
Rich: Yeah. You cannot start a new lease and have them sign. If thats your setup, make sure to place it in adequate lighting for camera visibility, or install a timed lamp, too. Were doing a good job here. Before I went and got into investing, I talked to a bunch of people on that property and one consistent theme that came up after lead paint was water usage. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. 
I've heard something about a kind of counter that we might install on each line ourselves. It was $1,750. We have to locate that in the basement because thats where shutoff. With that, were probably going to have some questions at the end. I am a licensed plumber in Los Angeles. In most states, the way you're doing it is illegal. And by doing so, you might just avoid a nightmare scenario down the road. You go under the sink, you turn the shut valve off, you put this on after the shutoff. Its tightly regulated, and once you have done those things, you have to have a licensed plumber file some paperwork with the city that says, Not only is the meter to-code, but all the devices in the unit are water conserving.. Its $40 each. Other thing and you definitely cant just create a new lease with an existing tenant. Seems like it would save you a whole lot of headaches and add to resale a bit. It just helps out with service. You wouldnt even have to put the low-flow fixtures in the apartments. So well just go through the table of contents who pays for the water, when can a tenant be billed, when cant they, the public housing tenants have to pay for water, can landlords shut off the water. This is where the submetering will come in useful. I guess that was my idea. Where did you guys look into to buy your submeters? 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. Otherwise you also have to get a separate meter for the yard too. I can tell you thats high. Grumble grumble). charging for water cannot be imposed on an existing tenant mid-lease or otherwise, and a tenant may not be forcefully removed from a rental for the purpose of beginning water billing on a new tenant). Then there are plumbers fees, which, depending on the configuration of your rental property could run into the multi-thousands to run new plumbing to each unit. If theres ever a plumbing leak, the law says you have to rebate them for that. The Mass Submetering Law is tricky. It's a mother in one side and a son in the other. MassLandlords in November made available to members a customizable rent invoice including a section for water billing for submetered units. Scott: as long as youre not charging the tenants. I bought a duplex and the person before me has them split the cost 50/50. Now he had a well before, so he didnt care how much water was being used. Im guessing no one hasnt actually drive this yet. Utility submetering has been around since the 1920s but was not widespread until the energy crisis in the mid-1970s, which prompted an increase in submetering for gas and electric usage. Scott: Yeah. Its a website. 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. For $100, if you want to have that outside water, at least you could measure the usage, and if you werent, you know your tenants are, so --. She owns several buildings and she had a $1,700 water bill for a quarter. which can help a landlord are welcomed. If you see it go to zero, you know the meter has been tampered with or broken. But the bottom line is you have to have low flow devices. For such scenarios, water submetering is not an easy call even if you include a few surprise thousand-dollar water bills here and there. Why would we have to run new lines? Rich: They cannot. It gives you that early clue to water abuse. Now I am from ohio and water is cheap so i don't worry about it. 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! 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. you can add a sub meter and check it yourself. Smart meters that are able to send usage data to your phone or other Wi-Fi device can be a big time saver. Consider, for example, the typical three-decker, ubiquitous throughout Worcester and Suffolk Counties. Anyone recollect what Im looking for? Male Audience 1: $180 a quarter per unit. Well I guess it's not too much for a duplex if you have washer and dryer in both units. (See related, Water Submetering: Requirements and Step-by-Step Instructions, for specifics.). Now Im going to stand by here afterwards and give you a lot of examples how to save water, okay, through your tenants. You can also continue to pay, and adjust rental rates accordingly to cover average use from a year/12. 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. I want to talk to you, too, because I replaced 19 toilets last year, but I still like my water bill to go down. Doug: Here is what we understand. 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. The law is pretty specific about it. Not only have you wasted the water, but youre paying for it to go down the drain. Theres a lot to it. News, ideas, blog posts, websites, resources, etc. Thats a lot of laundry. 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 talk to me after, you got it. For landlords only interested in monitoring and potentially reducing water usagewithout directly charging renters for waterthere is nothing in the state law that restricts installation of water submeters at any time. So if you had a certified, inspected, and installed renovation of bathroom, kitchen since 1994, youre probably already in compliance. Im going to come up front. Peter: [unintelligible 0:11:38] they want. You cannot shut off the water utility if they do not pay, so really you cannot enforce this in any other way other than taking them to court if that came up. 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. 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. Now her normal water usage was only $300 to $400, so she called me in. He called me up and we had to find out where all those water was going. I just wanted to see how much I was using. 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. Rich: I hear that rates are going up in a lot of towns. One of the biggest things that we noticed is everybody does it here. [0:10:00]. What happened was the town made him do that. One, you can put a valve out in the front of the meter, one after it. Now all the buildings that have been remodeled within the last 15 years is required if there was a permit pulled for it, requires a shutoff for each individual floor. When doing so, youll need to consider measurement units. Tenants are also more likely to report leaks under those circumstancesthus avoiding nightmare scenarios. Thanks. Scott: Yeah, so right here. There are a bunch of them, here is a random one I found: I work for a water utility. Scott: It depends on the meter that you buy. 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. Okay, very few takers, yes. Each time I re-rented a unit, I made the tenant pay me for their water and sewer costs. Rich: I know you can buy the submeters on Amazon. 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! Your toilets are going to have to flush less than a certain amount per flush. Manks, I am all for tenants paying their own way. It says water utility submetering, and it has a bunch of bullet points. Press J to jump to the feed. You cant just if you have an existing tenant, you cant just start doing it. Scott: You just Google submeter, youll see a whole bunch of stuff out there. 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. Now two segments in a row, weve gone overtime, so I apologize for that. Expensive utilities like electric and gas. How many people have heard about this before? Who in here has a triple-decker? 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. In comparison with most other states, the Massachusetts law (see M.G.L. What happens with that is thats where you put the submeters in right before the valve [unintelligible 0:16:42]. 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. 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. Male Audience 1: I usually see about $60 per month per unit water use. 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. Rental agreements are month to month. Even considering a base rent reduction of $50 to make the pill less bitter. So Scott has done this. So as we move on, lets give everybody a hand who helped us with the water submetering [applause]. I swear I read something on here once about their being a cheaper way, and using some kind of splitter?? 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.
Water submetering is the practice of installing water usage meters inline or at point-of-use for each rental in a multi-unit building behind the citys (or water companys) main water meter. One building I converted to a condo's and had separate meters read and billed by the city utility. George, Scott put up a really nice diagram of how the metering is set up. I know youve worked on a lot on triple-deckers, right? 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. I think it needs a cellphone line. For instance, I have a complex in Worcester that has 50 units. All right, so Scott, this is something that youve done and youve implemented. A variety of water submeters are available, including wireless devices that can deliver data online. Female Audience 2: [unintelligible 0:11:36] the water? Thats what you would have a common submeter. 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. 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.
For tenants part, too, some appreciate the transparency of seeing a monthly bill and paying for their water usage directly. That's until they found out I still rent out the condo's and own 100%. The plumber thats here could tell you this, look at the situation to see if its going to be feasible because depending on how things are run, it could be more feasible than it might not be feasible. I learned about this law that passed in Massachusetts. 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. 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. Member dues support this mission. Monthly updates, smart and relevant articles, and free premium content. Im not a professional. Rich: Would you mind just kind of reading the bullet points on that? c. 186, 22) is a relatively stringent set of regulations. These are installed at the shutoffs with compression fittings and/or threads. You would know which floor was using what, come to find out the third floor tenant was doing laundry for her sister, her brother, and a nephew. You can also read it on the day a new tenant moves in to generate the last bill upon move out. 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 Legislature Needs to Hear from You: OpposeLocal Control of Housing Policy, Search Eviction Records by Address (Beta), Statewide Rental Real Estate Networking and Training. You would have to track the usage on the sub meters and bill accordingly. Its a measure --, Scott: Thats what it is currently. Anyway, so if could be done, you might decide to spend some money to do it. Its easy. Im not a lawyer. Private sub meter seems to be the most common way they do it around here. I mean heres a slide here that just says, I called a plumber friend of mine and I said if you got all old fixtures, and you needed to redo, theres problems with you may not be able to do it. Wow! Female Audience 1: Thats the house I live in and nobody is ever home. Rich: So were going to get into a little bit about the logistics of how this is done in different-sized buildings. I guess they already thought of that, so you cant do that.
They have to be accurately measured, and there are certain things about the tenancies. Rich: All right. 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. Might be okay if the mother/son are fine with it, but in most places you can't charge units separately unless you can measure their use separately. Its all explained in this booklet, okay? Jim has a lot to contribute to this, so Im going to pass this along to him for a minute. To view all of this presentation, you must be logged-in and a member in good standing. Better Communities. I'm in the same boat myself. Ill also --. It prints out the PDF file and I email that to my tenants and I include in their next round of payment. I think well be ahead. Its a long payback, right, to do water submetering? Does this sound right? Submeters are great for keeping track of what your tenants are using and Im going to give you an example. No public housing at all. If the pipes to the apartments are already separated, and you have the access you claim, it is relatively cheap to meter. For me it was worth it because it raises the level of awareness.. Rich: Thats a really important point in general that Scott is making is theres what you can do legally and what you cant do legally. 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. 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. Finally, the tight Massachusetts state law only applies to landlords who want to charge their tenants directly for their water usage. Rich: [unintelligible 0:10:28].
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. Male Audience 2: Is that in the last slide? Male Audience 5: And that actually its the first step I would think. I go by the area and I see them washing their car. do you know? My tenants average 80 or so for a 1600 sqft sfh. There is no shortage of anecdotes among landlords about surprise multi-thousand dollar water bills and sudden exorbitant increases in usage. So you can see the apartment 1, 2, 3, and the common area. Thats the biggest cause with submetering just locate in making sure we have three separate cold lines going to each apartment, okay? 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. So if you decide you want to try to submeter, you may have to -- if youre not good enough with like looking at a plumbing in the basement and figuring stuff out, you might have to have a plumber. Low-flow showerhead max 2.5 gpm (gallons per minute), Low-flow faucets max 2.2 gpm (gallons per minute), Ultra-low-flush toilet max 1.6 gpf (gallons per flush), Must be in compliance with the standards of accuracy and testing referenced in subsection (b), Submetered units must be in compliance with the board of health. So you pay your water utility and you collect it from the tenants? Please let me know because Id like to know what this costs. Hes a plumber. Male Audience 3: Present tenant is because youd be changing their rent. 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. I think it needs a cellphone line. Male Audience 1: [unintelligible 0:10:11] property. It'll probably be easier for us to just adjust rents if the data indicates that costs are going up for the the building. Scott: I have this on some slides. Thats for your steel cocks. Rich: So $20 per person? Male Audience 5: Better than just charging [crosstalk 0:14:28] people. As the rates go up and stuff, it will change, but thats what it is now. The only good hands off way is to get another meter installed. You have a tenant, you cannot do that because youre changing their money. Learn to use the monthly rent invoice/water bill form. We started replacing toilets because he had a lot of old toilets. If you call TrueSubmeter.co, youll find out its not an advertisement. Thats how they send you your water bill.
Discuss options for retrofitting as cost effectively as possible (see above). I don't know much about the law. Is that 2k a write off? Cost is also determined by the technology included with the meter. I dont need to [unintelligible 0:11:55]. Thats why the law is the way it is because you would be charging them for the water and youre charging them for the rent, so what youve done is youve illegally increased. So if i wanted to at any point i could have it done fairly easy. Did it work for you according to this payback schedule? 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). Identify and curtail waste by submetering with pro tips from others who have done this before. Assuming its not set up that way, then what? Under qualified tenancies on there, its like the third section down, it says, Upon the commencement of a new tenancy in such dwelling unit and only if one the dwelling unit is being occupied for the first time. Thats really your safest bet is when you have somebody moving into the building for the first time.